Erase with Eraser

Posted in: Computer Tips & Tricks

Planning on tossing your old computer? I hope not — I hope you’ll first consider donating it to charity. Regardless of how you dispose of your computer, though, I recommend you consider wiping it clean of all personal information. And Eraser is a tool that will do exactly that for you.

Eraser completely removes sensitive data from your hard drive by “overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.” This means that people cannot retrieve your data using disk maintenance tools or an undelete program.

Eraser is totally free and works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and Vista. Download the program here: http://www.heidi.ie/node/6.

The Easy Way to (Potentially) Make LOTS of Money with Very Little Effort

Posted in: Web Info, Tips & Tricks, Website Links

Allow me to introduce you to NAUPA. NAUPA (which stands for National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators) is a nonprofit organization with a website that can kickstart your search for unclaimed property and money that (just might) be owed to you.

There are countless stories of quick searches spurred by curiosity resulting in the receipt of thousands of dollars and large pieces of property. Although I’m owed zero money, I discovered several hundreds of dollars owed to close friends! No joke.

Visit the NAUPA website at www.unclaimed.org and choose the state within which you’d like to conduct a search. Make sure you search every state in which you’ve lived. You can also use the “MissingMoney.com” site that they link to on their homepage — but I found those searches to not be as thorough as the ones conducted on the individual states’ unclaimed property websites.

Oh, and if you do end up finding that you’re entitled to a check for thousands upon thousands of dollars, I won’t say no to a finder’s fee.