Quick question: poor man's disk wipe?

T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.

On 20/6/2017 14:54, T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 02:13 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Okay, let's say you got an external HDD formatted in FAT32, and you want
to make data unrecoverable on the drive. So let's say you don't want to
go through an hours long security wipe, overwriting all sectors on the
drive. Would simply reformatting the drive into an NTFS file system be
enough to make data unrecoverable for the vast majority of file and
partition recovery apps? I'm not talking NSA-level security, just
security against regular civilian recovery apps available for Windows.


Hi Yousuf,

No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

For the fastest full overwrite, boot into a Linux Live
disk and use "dd" with "if=/dev/zero" as your source.
Linux has all the cool tools.

Fast, yes, but if=/dev/random is more effective, if slower. One pass is
all you'll need from a practical standpoint. If you're paranoid, do it
twice.

Stef

Stef wrote:
On 20/6/2017 14:54, T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 02:13 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Okay, let's say you got an external HDD formatted in FAT32, and you want
to make data unrecoverable on the drive. So let's say you don't want to
go through an hours long security wipe, overwriting all sectors on the
drive. Would simply reformatting the drive into an NTFS file system be
enough to make data unrecoverable for the vast majority of file and
partition recovery apps? I'm not talking NSA-level security, just
security against regular civilian recovery apps available for Windows.

Hi Yousuf,

No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

For the fastest full overwrite, boot into a Linux Live
disk and use "dd" with "if=/dev/zero" as your source.
Linux has all the cool tools.

Fast, yes, but if=/dev/random is more effective, if slower. One pass is
all you'll need from a practical standpoint. If you're paranoid, do it
twice.

Stef

For future reference, there is /dev/random and /dev/urandom.
I learned about them the hard way.

On Linux, one hooks into a source of entropy, and can rapidly
block (and dd not do anything), if it runs out of entropy.

Linux records some kinds of events, in an effort to have "truly
random" numbers. The "less random" source of numbers, could use
something like Mersenne Twister or a PRNG to generate numbers.
And for a disk erasure effort, any old source of number is good
enough.

I think I ran into this on Linux, used the wrong source of
random numbers as an if= specification, and noticed that
nothing was happening. So I concluded from that, I must
have "run out of randomness".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//dev/random

"In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/random is a
special file that serves as a blocking pseudorandom
number generator.

It allows access to environmental noise collected from
device drivers and other sources.

Not all operating systems implement the same semantics for /dev/random.

A counterpart to /dev/random is
/dev/urandom ("unlimited" non-blocking random source[)
"

The Windows ported version of dd for example, probably uses a
PRNG for that, rather than a true source of entropy. And it
only offers /dev/random and doesn't block. Whereas the Linux
one, with the same call, would stall on you in about 30 seconds
or so.

Windows (chrysocome.net version):

dd if=/dev/random of=\\?\Device\Harddisk3\Partition0

would erase the fourth Windows drive at 13MB/sec, with random numbers.
And because it's a PRNG, would run at that relatively slow rate
until finished. It will say it "ran out of space" on the destination,
which is what stops the transfer.

Paul

On 21/06/2017 7:35 AM, FredW wrote:
Started my CCleaner

Tools / Drive Wiper

Oh, I thought he meant CClean could convert FAT into NTFS. As I
mentioned, I'm not looking for drive wiper, actually trying to avoid
using one, as mentioned in my original post.


--
Sent from Giganews on Thunderbird on my Toshiba laptop

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

On 06/21/2017 09:44 AM, Stef wrote:
On 20/6/2017 14:54, T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 02:13 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Okay, let's say you got an external HDD formatted in FAT32, and you want
to make data unrecoverable on the drive. So let's say you don't want to
go through an hours long security wipe, overwriting all sectors on the
drive. Would simply reformatting the drive into an NTFS file system be
enough to make data unrecoverable for the vast majority of file and
partition recovery apps? I'm not talking NSA-level security, just
security against regular civilian recovery apps available for Windows.


