Busting the Biggest IT Myths

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 10 Feb 2007, 15:07

Interesting:

http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2208p107id116572.htm

Try telling the airline you intend to keep your mobile on.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 11 Feb 2007, 15:44

Most of the info in that article is wrong.
Interesting read, though.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 11 Feb 2007, 18:06

Care to elaborate instead of just making sweeping statements? I'm surprised it doesn't have one saying you don't really need a virus checker

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 11 Feb 2007, 20:06

Don't care to elaborate much, no.

It's obvious the guy doesn't know what he's talking about:

"There's nothing magnetic in flash memory, so [a magnet] won't do anything,"
says Bill Frank, executive director of the CompactFlash Association.

He's lying, you dumb-£@ù% !
Do you think he's gonna tell us that even the smallest magnetic field can erase flash memory ? It's not in his best interest.

we unplugged and plugged a bunch of USB devices, including a camera, a printer, a USB flash drive, and a scanner, without first "stopping" them in Windows.

OK. So you did a few tests and you were lucky you didn't fry your hardware.

Question:
How does your computer know that your USB device is still plugged in ?
Answer:
It sends electricity to it all the time. If you unplug your USB key just when your PC is doing that, you might damage it.

It's all wrong. He's just going:
"I've tested it twice and it works. Yay, I've just busted another IT myth."

It's not only wrong, it's actually dangerous. He's an idiot.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 11 Feb 2007, 20:28

I always remove my USB mouse and plug it in whenever, I didn't know you weren't supposed to. It hasn't damaged anything, and I do it alllll the time.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 11 Feb 2007, 22:22

tom2681 wrote:Do you think he's gonna tell us that even the smallest magnetic field can erase flash memory ? It's not in his best interest.

You don't know he's telling the truth either.

tom2681 wrote:"I've tested it twice and it works. Yay, I've just busted another IT myth."

Oh I agree there. I was more interested in the rest of the article. You picked holes in 2 of the 10 or so myths. I can easily believe the mobiles on planes one.

As far as USB devices go I always Safe Remove hardware I store data on, if not I just pull it out. I don't believe for a second you'll damage say a printer but can see you could damage a hard disk.

I've had to pull those out to before when I keep getting that annoying "it's in use" error but it blatantly isn't. The rule of thumb is "if it's writing/reading data" don't pull it out.