In the last issue of Technobyte we discuss the arguments that are put forth in defence of second hand PC import and examined the "refurbished computers are cost-effectiveness" fallacy.

Now when we move further, another thing to be noted is that even a novice PC user improves his/her technical expertise with constant usage. Once one reaches a certain level of computer literacy, it is but natural to want to progress to the next level. Unfortunately, this is not possible with PCs with end-of-life components. How would one learn the features of the latest CAD/CAM application on a PC, which does not have the processing muscle to manipulate complex instructions in one cycle?

For businesses, it is even more critical not to fall into this cost-effectiveness trap. The world is becoming a fiercely competitive place. Relying on old technology to maintain profitability and economic productivity is akin to investing in a steam engine driven locomotive to achieve the efficiencies of a bullet train.

For small businesses, it is critical that they lower costs of maintenance of IT equipment and reduce the downtime resulting from viruses and hacking activities. In today's highly collaborative and connected world, spam, virus and hacking threats are the ground realities which all businesses have to contend and cope with effectively. Newer PCs come equipped with both hardware and software capabilities which enable businesses to achieve cost and productivity goals leading to greater Return on Investment on their IT purchase. Aging PCs with obsolete technologies are ill equipped to withstand such technological assaults. The consequences are potentially a paralysed IT infrastructure and loss of credibility with customers.

The "Employment Provision" Excuse: This would have been hilarious if it were not downright cruel. There are a lot more professionals associated with small and medium local business entities whose livelihood depends upon selling a certain number of new PCs to their customers. Thanks to the arrival of old PCs, these honest folk are on the verge of being thrown out of business.

With the arrival of second hand PCs, most of these companies have either wound up or were forced by their customers to quote refurbished PCs. Companies engaged in local system integration were the first casualties of this crass mercantilism. The result was that local PC volumes fell drastically as some educational institutes and medium businesses moved to this new "cost-effective" shortcut to achieving automation.

The larger effect is now being felt in the overall IT industry. Local companies engaged in integration of PCs have decreased investment in quality IT HR leading to more unemployment and slower growth. A dynamic and growing sector of the economy was suddenly faced with increasingly lower demand for new PCs. Instead of progressing, the local IT industry is now peddling hand-me-down versions of the PC. An entire generation of otherwise enterprising young people will be out in the job market with expertise in technology 15-20 years old. Would any potential local or international employer hire such a "skilled" workforce?

The government needs to sit up and take notice of this frightful development before it totally demoralises our extremely talented workforce.

The Great Leap.... Downwards: A wise man once said that an objective is noble if still nobler means are used to achieve it. It may sound like a clichÈ but there is no short-cut road to success.

Literacy and especially computer literacy cannot be achieved without properly planning and providing for the effort. Our policy makers bemoan the fact that there is a huge gap in the IT industries of Pakistan and our next-door neighbour India. What they choose to ignore is that computer literacy and the IT industry in India could not have been what it is today without honesty of purpose and a sincere effort by all stakeholders. The government there played a key role by formulating policies which created a level playing field for all local as well as foreign IT entities.

The Indian state of Kerala has achieved the enviable literacy rate of 100% not by importing obsolete technology. In fact, the government of India has banned the import of used PCs in order to protect the local IT industry and to encourage foreign investors. Indian PC brands like WIPRO and HCL (Hindustan Computers Limited) are flourishing as they compete with each other as well as foreign multi national company brands like HP, DELL and ACER.

Another important and much belittled issue is that of a health and environmental disaster in the making. Used PCs have quite few components in which lead (Pb) is a key material. This includes CPUs, motherboard and memory connectors (nowadays, copper is the material of choice). According to health experts, lead is an extremely toxic metal and if not properly disposed off can result in severe mental and physical disabilities.

How pray, and at what cost are we prepared to achieve computer literacy? How can we become an IT powerhouse when we can so brazenly put at risk the physical and mental well-being of our most precious resource, our children?

We risk exposing the minds and bodies of young people to potentially dangerous equipment.

We risk polluting our fertile lands and precious water sources. We are purchasing foreign junk, which is designated as an environment hazard in their own countries. Since their laws make it expensive for them to dispose off these environmental time-bombs, what better opportunity than this to get rid of the junk and make money into the bargain.

Who says that the East India Company mentality has left these shores?

In conclusion, the overall human and economic cost of opting for 2nd hand PCs are just not worth their seemingly attractive but limited benefits. Some people may benefit by selling and importing them and a certain class of consumers would probably welcome second hand PCs purely on the basis of their affordable price.

Just found out that you deleted the wrong spreadsheet? Forgot your Windows password? Don't despair. You can take care of these and many other goofs with the following tips.

It's amazing how fast a single keystroke or mouse click can change your life. One false move, and bang! An hour's, day's, or even lifetime's work can slip away into digital oblivion. But not everything that disappears is lost forever. These tips will help you retrieve the seemingly irretrievable: from files long ago removed from the Recycle Bin, to hard drives you pronounced dead in years past, to text messages zapped from your cell phone's SIM card. Get it back, Loretta!

