The Red Ferret Journal

I recently sold my digital camera online, and because I was including the memory card, I wanted to be sure that there was no recoverable data on it. A quick search turned up Eraser, a free, multi talented hard drive eraser program. Eraser works by overwriting the disk with various flavours of data-destroying mayhem that prevents retrieval using undelete software or forensic analysis software.

After installation, Eraser gives you a bunch of options, including a scheduler which lets you setup a collection of hard drives or folders to wipe, letting them run overnight. I just used the right-click option allowing me to delete drives via My Computer. Any drive you can mount with Windows can be seen by Eraser; memory cards, flash drives, external hard drives and internal drives.

Probably the most useful (and unintuitive) bit of Eraser is that it allows you to partially delete disks. So as well as being able to delete an entire drive, you can also delete just the empty part of a disk or just a specific folder. If you’ve still got photos on your memory card, but you want to remove anything else that may be lurking, Eraser will only write over the unused portion. It does this by default, so if you want to erase an entire disk, you’ll need to delete/format it first, then sick Eraser on to it to finish it off.

There are 5 options for overwriting, from the exhaustive Gutmann process which overwrites the disc 35 times with a special pattern that resists almost all types of recovery, to the much quicker method of overwriting once with pseudo random data.

To test the effectiveness of Eraser I first tried Recuva on the camera-formatted memory card in deep scan mode, and sure enough, it found hundreds of “deleted” pictures. So I set Eraser to wipe the card using the DOD method of overwriting 3 times. It took about 12 minutes to do a 4GB SDHC card that was plugged in via a USB SD card adapter. I then scanned the Erasered card with Recuva and it couldn’t find anything to recover. Sure, this wasn’t an exhaustive test, it was good enough for me and probably more than most people do when they sell equipment with memory cards.

[Click to enlarge]

Eraser is currently up to version 5.8 and it’s source code has been released under the GNU General Public License so you can be pretty sure it’s safe. Version 6 is around the corner and has major improvements so keep an eye out. Eraser runs with Windows 9x/2k/XP/Vista/Server 2003/Server 2008. There’s also a portable version of Eraser that can be run from USB flash drives. A very useful little application.

Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

Tags: gadget, freeware, data+removal, eraser, hard+drive+eraser, eraser+review

The 3M Ergonomic Mouse is in no way new, but I use one everyday and I’m often asked about it, so you’re getting a review. Most people’s first impression (including mine) of this mouse is that it’s a joystick-type mouse, but it’s not. The upright handle is completely rigid, you slide the whole mouse around on the table the way you use an ordinary mouse. The mouse comes in two sizes depending on the length of your hand but it only comes in right-handed versions. So if you’re a dedicated leftie you’ll have to make like the Borg and adapt, or keep searching.

It’s an optical mouse so it’s maintenance-free, as much as any optical mouse is, and it has left/right click buttons and a scroller button. The button under the thumb is a dual-action rocker button, press it downwards for left click, up for right. The large button under the ring and pinky (fifth) finger is the scroller. You hold it down and move the mouse back-or-forwards, or left-and-right to scroll. The scroller is annoyingly inconsistent. It scrolls fine in most webpages but not Google Reader or Flash websites. It can be hit-and miss in other software as well. Microsoft Office programs and Adobe Reader work fine, however Windows Explorer, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign don’t work. I’ve long since given up trying to use it and instead use a Griffin PowerMate with my left hand for scrolling.

The ergonomic bit of the mouse helps you by preventing pronation (twisting) of the wrist and forearm and it’s quite comfortable as your wrist and arm stay in the relaxed/neutral “hand shake” position. You don’t need to push the upright to move the mouse, you can just rest the edge of your hand on it and slide it around. The other caveat to using the 3M mouse is that you lose the very fine control of the mouse cursor. When you hold a mouse with your hand, you will switch to moving it with your fingertips if you’re doing delicate work, i.e. drawing or selecting. You can’t do this easily with the 3M Mouse as your forearm is off the desk and all the movement comes from your elbow, a joint not known for it’s fine adjustments. Still you can get by, I can Photoshop with it in a pinch. The other thing is the mouse-upright is quite high and as I lift my arm over the mouse to use the keyboard, I frequently catch the top of it and knock the mouse over. But I am clumsy.

