Sometimes a computer gets infected with a virus or other malware that is nearly impossible to get rid of. You can reformat the drive and reload your operating system only to see the malicious evil come right back. The best solution for this situation is to completely wipe the drive before formatting it or installing an OS.

There are several utilities that will completely erase a hard drive to military specifications, but most cost a lot of money and do too good of a job. We don’t need to achieve military standards just to wipe out a virus. If you intend to sell the drive, you may want to use a stronger utility.

An easier and just as effective solution is to use Gateway Computer’s GWSCAN 5.02. It will write zeros (0) to every sector on the disk, deleting all data and eliminating any place bad code can hide. We recommended this numerous times when I was in tech support for Gateway and it always worked.

First, find your Gateway installation disk or borrow one from a friend or family member. Then follow these directions exactly. It will take a while but in the end you’ll have a hard drive you know is clean and ready for you to format.

I’ve been trying to familiarize myself with my new video camera. Here’s a recent test starring two of my roommates.

I use and recommend Webroot’s SpySweeper with Anti-Virus. It’s shareware but well worth the price.

I also recommend their firewall, but with one condition. It does not work with Windows Vista. You won’t know that unless you go digging in their FAQ’s.

The bottom line: if you’re using XP, by all means consider getting the full package. But if you have Vista installed on your computer, use SpySweeper and the anti-virus application, but stick with PC Tools firewall or Zone Alarm, both of which work well with Vista. Do not rely on Windows firewall to provide you with full protection.

(UPDATE) December 20, 2007

Webroot now certifies their firewall to work with Vista. It’s too soon for me to want to see if that’s true, but their firewall is performing quite well on my XP Professional laptop.

I have it on very good authority that Computerworld Magazine is naming Scot Finnie as the next editor in chief.

I’m very happy for Scot. In addition to being a very good friend of mine, he’s a dedicated and hard-working writer with an absolute passion for the computer industry. He has written with great foresight on the re-emergence of the Mac as well as the problems Microsoft has had creating enthusiasm for Vista in the business world.

The current editor in chief, Don Tennant, is an excellent writer and very bright fellow. He has spent time at the National Security Agency, as have I, and no doubt we both came by our fascination with the world of computing from that assignment. I further have no doubt that he could find no one more qualified and worthy to hand his reigns to than Scot.

I know Computerworld Magazine will only improve under Scot’s skillful guidance. I wish him and his family all the best as he begins his new assignment.