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Table of Contents

1. Editor's Musings
2. Article: a Disaster Recovery Specialist June Campbell
3. Recommended
4. Internet Sites Reviewed
5. Freebies and Other Good Deals
6. Joke of the Week

1. Editor's Musings

Hello, everyone. This ezine's a day late - a major deadline got in the way. My apologies.

And, a belated Valentine's Day greeting to all you romantics out there.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, but geesh, folks, if this applies to you, start taking responsibility for yourself. The rest of us are weary of wasting so many resources fighting off malware. Okay, rant over.

2. Article: a Disaster Recovery Specialist By June Campbell

What would happen to your data if:

1. you backed your SUV over your laptop?
2. your laptop spent two days in a sunken cruise ship submerged at the bottom of the Amazon River?
3. firefighters rescued your computer's scarred carcass from a flaming warehouse?

Data recovery specialists restored the lost data in all of the above situations. Fire, flood, and road rage is all in a day's work for these knights of the byte.

Michael Peltier is the Senior Data Recovery Engineer for Data Recovery and Reconstruction in Tucson, Arizona. He has stories to tell and suggestions to offer.

About a Drive Unit

But first, some background. Drive units contain read/write heads that transmit data to recording platters. The head flies above the platter, separated by a painfully thin cushion of air.

Measured in microns, the thickness of a human fingerprint is many times higher than the head's flying height. If the head makes direct contact with the recording platter, particles are knocked off the head and the platter and are caught in the air cushion where they grind off the platter's recording media. The drive can corrupt in as little as fifteen minutes or it could take several days.

Peltier reminisced about the customer who applied "a few drops of oil" inside the drive enclosure because the motor wasn't turning. The enclosure was saturated with oil and the oil prevented the head from flying. The recording surface was ground clean. "A few drops! He should have added a dipstick!" Peltier said.

Then there was the time he discovered a family of ants had taken up residence in a drive enclosure.

Causes of Damage

However, obsolescence is the typical culprit. All drives will fail eventually, but a mixed bag of conditions causes premature drive failures -- heat, water, impact, power interruptions, viruses or environmental contaminants.

While fire can cause heat damage, overheated equipment is the most likely cause. If the ambient (i.e. room) temperature becomes too high, changes in air pressure will reduce the air cushion's thickness. The read/write head contacts the recording platter and corruption occurs.

Physical shocks or high vibration levels cause similar damage.

Environmental contamination usually occurs if the seal that goes around the drive is damaged. (Not all drives have these seals). With the seal damaged, particles in the air or cigarette smoke can find their way between the head and the platter where they will grind away the recording media.

Water damage occurs because contaminants in water are corrosive to the metals found inside the drive, causing microscopic pitting.

Power interruption also causes damage. Sudden power failure or lightning strike can cause the drive to lose RPMs (revolutions per minute). This causes air pressure to drop, which in turn reduces the head's flying height.

Prevention

Peltier suggests the following practices will increase your chances of data recovery:

1. Backup, and store your backup data off site.
2. Do not apply power to a damaged drive. Power diminishes the ability to recover data.
3. Power down immediately if your drive emits grinding, scraping or clicking sounds. Continuing to write to the media will increase the amount of corruption and will destroy clues or "Rosetta stones" that data recovery specialists use to restore your data.
4. Utilities such as Scandisk and Norton Disk Doctor are useful for repairing minor problems, but if used for a serious problem, they decrease the likelihood that a recovery specialist can restore the data. Peltier explained that these utilities sometimes interpret the drive geometry incorrectly. "Then, it uses what it thinks is available drive space for scratchpad operations, and can end up overwriting actual data that is located there. This makes quite a mess."
   
   Say "No" if Scandisk or another utility asks you if you want it to attempt to repair damage. Windows users can discover the extent of the damage by going to the command prompt and running checkdisk WITHOUT the /f switch. "If there are 4-5 errors, roll the dice and let Scandisk fix it. If there are hundreds or thousands, contact a data recovery professional. "

Large files are more at risk of corruption than smaller files. If possible, separate your work into smaller files.

