theeprophet
Distinguished
- Apr 8, 2010
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- 18,510
I received a phone call to look at this page, because a person purchased a USB mem chip, and called me because it had something on it she couldn't under stand, she searched and eventually ended up on this page after she decided she wanted to remove it. I went over this page with her, I got a few laughs, and mainly I really want to open a few peoples eyes to reality.
USB drives are not stable, and not fully reliable, though many will work for long periods, you WILL run into corrupt data. If you use them for encrypting your passwords and storing them, and don't maintain a written or secondary copy, one day you will lose it all.
USB is in more accurate terms, SSD, meaning Solid State Drive, USB is just the connection type for that drive, and SSD handles data differently than a REAL hard drive. which has a FAR GREATER chance of recovering data with much easier methods than SSD.
Personally, I SSD from my experience, is far less secure, deleting only moves the data, it doesn't record like a true hard disk, do a little research on data recovery seminars on youtube, you will find the more involved information you need to understand why SSD is so high risk you need to avoid it use for anything you may need a password for.
Who's Angie? Your the only one on this page using that name in any sort of context. The lady who called me was stressed out trying to find this Angie persons post.
I wouldn't understand any system technician needing some program that is not legal to run on any machine he or she is working on.
I am a well known tech, I do a lot of extensive recovery work, from personal to sensitive business systems. I keep only a few things, a good large hard drive to recover data to temporarily, several cd's and dvd's that are bootable with various custom OS's, and containing the softwares I use. AND it is fully legal to run these on any number of computers I choose, because these tools have special licenses by their given nature or they would be worthless.
I despise U3, and all other similar types of programs, for their false security they promote.
One thing I see you have right, Avast is a great company, I communicate with regularly, and maintaining a FREE version for home/personal users, which I fully promote, WITH the instruction to use it free, and learn it, and after you fully understand the way the software works purchase it to get the added benefits. I prefere Avast due to the speed of updated definitions in their data base, and their promise to have those updates online within 24 hours of a discovered virus being posted on ICAR or various other places.
This is where my use of a simple USB drive comes in. I just keep a small one with simple formatting, and used as data only storage. I have several Freeware programs I will install for people and show them the basics to get them started.
I have several versions for businesses I do the same with. Still with this there is no reason for me to obtain licenses other than what I have as all the stuff on my USB memory chip is freely downloadable, with trial period options.
All of these I can easily replace, and I do retain 2 to 3 versions of everything on 1 USB chip.
So if I ran U3 it would be IN MY FACE EVERY TIME I plugged it in a computer, and I DO NOT HAVE TIME for that junk.
That is another reason, and in it's own is enough just like the false security. So each in it's own way is more than enough reason NOT to have any U3 or similar.
If your a student, and needing to do work in several special programs, and choose to use a USB chip, you DO NOT need U3 to do it. Considering the fact that the schools have labs with the software needed, you only need to edit/save your files on your chip, do not allow local saves on the computer, such when you close it asks to save changes to, or save as project, just pay attention to where you are saving, and what you are saving, don't just click and run.
I can't count weekly numbers, but daily for friends alone must be half a dozen roughly every day, I have hundreds of friends, I am very much involved in many things being a cancer survivor, biker, and retired, great grandfather, etc.
Install, use, yes, Uninstall, no, legal yes. See above.
Why would anyone need to run CCleaner AFTER cleaning up some ones computer and fixing it? I leave everyone with maintenance software I have found to be most reliable of all available, or in some rare cases, easiest to use with some level of reliability, and all is either free or with trial periods.
All the best companies offer these;
FREE for home use.
Trial for Business use.
AND the big, and most IMPORTANT feature of all;
A REMOVAL TOOL THAT WIPES IT ALL OUT. Not just a few files, like those antiviruses provided by comcast and a few others which are as bad as an infection, and many times even worse.
But I like those too, YES, they give me WORK, they promise me they will mess up one computer after another and leave me an endless line of JOB SECURITY.
Almost, but not in reality...
Ah yes, probably the most BIASED representation of U3 you can find online, "The U3 Consortium Website"......
Hmmm, well, for starters, today there are not many systems running other than NTFS, if however, that is a concern to you, try partitioning and running a FAT32 and NTSF partitions.
ALL windows OS systems contain partitioning tools, and M$ has a very extensive and well structured and easy for you to follow set of help and support files on the Technet website. If you are at this stage of need and digging this deep, you won't have any problems going there and do this yourself.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
OK, here it is.... now that I explained some facts, here is the easy way to remove U3....
