Friday, May 9, 2008
Best Anniversary Celebration Related Project Ideas Using Your Printer
An anniversary celebration is a momentous event, especially if it marks a very significant event in a person life or an organization's existence. Thus, utmost planning and preparation is undertaken for the anniversary celebration, because it is considered a very special day that should be celebrated in a special way.
With the advance of technology of this age, the computer is the most important gadget that a person can have at his disposal. The computer has several capabilities that can make life and work very convenient for a person.
Before, documents that needed to be printed are first typed out in a typewriter, a very tedious task which involves adjusting the margins and formatting manually aside from the typing of the document's contents itself. Nowadays, using a computer, producing a document is more than twice as fast as the legacy method of using a typewriter.
With the advent of the Internet, a person can use his computer to connect to his bank and access his accounts, or to engage in correspondence with a person that is very far away and inaccessible.
Together with the computer, the laser printer is also a very useful tool. It is used to produce hard copies of needed documents, may it be for work or for educational purposes like term papers. It can also be used to print out photographs.
Anniversary Celebration Ideas Using an Inkjet Printer
For organizations, a computer can be used to design fliers and invitations announcing the anniversary celebration. You can then use the inkjet printer to print out these paraphernalia that you can distribute to the persons that you would want to participate in commemorating the anniversary event.
Scrapbooks
Some couples (or one of them) sometimes produce a scrapbook as a gift during their anniversaries. The scrapbook contains the couple's memories of the most important parts of their relationship and preserves them, including pictures. Using a computer and an inkjet printer, you can make modifications to your pictures in a way that expresses how special the memory represented by the photo is to you.
Anniversary Card
For married couples and for those who are engaged in intimate relationships, one of the simplest and meaningful ways to celebrate anniversaries is to give an anniversary card to each other. An anniversary card is more meaningful than a material gift, they say, because in an anniversary card, one expresses his sincere words to the recipient.
Most people design their own anniversary cards rather than buy those generic cards that are sold in the bookstores, because they believe the appearance of the card itself makes it more special along with the words that they put along.
This Article is written by James Kara Murat from, the contributor of Printer Ink Cartridge Articles More information on the subject is at Best Anniversary Celebration Related Project Ideas Using Your Printer and related resources can be found at PrintCountry FAQ
Computers Don't Lose Their Memory With Age
Data privacy in todays age of the Internet, online information repositories and e-government has become more complex, particularly in healthcare environments: Securing protected health information is no longer as simple as locking a file folder in a cabinet.
Patient data such as drug regiments, psychological history or diagnostic imaging including x-rays and ultrasounds is now distributed across physical buildings and computers as healthcare professionals consult with one another and collaborate via e-mail and networks; this means its more difficult to track where patient information is actually being stored. What is certain is that patient data is stored on computers PCs, laptops at private practices or servers in a specific department that will eventually be discarded or redeployed for another purpose.
Under HIPAA rules (PIPEDA in Canada), healthcare organizations must understand the flow of protected health information and must have mechanisms in place to secure access to that data. Take this a step further and it means discarded computer systems must not become a backdoor means to gain unauthorized access to confidential health information.
And while normally the primary concern of most healthcare organizations is to ensure that data is available to staff when they need it, the discarding of old computer systems is one occasion when going the extra mile to destroy confidential data is required so it does not fall into the wrong hands.
Data is a lot like DNA. It can be inherited. It can mutate. Typical computer users in the healthcare sector contain confidential material such as patient records, accounting records, x-rays, diagnostic images and much more. To a data recovery expert they are nothing more than 0s and 1s organized on the computers hard disk drive and much easier to retrieve than one might think.
Data-ridden computers can be discarded in a number of ways. Sometimes they are turned in for newer models when leases retired, or they are simply inventoried and placed in a storage room to gather dust. Often old computers are donated to charity, auctioned off or sold to the general public with the data still residing on the hard drives.
Whether discarded individually or en masse, its entirely possible that these computers still contain protected health information. Much of that data could be the software applications and trivial information, but frequently the information remaining on these computers can be extremely sensitive.
