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Issue #323: September 29, 2013

Q: In cleaning out closets, I came across many of those old 4″ x 4″ backup discs – many of them having grandchildren’s names tabbed on them. I am currently using Windows 8 (not my choice). Is there any way or any where I can recover the information that is on them? Thank you for any help you may offer.

Nancy W.
Niceville, Florida

A: I wish you had given me a little more information about the media you’re dealing with, Nancy. The phrase “those old discs” could refer to any number of common or specialized formats, none of which, as I can recall, were 4” x 4” in size.  Older floppy discs were 8”, then 5 ¼”, then 3 ½”.  Another popular media, Bernoulli cartridges were over 5”, and Zip discs were closer to 3 ½”.  There are other media, but again, none that I recall being 4”.  Knowing the exact media type that you’re trying to recover from is a critical step in getting access to your data (assuming there are still recoverable data on the media).  The physical dimensions are largely irrelevant except for their value in trying to identify the media in question.

I would think that, regardless of the media, it should be possible to obtain a drive for these discs.  Aftermarket vendors, used equipment sellers, and online auction sites carry all kinds of outdated stuff.  Whatever your format is, it’s clear that it’s not in widespread use today, but the odds are that its interface is either still supported, or adapter cards are available to get a modern computer to interface with the media’s drive.  Once you’ve identified the media, hit up eBay or Amazon and see if any drives are available, and what they’re selling for.  It’s possible that the true cost of accessing these data may sway your desire to see what they are.  By the way, while you’re looking for the devices, the most guaranteed-compatible device for you is going to be one mounted in an external chassis, which plugs into your computer via a USB port.

Q: Call me paranoid but whenever I log on to Facebook, and ONLY to FB, my computer does something strange everytime. After typing facebook.com in the address bar, my computer totally freezes (no mouse movement, nothing works) and the hard drive goes into furious activity as indicated by the light doing its thing. This lasts between 3 and 15 seconds EVERY time I log on to FB. After the freeze I’m ultimately greeted with the FB log on page and things appear normal. Question: Is FB software probing my machine, and/or dumping ones and zeroes on to it for some nefarious purpose, or should I remove the tin foil from my Harley-Davidson baseball hat and do something productive while this Facebook Furious Freeze takes place?

Bill R.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

A: Okay, Bill – you’re paranoid!  It’s so fulfilling to be able to oblige those simple requests.  But seriously (as if this column ever gets truly serious) you need to stop and think about what you’re interfacing with before you send up the red flags.

Facebook isn’t quite like a typical web page.  It’s highly interactive, and it even updates automatically as new posts come out.  It’s an implementation of what we computer geeks call a “client/server” model.  The server is Facebook’s massive computer farm that somehow manages to juggle gazillions of simultaneous users, and deliver the exact right content to each one in only a couple of seconds.  The other side is the client – that’s you.  To make this work, Facebook must run software that knows how to talk to the server on your side of the connection.  The software runs locally within your browser.  What you’re likely experiencing is a delay while this so-called “client software” downloads, and yes, it probably is doing a little sniffing around, but that’s mostly to see what your system’s configuration is so it can run properly.  It probably also reads the cookies that it left there last time you were on, so see who you are and what you were doing, to sort-of pick up where you left off.

One thing to remember as far as download speeds go (and this applies to all Internet activity – not just Facebook, and not even the just world-wide web), your speed is going to be limited to the speed of the slowest network link that your data travel through between whatever server you’re using and you.  To get an idea of how many “hops” your data has to take, try the following.  Run a command window (one easy way is to hit Winkey+R, then type cmd).  At the prompt in the command window, enter:

TRACERT facebook.com

I bet you never knew how hard the Internet was working for you.  By the way, the reality of paranoia is that if someone really is out to get you, you’re not really paranoid.  The trick is being able to tell the difference.  Having said that, I’ll leave to you the decision on whether to keep the tinfoil in your hat.

TIP OF THE WEEK – I.G.T.M. Web-Only Content: I’ve been pretty lax about including supplemental web-only content for users of my website.  In the future, I’ll try and be a little better about including something extra online.  This week’s extra content is one of the best “Thanks Bill!” moments I’ve ever read about, and you might just learn something that will surprise you.  Check it out at ItsGeekToMe.co (not .com!).


Bonus Web-only Content:

Those of you who are regular readers immediately recognize the phrase “Thanks, Bill!” when I use it in the column. It’s my little tongue-in-cheek homage to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and all the “wonderful” decisions the company has made over the years that affect each of us every day. In my case, I’m often in front of a computer as long as 18 hours a day, so I get to experience them all — repeatedly. Now, I realize that ol’ Bill isn’t personally responsible for every poorly thought-out thing to ever come out of Microsoft, but because his name is so familiar to anyone who has even a small amount of knowledge about Microsoft’s history, he is an easy target. Besides, if I said “Thanks, Paul” or “Thanks, Steve” would you even know who I was talking about? (Hint: Bill Gates is not the only person who founded Microsoft, and “Steve” is not Steve Jobs).

That having been said, there was an interesting tidbit in the news this week. In an article on The Verge Bill Gates himself was commenting on the old “three-finger salute”, that venerable key sequence of Ctrl+Alt+Del.  Bill was quoted as saying “It was a mistake” to make people use that key sequence to initiate logon to their PC, but he stopped short of admitting he “invented” the sequence.  Instead, he blamed the idea on “the guy who did the IBM keyboard design”.  Sort-of makes one wonder who was working for whom back in those days.  You can read the whole article here.  If that’s intended as an apology, Bill, I’ll accept it, being the gracious Geek that I am.  Now admit that it was a dumb idea to force people to push something labeled “Start” when they want to shut down their computer.

This Week in Geek:

Here’s a brief look at some other happenings this past week:

  • Google celebrated its 15th Birthday.  I’d wish you a Happy Birthday, Google but chances are you already know what I’m thinking.  Besides, I don’t need any targeted advertising for decorations and birthday cake.
  • You might remember back in 2012 when Apple released iOS 6 in conjunction with the iPhone 5.  One of its trumpeted features was Apple Maps, which replaced the excellent Google Maps app that had been included in previous versions.  The new app had many problems, from things not appearing where they actually are (minor problem for a MAPPING APP, right?), to items on the map being mislabeled, for example, a supermarket labeled a hospital.  Apple issued an apology, along with recommendations that people use map products created by rival companies.  Well, this week, Apple released iOS 7, which included another new and improved mapping app.  As reported in The Independent, it didn’t take long for people in Alaska to discover that the new app feels perfectly comfortable navigating them straight across an active runway while guiding them to the carpark at the Fairbanks Airport.

Until next week – good luck and happy computing!

– Geek


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