Surprises
Very comfortable and relaxing mouse to use
Scroller is very intuitive and works well when it works – see next

No Prizes
Scroller doesn’t work with all software or websites.
Fine control is achievable but tricky

Conclusion
The 3M Ergo is an extremely quirky mouse and there are quite a few tradeoffs to using one, however if you’ve got issues with your elbow or wrist, it may be just what the physiotherapist ordered. If you don’t need the therapeutic benefits, I wouldn’t touch this mouse with a pole. You can buy one for US$59.95 for the wired version or US$72.50 for the wireless and it works with PCs or Macs.

This mouse is clinically proven to alleviate pain and discomfort of repetitive stress injuries in the hand, wrist or arm associated with the use of traditional mice – which requires forearm pronation and may cause pressure on the wrist and carpal tunnel area.

Tags: gadget, usb, 3m+ergonomic+mouse, 3m+renaissance+ergonomic+mouse, ergonomic+mouse, review

I’ve been playing around with Yebol, a newish, and still beta search engine, and to my surprise I’ve found that I like it. Yebol is one of these semantic search engines, in that it combines results found using computer algorithms with results found by people to give you a great mix of search results.

Yebol takes the opposite approach to the now-mainstream way of searching. It’s the same way that Google was a much-improved version of the old cluttered way of searching using AltaVista/Yahoo!, where you had to fight to find the search box amid the tonnes of ads and news feeds. The Yebol home page is still clean and clutter-free, but the results page is organised very differently, with hits from multiple places and many suggestions for refining your search, or for expanding the scope of your search.

Yebol presents results in various categories including expanded searches, top sites for links for your search, Twitter tweets and other related topics. There’s also the familiar list of primary results in the big window front-and-centre. The results are all presented in frames, and you can view more results in each frame using the arrows at the bottom without losing your original page which I think is a very, very neat idea. All these different choices can make staying on topic a little bit harder if you’re surfing for general information. If, however, you want to see how your search subject is linked to other ideas and meanings, Yebol is fantastic.

For example, the obligatory search on the Red Ferret finds links to the site, things we’ve blogged, links from other sites to our stories and people re-tweeting Ferret articles. If you Google or Bing the Ferret, you would have to sort through buckets of sites that have red ferret in the name. Whilst that kind of search is useful sometime, it’s not the be-all and end-all of searching.

Yebol isn’t for everyone, if you know what you want, The Big Three will be there to help in milliseconds. Searching with Yebol is different though, it’s like taking a drive down a quiet meandering backroad, stopping at little tea houses and buying postcards along the way, while searching with Google/Bing/Yahoo! is like an 8 lane freeway straight to the beach, simple, boring. Give it a try, you may just find something you missed.

… however, if they don’t make a Firefox add-on for the search bar soon, I may stop using it very, very quickly.

Yebol utilizes a combination of patented algorithms paired with human knowledge to build a Web directory for each query and each user. Instead of the common “listing” of Web search queries, Yebol automatically clusters and categorizes search terms, Web sites, pages and contents.

Tags: search+engine, yebol, semantic+search, google+alternative

I was pretty fascinated when I first saw the Orbita Mouse a couple of months ago. I’m a fan of unusual mice, and the Orbita seemed to combine an ordinary computer mouse with the simplicity of a Griffin PowerMate so I had to have a look at one.

Note: Apparently it looks like some kind of old, unpopular Apple Mouse? Well forget all about that, the Orbita is nothing like it, it says so here.

Continue reading…

Dudes sent me a Mophie Juice Pack Air rechargeable battery pack case for the iPhone for testing, and I’ve got to say it’s a cool bit of kit. Installing the thing is a cinch, just plonk the iPhone into the bottom slice, and clip on the top bit and your done, 10 seconds (well 20 if you’re fiddling around trying to get the handset latched into the socket).

Once on, the first thing you notice is the fact that your iPhone has grown, but surprisingly, not as much as you’d expect. I see why they call it the world’s thinnest iPhone battery case. The Mophie people have done a remarkable job of cramming a 1200mAh battery into a shape which doesn’t really make your svelte handset a clunker. Yes it’s bigger, and it will take a bit of getting used to, but the benefit of the improved battery life more than outweighs the chunkier form factor. Especially if you’re an  iPhone power user. And hey, it’s a protective case too. Bargain.