1. Make your self a good bootable disk, floppy is fine, such as the Windows Start-Up Disk, I like to keep an old w98se and wme pair of disks around to teach with, they contain all the tools you will ever need for this task, mainly FDISK, and FORMAT.
2. Turn your computer off, plug in your usb chip (usb 1.0 for fat32, 2.0 for NTFS, but you will need an XP NTFS startup disk with FDISK and FORMAT on it) boot up the computer, tapping F8 untill you get the boot menu if needed to force it to boot from your startup disk you prepared.
3. After booting run the FDISK utility, and you see 4 options, you can create logical, or extended, delete, and view. You will want to view to see what partitions you do have, then run the delete options, deleting any and all logical and extended partitions on the USB chip.
4. View again to be sure there are NO partitions left on the chip.
5. Create a Logical partition only, and use the full amount of space available.
6. Format, and select your choice of full format.
7. Exit.
8. Remove the startup disk, if you wish you may remove the USB chip also, and reboot into your normal OS.
9. Plug in the USB chip or open your file viewing program and inspect your USB chip size, and format, it should be ready, and empty, you should have only seen a USB mass storage device installation occur, no CRUZER or other devices, and you should also have seen an option to pick a way to view your new device.
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All I intend to do is help people avoid the scams by the big companies who use malicious methods to deceive you into using their malwares and keep paying into their system to monopolize YOU. It will stop you from learning, and advancing, you will become dependent on them for everything, their apps, if you call them by that CLICHE, and you will be their enslaved prisoner.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I run about every OS you can imagine, and I have servers running 24 hours a day under different OS's and technology levels as far back as WinME on a simple 750 Mhz Duron and serving well effortlessly.
It's not what you run, it's how you run it, how you maintain it, and what is available for it.
Today there are 3 OS's that far surpass any others for opportunity with coices of available software that DOES run well, these are;
XP Pro w/SP2 and up.
Vista Ult x86 w/SP2 (to cure all the problems that scared people way from vista)
Seven x86 (most versatile of all)
With the x64 systems quickly moving up into a far better level of uses than previously known to home computing. As more and more programs are being updated to work well in the x64 environment.
Unix would be next.
Then Linux but very insecure do to it being tooled up by everyday programmers, and many wannabe programmers keeping the doors open for security breaches.
I would be left without the low level of Linux on a bootable cd, for running under the security barriers to do recoveries. Linux doesn't understand Windows Security so it passes through a disk containing with very few limitations when running in a live ram drive configuration.
MAC from experience, I call the current Dinosaur because of the lack of software available that runs very well, the cost is way over priced, ill equipped systems requiring expensive add on external parts, yes it can run SOME windows software, with programs like Bootcamp, but they eat up all your resources to run those leaving almost nothing for the windows software to run, and MS designed the software for MAC to run Windows stuff, NOT MAC.
Why not just add a second hard drive, and install Windows, set up a dual boot option or use other means to choose which disk to boot from.
-----------------------------------------------
I don't advertise, spam or try to drum business for myself, I have enough, I try to direct people to things that will enable them to learn right, and to efficiently manage their own systems.
I am not associated with any company, I contract by the job and do it, and move on. I recommend how and what to learn for the best level of security, otherwise I am not doing unto others as would choose to have them do to me!
Must have tools for every computer user, Avast5 from www.avast.com, Spybot Search and Destroy 6.2 from www.safer-networking.org, Spywareblaster from www.javacoolsoftware.com, Malwarebytes Antimalware from www.malwarebytes.org, and Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.com, all of which maintain a FREE version continually updated, and that is important to do daily or weekly, and as you get to understand how to use them, and feel ready to get the extra advantage of features offered by obtaining a puchased license, I am sure you won't be disappointed.
You MUST maintain very stringent concerns when locating the software, because the better they are, the more likely it is you can be deceived by some web site and download and install a counterfeit forgery with a very malicious intent.
Ont he download pages, be carefull, many of the sites that mirror these to help relieve the download bandwidth issues contain ads, and MOST of those ads will will DECEIVE people who try to download one of these programs who think they are getting the program but actually getting something from an advertiser on the download sites page.
Such as the case with MajorGeeks, or FileHippo, you need to be very diligent in reading that page, and just holding your mouse over the link to be sure it is the file your after, your staus bar on your browser is like your dash board on your car, cover it up and your sure to get a ticket have a serious breakdown.
Also when you search, you will get the frauds, for instance, if you search for Ad-Aware, you will see things like AdWare, Ad-ware, ads-aware, etc. BE SURE LETTER FOR LETTER DOT FOR DOT.........
