Clean the Hard Drive with SecureClean

The Latest from the Lab

By Keith Shaw
Network World Fusion
Aug 4, 2003

Summertime is pretty busy around the Cool Tools Testing Zone - there doesn't seem to be a letup in the number of different products we're playing with. Here's the latest:

Clean the Hard Drive with SecureClean

I've always thought that as a somewhat-knowledgeable computer user, I could just delete my Web surfing activity via the tools given to me through Microsoft's Internet Explorer to clean the hard drive.

Selecting Internet Options from the Tools menu item lets you do things such as delete cookies, delete cache and clear out the history. Three clicks and you'd think all your Web activity (including credit card numbers and passwords) would be eliminated.

If you thought that was how you clean the hard drive, you'd be wrong.

I found out how wrong when I installed SecureClean from WhiteCanyon Software. The software includes a scanner program that searches your hard drive for data you thought you had deleted. The SecureClean application then can clean the hard drive by deleting the data from your system permanently.

Having thought I had scrubbed my disk through the methods described above, I was shocked to see how much Web surfing activity and data was still on the computer. I still needed to clean the hard drive.

If you have a computer you are donating to someone, or if you just want to clean the hard drive to keep your data and Web surfing history to remain private, take a look at SecureClean.

A free demonstration version is available; the full version costs $39.95. Go see how to clean the hard drive at the WhiteCanyon Web site for details.

For 'Trek' and PowerPoint fans

I'm not sure whether those two groups can co-exist, but on the off chance you're a Star Trek fan and a big PowerPoint user, you'll definitely want to get the IOGear Phaser Mouse. It looks like a science-fiction ray gun with a trackball on the top for your thumb, three buttons (left, middle and right) surrounding the trackball, and a trigger that acts like the left mouse button.

The Phaser uses a radio frequency signal (27.045 MHz) to connect to its base station (IOGear says it has a 50-foot range), which connects to a computer via USB. Once the Phaser is associated with the base station, the trackball acts like the mouse for any purpose.

The main purpose of the device will be to run PowerPoint slide shows, as the trigger button acts like the forward button when you're in slide-show mode. In addition, the middle button below the trackball activates the laser pointer. Remember kids, don't shine the laser at someone's eyes.

Anyway, the Phaser works best for PowerPoint - for regular mousing I found the trackball uncomfortable, but it's possible that's because of my smaller hands. The Phaser costs about $50 and can be found at the IOGear Web site.

Finding Wi-Fi

From the "so simple it hurts" category comes the Kensington WiFi Finder, a $30 device that can attach to your key chain. With the press of a button, the device blinks and lets you know whether you are inside a location that has a Wi-Fi connection. Green means good, blinking red means nothing or still scanning.

The device won't indicate what the Service Set Identifier of the wireless network is - but it will give relative signal strength. In addition, this method of looking for a hot spot is much easier than booting up a laptop, or even a PDA, to see if Wi-Fi exists. It is slightly larger than a credit card). It is small enough, however, to fit inside a laptop bag and won't weigh you down one bit.

The WiFi Finder can detect 802.11b and 802.11g signals (in the 2.4-GHz range) - you're out of luck if you're looking for 802.11a. But because most hot spots are using 802.11b, this shouldn't be a problem. The Kensington Web site has more details.

Keith Shaw is Network World's reviews editor.