The device is also very clever functionally. There’s a pass through USB charge port, so you can charge and sync the phone in situ, and the on/off switch is a master stroke, as it means you can regulate when you use the extra power, instead of just having the iPhone suck juice from it permanently.

The blue LED status indicators are also a nice touch, to let you know how much charge you have left. All in all it’s a well thought out product and if you’re one of those who rely on your iPhone to keep your business running on the move, then this is probably a must have product. The fact that it extends your iPhone’s work time x 2 really takes the pressure off conserving battery life (you know the feeling, a hurried browse over WiFi rather than a relaxed languid session using 3G). At $79.95 it’s probably one of the best investments you’ll make for your phone, and it’s compatible with the new iPhone model too. Click on thumbnails for larger image.

We featured Acoustibuds on the Ferret a few weeks back, and the PR company offered to send me a set to try out properly. To refresh your memory, they are adapters which you slide over your existing earphone ends to improve the sound and comfort. So, do they work?

Well let’s put it this way, if you’ve been fretting about the random sound quality, uncomfortable fit and constant adjustment needed with your current set of earphones, run…don’t walk…to your nearest supplier and buy a set of these beauties. Fitting is a matter of seconds (although you’ll have to play around with the angle to suit your own ear canals) and once on, these things completely transform the listening experience.

For one thing, you can turn down the volume. I had to literally halve the volume on my player because the sound was so good, and the joy of not having to constantly battle to keep the things sitting in your ears. Oh and the comfort too, is way way better. It’s a miracle people, really. They come in two sizes, which means you can happily share the 2^nd set with your large eared cousin. Wonderful, simple and awesome. You can find them at Amazon for $14.99 (tsk, they’ve gone up two bucks) in black or white. Am I raving too much?

We got sent a sparkly new Asus EeePC 1000HE mini notebook computer to play with the other day and we’re very impressed in many ways and extremely disappointed in one. First the good news – this is the first laptop computer we’ve tried which actually delivers on the promise of a decent battery life without resorting to huge clunky add-on packs. When they say all day computing in the blurb, they mean it.

Continue reading…

The folks at One-For-All sent me a new Xsight Touch universal remote control to look at, and it’s pretty impressive. Sleek, black, shiny. And that’s just the power plug. The rest isn’t too shabby either. I’ve tried a range of these universal remotes from various manufacturers over time and all of them have failed to deliver at some point or another, but it looks as though this Touch model has what it takes to cope with just about every hardware configuration out there.

The company claims to have a database of 3,300 unique brands and 285,000 individual codes, and certainly set up with the device was the simplest I’ve experienced. Just point and press, select a genre and brand of product and cycle through the options. Once it’s set up, you can then start to customise the settings of your activities and favourite channels to make it easy to watch or listen to your entertainment systems with one button press.

The two main differences with this model are the touchscreen, which is nice but not earth shattering, and the slider bar for cycling through options, which is actually an excellent navigational aid. You can store up to 18 device settings on the remote, which should be enough for most people, and you can group favourite channels by user (e.g. Frank, Sheila, Little Hans). The thing is future proofed via USB connectivity to your computer, which means online updates are easy to do.

It’s not cheap at around £147.00 or so, but if you’re suffering from total remote mania, then this is one way to restore some sanity to your set up. And it works.

The Winkku is a bicycle mirror and turn indicator combination which comes with bags of good looks, a practical design and a lot of plastic bits. The company sent me one to look at and it’s certainly a very well built piece of kit. Solid and dependable you might say.

It’s powered by 3 AA batteries, and features a couple of handlebar attachment options, either a conventional into the end plug, or an over the top clamp with a Velcro strap holding it tight to the bike grip. It needs a sturdy clamp because the thing is quite weighty, this is not a flimsy bit of plastic at all.

The device bristles with bright coloured LED lamps, 5 front facing 5 rear and 3 around the side, which means the unit not only operates as a turn indicator, but also as a permanent visible beacon in red and white if you turn those lamps on. Of course that means a penalty to battery life.

The connector is supposed to be quick release, but in practice I found it quite difficult to remove the unit from the bike once attached, as it needs a strong grip to unclasp the socket gear. This could be a problem for weaker hands, especially when you realise that this is not a product you can leave attached to your bike in a big city, it’ll be stolen quicker than you can say hot wire.