------------------------------------------------
I personally am tired of being physical with a computer, I don't like to have to sMACk and Toss it about, I prefer to use the BIG GUNS and just POINT AND CLICK....... 7 Ult x64, 4.6Gig Quad, Triple SLi. And know the Truth.
Class is over, discussion settled, all questions answered, properly, your assignments are to go pick up a small cheap U3 USB chip and experiment with FDISK to understand what partitions are, and how to delete and create them. Then read up on formats and see which will suit your needs best.
I was around here when Tom put his first web site up dealing with hardware, I watched it grow, and I have to admit the end of the first year it was at it's best.
ABOVE ALL; Know that there is NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE PASSWORD, just that some may be safer than others, real words or abbreviations no matter what the length are as worthless and already chewed gum, numbers alone are only a slim shade above, randomized letters only are just another step up, randomized alphanumeric passwords a good step up if super long strings are used, such as odd amounts like 23 characters in length, and the more the better, but common numbers such as multiples of 10 reduce the security, alphanumeric with extended characters is the best you can hope for by any length, still the longer the better, with odd numbers of characters that don't match up to known computing multiples, ei 2, 4, 6, 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64 128, 256, 1024, 2048, etc etc etc... encrypted or not nothing is truly secure.
Imagine a big circle of people holding hands in a gymnasium, every one is try to say their phone number to some one out loud on the other side of the circle, and 3 out of every 10 people in there are listening to hear phone numbers they want to snag, your security in this circle is the time space you put in between saying each number, but because all of you are facing each other and can see each others faces, you can watch for the number being said and hear it better...... No matter what the time space between those numbers is that you use....
What we call those tools used to be those 3 out of 10 people are SNIFFERS, they sniff the hashes and record them from what ever parameters you give it to grab from, such as a given ip, then you run interpreters to break down those hashes, so you can see the encrypted ones, and then you use decryption methods and programs to break it open and get the data you are after, such as passwords, pins bank accounts etc etc, and that's how they rip you off...
Can a Bank or online store legally claim they offer Secure transactions? Not exactly, they can't provide it, so how can they claim that they do? It's called DEREGULATION, it means they aren't governed by any laws but you are, because they are a big company and you are nobody.
I hope this also helps protect many of you from the lies of this Mystical Babylon, the city that is not a city, with a multitude of amazement's and colors, which is truly the darkest alley of the world and it encompasses the entire earth, and it is the purest of all proof of the bible.
USB drives are not stable, and not fully reliable, though many will work for long periods, you WILL run into corrupt data. If you use them for encrypting your passwords and storing them, and don't maintain a written or secondary copy, one day you will lose it all.
USB is in more accurate terms, SSD, meaning Solid State Drive, USB is just the connection type for that drive, and SSD handles data differently than a REAL hard drive. which has a FAR GREATER chance of recovering data with much easier methods than SSD.
Personally, I SSD from my experience, is far less secure, deleting only moves the data, it doesn't record like a true hard disk, do a little research on data recovery seminars on youtube, you will find the more involved information you need to understand why SSD is so high risk you need to avoid it use for anything you may need a password for.
Who's Angie? Your the only one on this page using that name in any sort of context. The lady who called me was stressed out trying to find this Angie persons post.
I wouldn't understand any system technician needing some program that is not legal to run on any machine he or she is working on.
I am a well known tech, I do a lot of extensive recovery work, from personal to sensitive business systems. I keep only a few things, a good large hard drive to recover data to temporarily, several cd's and dvd's that are bootable with various custom OS's, and containing the softwares I use. AND it is fully legal to run these on any number of computers I choose, because these tools have special licenses by their given nature or they would be worthless.
I despise U3, and all other similar types of programs, for their false security they promote.
One thing I see you have right, Avast is a great company, I communicate with regularly, and maintaining a FREE version for home/personal users, which I fully promote, WITH the instruction to use it free, and learn it, and after you fully understand the way the software works purchase it to get the added benefits. I prefere Avast due to the speed of updated definitions in their data base, and their promise to have those updates online within 24 hours of a discovered virus being posted on ICAR or various other places.
This is where my use of a simple USB drive comes in. I just keep a small one with simple formatting, and used as data only storage. I have several Freeware programs I will install for people and show them the basics to get them started.
I have several versions for businesses I do the same with. Still with this there is no reason for me to obtain licenses other than what I have as all the stuff on my USB memory chip is freely downloadable, with trial period options.
All of these I can easily replace, and I do retain 2 to 3 versions of everything on 1 USB chip.