Lost, but not irretrievable
Data on computers, despite apparent loss due to natural disaster, equipment failure, human error or security breaches, is rather resilient. Data often thought irrevocably lost can be and is frequently retrieved by data recovery specialists. Likewise, data thought deleted from a system is often still resident on a discarded computers hard drive.
Data removal procedures go beyond the simple deletion of a file from the computer users desktop. There are methods and techniques that are used by individuals who come into possession of previously used systems who can reconstruct data even after the storage media has been erased.
What many users dont realize is that when most computers delete a file, the contents of the file are not actually removed: the file, at least in the short term, is still resident on the hard drive, but its no longer linked to the file system. The data remains on the disk until the operating system re-uses those sectors to write new data.
In order to confirm a deleted file is really deleted, it is necessary to overwrite the data sectors of that file. Until the old data is actually overwritten by new information it can be recovered by programs that read disk sectors directly, such as forensic software, commercially available data retrieval software or data recovery techniques. As result, data thought to be deleted may remain on the drive if the sectors are not overwritten.
There are a number of ways to ensure the destruction or inaccessibility of data on hard drives: degaussing, overwriting, data encryption and media destruction are some of the methods that have been employed to safeguard against disclosure of sensitive information.
Wiping
The wiping of sensitive data from a computers hard drive or a removable storage device is the best method of data destruction to guarantee the data cant be reconstructed through laboratory techniques. Wiping is essential when hardware containing sensitive data is moved from a secure facility to a non-secure facility or environment. Software-based data destruction methods are inexpensive and easy to use for the average computer user, Software used for data purging is available on the market from a number of vendors.
Degaussing
A more severe approach to data erasure is degaussing, which often renders hard drives inoperable. Degaussing is a process whereby the magnetic media is erased. As a result, degaussing can prevent computers from being recycled for educational use, charitable donation or resale to the general public. The sensitivity of the data stored on the computer and the feasibility of software purging should be weighed before one makes the decision to degauss hard drives.
Clearing
A less extreme means of data erasure is the removal of sensitive data from storage devices in such a way that there is assurance, proportional to the sensitivity of the data, that the data may not be reconstructed using normal system capabilities. Clearing is feasible when the storage media is reused within the same computer and same office. For example, if the computer is simply being cleaned up for a new staff member taking over from a departing staff member, it is remaining in the same controlled environment.
Clearing can be accomplished by overwriting the unassigned system storage space on the disk. A single overwrite of a file or all system storage is usually enough to make sure that previous information cannot be rebuilt.
As mentioned earlier, simply deleting a file only removes the directory pointers to the file; the digital information is still on the computer until overwritten. Even reformatting, or repartitioning a hard drive is not enough to guaranteed that the files are completely gone, even if the end user cant browse them or open them with an application.
Ultimate destruction
In extreme cases where the destruction of data must be guaranteed and the chance of retrieval must be eliminated, physical destruction of the hardware is the best course of action. Media may generally be destroyed by using a number of methods, including an abrasive substance on magnetic disk or drum recording surface. Corrosive chemicals can have the same desired effect, but regardless, the entire recording surface must be completely removed before disposal. Destruction of drive (or the entire computer, for that matter) can also be achieved by being smelted, disintegrated or incinerated at a metal destruction facility or through incineration. Even if the decision is made to destroy the hardware completely, it is still a good idea to purge media before submitting it for destruction.
Hold on a second!
While making sure sensitive data does not fall into the rights should be established policy, it is important to make sure that data is no longer needed; if it is, make sure it can be found on another computer or server.
Before disposing of any computer hardware, be sure to back up the data in a secure location. Just because the computer is no longer needed, doesnt mean the data isnt still required, and that data may not be found anywhere else in the organization. There could also be legal requirements for maintaining certain information, including medical records long after the patient has left the facility
Ultimately, however, the safeguarding of protected health information is critical and properly removing this sensitive information from computer hard drives must be incorporated within any other security and privacy policies and processes.
Tim Margeson is General Manager of CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc., a leading international provider of data recovery services to consumer, enterprise and public-sector clients who experience data loss disasters.