That apart, this is a neat piece of technology and something that will definitely be valuable for day to day use on busy roads. The shatterproof wide angle mirror on its own is super useful for checking up on approaching buses, and with the addition of the bright lights and indicators, it’s potentially a real lifesaver. Priced at £24.39.

The new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with 3G is, on the face of it, much of a muchness as far as small computers go. It’s pretty hard to find any real differentiation between mini notebooks when all of them use the same processor, same screens and similar storage and memory specs. However the Dell stands out because of a) the name, b) the fact that it’s the one which will probably sell the most via the company’s corporate connections, c) because it has a built-in 3G mobile broadband card and finally d) because you can buy them on mobile phone style pricing (Vodafone UK, Vodafone AU). So I thought it would be interesting to take an in-depth look at one for those of you who may be considering going small-sized with your next computer purchase.

Friendly Note: This review is kinda wordy so if you’re only interested in the verdict, skip to the end.

Continue reading…

Personal experience time. I seem to remember that the PR company for this product contacted me ages ago about looking at one of these Braun Oral-B Triumph with SmartGuide electronic toothbrushes, and I kind of scoffed. The idea of a wireless brushing guide which told you how long to brush seemed to be too much of a gimmick to be true, so I passed on the opportunity with a bit of a techie sneer. Know what I mean?

Well in one of those funny twists of fate, my most excellent dentist, Greg, recommended a few weeks ago that I try one out. He is/was a Philips Sonicare user and explained that he was so impressed with the Braun results that he was thinking of changing over himself at the time, which kinda sold me.

But wow, a toothbrush for around the same price as a digital camera? Riiight. There’s a fairly extensive ‘satisfaction’ guarantee on the thing though, which helped. Anyway long story short, I took the plunge and forked out the cash for a unit, and whoa, my teeth have never been so blooming clean. Ever. I don’t know whether it’s that manic brush RPM, the timer countdown guide (funnily enough 2 minutes is not as long as you think, and it’s no hassle to even go beyond that) or the design of the brush heads, but the thing works. Superbly.

What don’t I like? Well it’s a bit of a chunky beast to thrust around in my delicate little mouth (what?) but they seem to have done the best they can to make it as unobtrusive as possible. There’s only the occasional bash again enamel as I’m manoeuvring the thing around the back of my molars. Apart from that it’s really easy to use. Press the button, hold the thing gently against the teeth and let the spinning heads whirr all the stuff away. You still need to floss to get rid of the bits buried deep in between your teeth, but the basic cleaning gets done for you extremely efficiently.

OK, so that’s probably enough about teeth for now. I’m going to keep track of the cleanliness of my teeth from now (saddo that I am), to see if the improvement is maintained over time. And also to see if it costs a fortune in replacement heads, which may be a trade-off too far. We’ll see how it goes, but for now it’s wowee, squeaky clean pegs all round. Highly recommended bit of kit.

There were a few contenders for the Imaging title this year, most notably the innovative Flip camcorder which broke the mould for affordable, good quality video recording devices, and the magnificent Canon EOS 5D Mark II which has completely destroyed the conventional separation between HD video and still image capture.

However, Samsung’s new CLX3175 All-in-One Colour Laser printer has done something that may just tip the home printing market on its head. It’s brought the capital price of colour laser printing within reach of high end inkjet printers, and by so doing, it means that people at last have a choice to make when replacing their old product. Not only that, but the company has done so with a sweet spot 16 ppm, 2400 dpi all in one product, combining scanning, fax, printing and copying in one beautiful looking package. And at a very reasonable price.

The inkjet printer market has been getting a little complacent over the past few years, relying on the fact that prices have now descended to almost throw away levels at the low end. But people are rightfully getting a little cheesed off at having to replace their junk pile of a printer every year, and the advent of colour laser products at around the £200 mark will definitely cause many people to stop and consider before they waste more money on landfill fodder.

Not only is the laser printer build quality better – the Samsung is built as though it’s designed to last, and has a duty cycle of 20,000 pages a month which offers a lot of headroom for small business and home users – but so are the running costs, with colour page printouts costing a fraction of the inkjet alternatives.

If you’re in the market for a new printer, I would suggest that you take time to look at the colour laser alternatives. They may be a little bigger and not so photo perfect as their inkjet cousins, but as all round printing machines they really have come of age.