So if I ran U3 it would be IN MY FACE EVERY TIME I plugged it in a computer, and I DO NOT HAVE TIME for that junk.
That is another reason, and in it's own is enough just like the false security. So each in it's own way is more than enough reason NOT to have any U3 or similar.
If your a student, and needing to do work in several special programs, and choose to use a USB chip, you DO NOT need U3 to do it. Considering the fact that the schools have labs with the software needed, you only need to edit/save your files on your chip, do not allow local saves on the computer, such when you close it asks to save changes to, or save as project, just pay attention to where you are saving, and what you are saving, don't just click and run.
I can't count weekly numbers, but daily for friends alone must be half a dozen roughly every day, I have hundreds of friends, I am very much involved in many things being a cancer survivor, biker, and retired, great grandfather, etc.
Install, use, yes, Uninstall, no, legal yes. See above.
Why would anyone need to run CCleaner AFTER cleaning up some ones computer and fixing it? I leave everyone with maintenance software I have found to be most reliable of all available, or in some rare cases, easiest to use with some level of reliability, and all is either free or with trial periods.
All the best companies offer these;
FREE for home use.
Trial for Business use.
AND the big, and most IMPORTANT feature of all;
A REMOVAL TOOL THAT WIPES IT ALL OUT. Not just a few files, like those antiviruses provided by comcast and a few others which are as bad as an infection, and many times even worse.
But I like those too, YES, they give me WORK, they promise me they will mess up one computer after another and leave me an endless line of JOB SECURITY.
Almost, but not in reality...
Ah yes, probably the most BIASED representation of U3 you can find online, "The U3 Consortium Website"......
Hmmm, well, for starters, today there are not many systems running other than NTFS, if however, that is a concern to you, try partitioning and running a FAT32 and NTSF partitions.
ALL windows OS systems contain partitioning tools, and M$ has a very extensive and well structured and easy for you to follow set of help and support files on the Technet website. If you are at this stage of need and digging this deep, you won't have any problems going there and do this yourself.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
OK, here it is.... now that I explained some facts, here is the easy way to remove U3....
1. Make your self a good bootable disk, floppy is fine, such as the Windows Start-Up Disk, I like to keep an old w98se and wme pair of disks around to teach with, they contain all the tools you will ever need for this task, mainly FDISK, and FORMAT.
2. Turn your computer off, plug in your usb chip (usb 1.0 for fat32, 2.0 for NTFS, but you will need an XP NTFS startup disk with FDISK and FORMAT on it) boot up the computer, tapping F8 untill you get the boot menu if needed to force it to boot from your startup disk you prepared.
3. After booting run the FDISK utility, and you see 4 options, you can create logical, or extended, delete, and view. You will want to view to see what partitions you do have, then run the delete options, deleting any and all logical and extended partitions on the USB chip.
4. View again to be sure there are NO partitions left on the chip.
5. Create a Logical partition only, and use the full amount of space available.
6. Format, and select your choice of full format.
7. Exit.
8. Remove the startup disk, if you wish you may remove the USB chip also, and reboot into your normal OS.
9. Plug in the USB chip or open your file viewing program and inspect your USB chip size, and format, it should be ready, and empty, you should have only seen a USB mass storage device installation occur, no CRUZER or other devices, and you should also have seen an option to pick a way to view your new device.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All I intend to do is help people avoid the scams by the big companies who use malicious methods to deceive you into using their malwares and keep paying into their system to monopolize YOU. It will stop you from learning, and advancing, you will become dependent on them for everything, their apps, if you call them by that CLICHE, and you will be their enslaved prisoner.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I run about every OS you can imagine, and I have servers running 24 hours a day under different OS's and technology levels as far back as WinME on a simple 750 Mhz Duron and serving well effortlessly.
It's not what you run, it's how you run it, how you maintain it, and what is available for it.
Today there are 3 OS's that far surpass any others for opportunity with coices of available software that DOES run well, these are;
XP Pro w/SP2 and up.
Vista Ult x86 w/SP2 (to cure all the problems that scared people way from vista)
Seven x86 (most versatile of all)
With the x64 systems quickly moving up into a far better level of uses than previously known to home computing. As more and more programs are being updated to work well in the x64 environment.
Unix would be next.
Then Linux but very insecure do to it being tooled up by everyday programmers, and many wannabe programmers keeping the doors open for security breaches.
I would be left without the low level of Linux on a bootable cd, for running under the security barriers to do recoveries. Linux doesn't understand Windows Security so it passes through a disk containing with very few limitations when running in a live ram drive configuration.