Hi Yousuf,

No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

For the fastest full overwrite, boot into a Linux Live
disk and use "dd" with "if=/dev/zero" as your source.
Linux has all the cool tools.

Fast, yes, but if=/dev/random is more effective, if slower. One pass is
all you'll need from a practical standpoint. If you're paranoid, do it
twice.

Stef


I like /dev/zero as it is fast. If doing it on a Flash drive,
it also has the side effect of doing "trim" on everything.
(Kanguru verified this for me after some extensive research
on their part.)

/dev/random presumes the first go around missed something.
A very unlikely event.

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.

In article , bbbl67
@spammenot.yahoo.com, Yousuf Khan says...

Okay, let's say you got an external HDD formatted in FAT32, and you want
to make data unrecoverable on the drive. So let's say you don't want to
go through an hours long security wipe, overwriting all sectors on the
drive. Would simply reformatting the drive into an NTFS file system be
enough to make data unrecoverable for the vast majority of file and
partition recovery apps? I'm not talking NSA-level security, just
security against regular civilian recovery apps available for Windows.

Dban. Small, free, creates bootable CD/DVD that you boot off and erases
entire disk.

https://dban.org/

--
Duncan.

In article ,
, Dave Doe says...

In article , bbbl67
@spammenot.yahoo.com, Yousuf Khan says...

Okay, let's say you got an external HDD formatted in FAT32, and you want
to make data unrecoverable on the drive. So let's say you don't want to
go through an hours long security wipe, overwriting all sectors on the
drive. Would simply reformatting the drive into an NTFS file system be
enough to make data unrecoverable for the vast majority of file and
partition recovery apps? I'm not talking NSA-level security, just
security against regular civilian recovery apps available for Windows.

Dban. Small, free, creates bootable CD/DVD that you boot off and erases
entire disk.

https://dban.org/

Sorry, this is probably a more correct link...
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/

--
Duncan.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:25:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.


A very strong ditto to everything you say above. And one additional
point:

We all have different senses of humor. What I think is funny the next
person might not. T thinks that anyone who doesn't have the same sense
of humor he does has no sense of humor. That's absurd, and sound like
the opinion of a six-year-old.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:25:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.

+1

Todd's generally low knowledge level and his proud unprofessionalism
make me think he's the kind of "IT guy" I routinely have to clean up
after. In a recent post he bemoaned the lack of trust people seem to
have for IT workers, somehow missing the irony of it.

--

Char Jackson

On 06/23/2017 08:06 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:25:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.


A very strong ditto to everything you say above. And one additional
point:

We all have different senses of humor. What I think is funny the next
person might not. T thinks that anyone who doesn't have the same sense
of humor he does has no sense of humor. That's absurd, and sound like
the opinion of a six-year-old.


You two should stay away from the Wheaties.

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:23:08 -0700, T wrote:

On 06/23/2017 08:06 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:25:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.


A very strong ditto to everything you say above. And one additional
point:

We all have different senses of humor. What I think is funny the next
person might not. T thinks that anyone who doesn't have the same sense
of humor he does has no sense of humor. That's absurd, and sound like
the opinion of a six-year-old.


You two should stay away from the Wheaties.


Working harder at making everyone think you're a six-year old?

On 06/23/2017 12:59 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:23:08 -0700, T wrote:

On 06/23/2017 08:06 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:25:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.


A very strong ditto to everything you say above. And one additional
point:

We all have different senses of humor. What I think is funny the next
person might not. T thinks that anyone who doesn't have the same sense
of humor he does has no sense of humor. That's absurd, and sound like
the opinion of a six-year-old.


You two should stay away from the Wheaties.


Working harder at making everyone think you're a six-year old?


Dear Messrs. Cranky Pants,

Harmless jabs at your favorite product(s)/brand(s)
are not juvenile or slurs.