5. Never open the drive enclosure. One speck of dust can destroy hundreds of sectors, and just loosening the screws can put the drive out of alignment so the circuit board no longer recognizes it.

Data Recovery

File recovery cannot be guaranteed, but if conditions are right, much can be accomplished. Peltier once recovered 7566141f lost data from a reformatted hard drive. Deleted files or formatted drives leave "shadows" of data behind, and disaster recovery specialists can sometimes retrieve this data.

If you ever need a data recovery specialist, Peltier suggests that you look for a company or individual with experience, ask for references, find out the pricing policy in advance, and look for a "no data, no charge" policy. "If somebody is charging a diagnostic fee, there is a possibility that they will tell you that they are your best shot in getting the data recovered just to get the diagnostic fee. Without a diagnostic fee, you know they are working in your best interests."

And oh yes, did we mention do a backup?

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3.Product Recommendation: *** The Market Research Wizard ***

This is for all you folks who have given yourself a major headache trying to figure out whether your idea will sell on the web. You've spent hours or days studying WordTracker and Overture, trying to analyze the demand vs. the competition and other bothersome bits of data. And even after getting eyestrain from staring at the figures, you're still not sure if you're on the right track.

The Market Research Wizard is your answer. It's a brand new tool from Chris Malta, the guy who brought us the Drop Ship Source Directory. Anyone who knows Malta's reputation expects a top-notch product and the Wizard doesn't disappoint.

More About the Market Research Wizard

Reprinted with permission from Malta's newsletter:

"The Market Research Wizard does in minutes what it used to take hours, or even days, to do.

It's a computer program in which you can type a couple of words describing the product you want to sell, and less than a minute later, gives you an actual Analysis (from 0to 100) of that product's chances of success on the Internet.

It connects to the Internet and automatically collects all the information (that Malta had talked about in his newsletter), usually in less than a minute. Demand, Competition, Advertising, and General Interest. Then, it uses our own unique formula (the one that I said we use ourselves, to make sense of all that data) and generates an instant Analysis.

That's not all, either. It not only tells you how much Demand there is for the product you want to sell; it tells you what key words you should use to market that product if you decide to do so.

It not only tells you how much Competition you have; it tells you where your Competition is, so you can decide if the product is better marketed in an Internet Store, or an Auction.

It not only tells you who your competing Advertisers are, it gives you clickable links to their ads, so you can study and out-Advertise the other guys.

It also allows you to export all your instantly generated research information to any Spreadsheet program, print your research, recall all your past research on any product, and more.

All in just minutes."

More About the Market Research Wizard

4. Internet Sites -- reviewed by June Campbell

*** Newseum
An Interactive museum of news. See front pages from newspapers around the world, and more.

*** TiVo Community
Read about this thriving community of TiVo hackers

*** Press Display
Read the contents of your favorite newspaper online.

*** Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo
Find out the dates and locations for 2004.

5. Freebies and Good Deals

a. Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby's Free Ezine "Tip of the Day" get a Free Ad for their Business on his Web Page? Subscribe at: adv-marketing.com/business/subscribe2.htm Great Business and Computer Tips Monday thru Friday Instructions to place your ad are in the Newsletter.

b. Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., helps midlife professionals navigate business and career challenges. No-Cost Report: How Smart People Derail During Transitions. www.cathygoodwin.com/subscribe.html

c.The World's Largest Online Golf Magazine Needs Publishers Now. With 25 Golfer's Dream Magazine editions, we are the world's largest online golf magazine network specializing in golf, golf travel, golf equipment and other general interest golf-related content. Now in its 14th year, Golfer's Dream Magazine also offers several unique Turnkey Business opportunities. Click here for more information. www.golfersdream.com

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6. Joke: How to Tell the Gender of Flies

A woman walked in the kitchen to find her husband swatting flies.

"I've got two males and three females," he remarked.

Intrigued, the woman asked him how he could tell the difference.

"Easy," replied the husband. "Two were on a beer can and three were on the phone."

To subscribe to this newsletter, visit this link.

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