MAC from experience, I call the current Dinosaur because of the lack of software available that runs very well, the cost is way over priced, ill equipped systems requiring expensive add on external parts, yes it can run SOME windows software, with programs like Bootcamp, but they eat up all your resources to run those leaving almost nothing for the windows software to run, and MS designed the software for MAC to run Windows stuff, NOT MAC.
Why not just add a second hard drive, and install Windows, set up a dual boot option or use other means to choose which disk to boot from.
-----------------------------------------------
I don't advertise, spam or try to drum business for myself, I have enough, I try to direct people to things that will enable them to learn right, and to efficiently manage their own systems.
I am not associated with any company, I contract by the job and do it, and move on. I recommend how and what to learn for the best level of security, otherwise I am not doing unto others as would choose to have them do to me!
Must have tools for every computer user, Avast5 from www.avast.com, Spybot Search and Destroy 6.2 from www.safer-networking.org, Spywareblaster from www.javacoolsoftware.com, Malwarebytes Antimalware from www.malwarebytes.org, and Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.com, all of which maintain a FREE version continually updated, and that is important to do daily or weekly, and as you get to understand how to use them, and feel ready to get the extra advantage of features offered by obtaining a puchased license, I am sure you won't be disappointed.
You MUST maintain very stringent concerns when locating the software, because the better they are, the more likely it is you can be deceived by some web site and download and install a counterfeit forgery with a very malicious intent.
Ont he download pages, be carefull, many of the sites that mirror these to help relieve the download bandwidth issues contain ads, and MOST of those ads will will DECEIVE people who try to download one of these programs who think they are getting the program but actually getting something from an advertiser on the download sites page.
Such as the case with MajorGeeks, or FileHippo, you need to be very diligent in reading that page, and just holding your mouse over the link to be sure it is the file your after, your staus bar on your browser is like your dash board on your car, cover it up and your sure to get a ticket have a serious breakdown.
Also when you search, you will get the frauds, for instance, if you search for Ad-Aware, you will see things like AdWare, Ad-ware, ads-aware, etc. BE SURE LETTER FOR LETTER DOT FOR DOT.........
------------------------------------------------
I personally am tired of being physical with a computer, I don't like to have to sMACk and Toss it about, I prefer to use the BIG GUNS and just POINT AND CLICK....... 7 Ult x64, 4.6Gig Quad, Triple SLi. And know the Truth.
Class is over, discussion settled, all questions answered, properly, your assignments are to go pick up a small cheap U3 USB chip and experiment with FDISK to understand what partitions are, and how to delete and create them. Then read up on formats and see which will suit your needs best.
I was around here when Tom put his first web site up dealing with hardware, I watched it grow, and I have to admit the end of the first year it was at it's best.
ABOVE ALL; Know that there is NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE PASSWORD, just that some may be safer than others, real words or abbreviations no matter what the length are as worthless and already chewed gum, numbers alone are only a slim shade above, randomized letters only are just another step up, randomized alphanumeric passwords a good step up if super long strings are used, such as odd amounts like 23 characters in length, and the more the better, but common numbers such as multiples of 10 reduce the security, alphanumeric with extended characters is the best you can hope for by any length, still the longer the better, with odd numbers of characters that don't match up to known computing multiples, ei 2, 4, 6, 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64 128, 256, 1024, 2048, etc etc etc... encrypted or not nothing is truly secure.
Imagine a big circle of people holding hands in a gymnasium, every one is try to say their phone number to some one out loud on the other side of the circle, and 3 out of every 10 people in there are listening to hear phone numbers they want to snag, your security in this circle is the time space you put in between saying each number, but because all of you are facing each other and can see each others faces, you can watch for the number being said and hear it better...... No matter what the time space between those numbers is that you use....
What we call those tools used to be those 3 out of 10 people are SNIFFERS, they sniff the hashes and record them from what ever parameters you give it to grab from, such as a given ip, then you run interpreters to break down those hashes, so you can see the encrypted ones, and then you use decryption methods and programs to break it open and get the data you are after, such as passwords, pins bank accounts etc etc, and that's how they rip you off...
Can a Bank or online store legally claim they offer Secure transactions? Not exactly, they can't provide it, so how can they claim that they do? It's called DEREGULATION, it means they aren't governed by any laws but you are, because they are a big company and you are nobody.
I hope this also helps protect many of you from the lies of this Mystical Babylon, the city that is not a city, with a multitude of amazement's and colors, which is truly the darkest alley of the world and it encompasses the entire earth, and it is the purest of all proof of the bible.
.
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