Go home, take off your cranky pants, change into your
happy pants, go find your sense of humor, and stop
acting like eternally offended drama queens.

-T

On Sat, 24 Jun 2017 23:05:07 -0700, T wrote:

On 06/23/2017 12:59 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:23:08 -0700, T wrote:

On 06/23/2017 08:06 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:25:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

On 06/21/2017 12:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/20/2017 05:47 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/20/2017 5:54 PM, T wrote:
No, reformatting won't remove your data from someone who
it reading it sector by sector. It only updates the file tables.

I realized that, that's why I said, "I'm not talking about NSA-level"
wipe. Just enough to prevent a partition undelete, and therefore a file
undelete.

If you want to dispose of it, whack it with a hammer.

No, definitely don't want to whack it with a hammer, want to reuse
afterwards. Future reuse will automatically take care of overwriting
previous data, of course, but I want previous data locations to be
unknown. Thinking a change in filesystem formats would scramble up the
locations of previous data, making it impossible to restore, except by
sector-by-sector analysis.

Yousuf Khan

Hi Yousuf,

Well, if yo use it enough, you will eventually overwrite everything,
but it will take a while.

I have had to use the dd method on some weird Windows formatted
disks before as they were not readable by the OS. This happens
to me a lot when a take a Frankenstein the Elder (w8) disk and
try to do an install of Windows 7 on it. dd it is! Some
Apple formats do this too.

There are some Windows utilities out there that will scramble
all the empty space on your disk. I have one, but I forgot
what it is called. I can look it up for you if you wish.

-T

Does anyone other than you bother with the "Franken" slur? Don't you
think it's about time to quit trying to push your childish lingo onto
others? No one is adopting it.


Are you working for the M$ Marketing Police today? Someone ****
in your wheaties this morning? Go find your sense of humor.
A good cup of tea will help.

Do you keep using personal lingo when no one else adopts it? Maybe
that's why you're avoided at parties. You don't have the audience size
or endurance of Lewis Carroll. Neologisms work only if you can effect
change through literature or media or can effectively influence a large
audience. You've failed. Move on.

You're supposed to be a contracted consultant to customers (who comes
here to obtain help). Do you use your Franken lingo with your customers
to deliberately confuse them? Elevate your professionalism.

Accusing someone of being a Microsoft fanboy is a last resort inane
insult. Just detracts from being professional.


A very strong ditto to everything you say above. And one additional
point:

We all have different senses of humor. What I think is funny the next
person might not. T thinks that anyone who doesn't have the same sense
of humor he does has no sense of humor. That's absurd, and sound like
the opinion of a six-year-old.


You two should stay away from the Wheaties.


Working harder at making everyone think you're a six-year old?


Dear Messrs. Cranky Pants,

Harmless jabs at your favorite product(s)/brand(s)
are not juvenile or slurs.



You call them harmless, but I don't think they're harmless at all. I
think they are designed to turn people away from those products. They
don't achieve that goal for everyone, but they probably do for some.

Three other points:

1. Microsoft is not my favorite brand. They do many things wrong, as
far as I'm concerned.

2. Windows 10 is not my favorite product. As much as I like it, there
are many things about it that I would change.

3. Even if they were my least favorite brand or product, I would feel
the same way. I'm against any such poor-attempt-at-humor-jabs at *any*
brand or product.

If you, or anyone else, want to point out *real* deficiencies (not
fake deficiencies, as so many people who don't know what they're
talking about do) in a product (any product), I have no problem with
it. But remember that this is a newsgroup whose purpose is to help
people with problems, not to rant about deficiencies. Deficiencies
should only be pointed out in a thread where someone asks about a
problem, and the deficiency is related to the question.

As a single example of what I mean by that last statement, in the
Windows 10 newsgroup, I never rant about how terrible I think Edge is.
But if someone has a problem with Edge, I often suggest that the best
solution to the problem is to use a different browser, not Edge