Recover a missing or deleted file: The file was there just a second ago--you'd swear to it! Before you panic and start shopping for a file-recovery programme, make sure that you don't make things worse. If you're certain that you deleted the file, refrain from running any software designed to save files to the hard drive, a USB flash drive, or a memory card that the files was stored on; doing so may overwrite recoverable data.

Begin by checking the obvious. If the file isn't in XP's Recycle Bin, click Start, Search and use Windows' 'When was it modified?' option (if you don't see this option, click View, Explorer Bar, Search and in the left pane select All files and folders). In Vista, choose Start, Search, click the down arrow to the right of Advanced Search, and select Date modified in the Date dropdown menu on the left. Look for any recently created, altered, or renamed files. If you find the one you're looking for, save it onto at least two different storage devices.

If you come up empty, there's a good chance you can recover the file with an undelete utility. Two freebies--PC Inspector File Recovery and FreeUndelete--are well worth a try.

But what if you've accidentally reformatted a drive, for example? For situations where you need extra data recovery horsepower, QueTek's $49 File Scavenger offers many of the recovery capabilities of far more expensive programmes. Meanwhile, Kroll Ontrack's $500 Easy Recovery Professional is the Cadillac of data recovery programmes; it comes with Ontrack's high-powered data recovery tools and a suite of file repair utilities. Though it's too expensive for most individuals, it's not a bad investment for a small business or for a midsize company's IT department. Beware the fine print for Ontrack's stripped-down, $89 Easy Recovery Lite version, however; it allows you to recover only 25 files at a time--a major inconvenience if you have lots of data to recover.

Recover files from a dead or dying hard drive: Strange noises or an outburst of corrupted-file messages could very well portend the imminent failure of your hard drive. Copy important files to another drive or to a removable medium immediately. If you can't access some files that you simply must have, you may have to turn to an expensive data-recovery service such as DriveSavers.

Recover images and repair files

Find lost images and sounds: The recovery programmes I described above can find deleted photos (and other lost data) on most of the memory cards used in digital cameras, but you'll have a better chance of success if you use a programme designed specifically to recover photo files. Art Plus's Digital Photo Recovery and PC Inspector's Smart Recovery are free utilities that do a good job on JPEG, TIFF, and RAW files.

Repair Word and Excel files: If a Word or Excel file is garbled or won't open at all, use Microsoft's built-in file-repair tools: Click File, Open, and locate and select the damaged file. Then click the arrow on the right side of the Open button and select Open and Repair from the drop-down menu.

Repair your Word or Excel installation: When Word or Excel starts to behave badly, it's tempting to uninstall and reinstall the programme. But running Microsoft's repair utility may be a quicker and simpler solution: Open Control Panel and select Add or Remove Programmes in XP, or Uninstall a programme in Vista (in Control Panel's Classic view, double-click Programmes and Features). Find the entry for Word, Excel, or Microsoft Office, and in XP click the Change button, select either Reinstall or Repair, and follow the prompts. In Vista, click Repair at the top of the window, and step through the wizard.

Recover a lost password: It's not just a symptom of old age. Whether due to infrequent use or an abundance of protected accounts, anybody can forget a password. These tips will help you overcome your memory lapse.

Setting a security password in your PC's BIOS is a great way to keep people off your PC: Until the user enters the password, your PC won't even start.

You can reset a BIOS password on most motherboards by resetting a small electrical switch--or "jumper"--on your motherboard. Check your motherboard's manual or the vendor's Web site for instructions on how to identify and reset the jumper.

It's embarrassingly easy to bypass the Windows XP log-on password: Simply restart your PC and press the <F8> key just before Windows starts. At the Advanced Options menu, select the first option: Safe Mode.

Was Speed Racer ahead of his time? Could a real version of his car be made? According to a University of Cincinnati's School of Design professor and her students, yes. Brigid O'Kane's transportation design students were tasked to design a car based on that from "Speed Racer" and then defend their design for a grade. A new version of "Speed Racer" takes to the big screen recently as a Warner Bros. movie. Live actors portray Speed and Trixie, plus the other stock characters from the series: Mom and Pop Racer, Sparky (their mechanic), Spritle (Speed's younger brother), Chim Chim (Spritle's pet chimpanzee), Rex (Speed's older brother) and Inspector Detector. The movie's Mach 5 reportedly is an actual car, but all its special effects were computer-generated. "With the right funding and the right experts committed to making it work, any of the Mach 5 features could be produced," O'Kane said.

Research In Motion recently introduced its first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year: the Bold, a high-end model that further demonstrates the company's desire to make tools for both work and play. The Bold, or 9000, has twice the screen resolution of the current Curve model, making for a very sharp display. It matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple's iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the "smart phone" category. It also has much more internal memory, a glossy metallic look, and adds corporate-strength Wi-Fi capabilities to third-generation cellular and Bluetooth radios. Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM didn't announce a price for the Bold, nor agreements with specific carriers. It said that the phone would be available from various carriers this summer.