Secure Erase for PCs?

[Dale Thorn]

Steve Schear wrote:
> >Steve Schear wrote:[snip]
> >I've been watching for a lot of years, and I'm sick of those bastards
> >at Apple.  Those scumbags not only make a flimsy and unreliable computer,
> >they won't repair the machine either.  Too bad Ted Kazynski(sp?) didn't
> >have a grudge against Apple, the scumbag creeps.

> I'm sorry your ownership experience hasn't been pleasant.  I've owned six
> and installed a hundred or so as a consultant (along with many Wintel
> systems) with great reliability.  Only one of the machines I know of has
> needed service, and this because it was operated in a dirty shop-floor
> environment w/o an enclosure or even periodic internal cleaning.  Since
> I've not had to have one repaired under warranty I can't vouch for their
> committment to good service.  I'm puzzeled at your reaction.

I hope you don't mind my adding this to the list, but since I posted
something very pertinent several days ago and got *no* reaction, and
since it was something very significant, I wanna try it one more time:

This experience on your part, of installing 100-plus Macs with only one
needing service, is beyond amazing.  Most computer people will readily
admit that HP (for example) is the best, reliability-wise, yet I have
purchased quite a few of their computers and major peripherals over the
past 20 years, and I have experienced an approximate 40% (!) defective
rate during the one-year warranty period, more than 30% falling within
the first three months.

As to why I still use their stuff - it's because the others are worse,
a fact which is almost universally agreed on.  How can this possibly
be, you ask?  Could it be really bad luck?  No. Could it be mishandling?
No.  For a reality check, another famed electronics vendor, Sony, has
the same problem, but even worse than HP.  Unfortunately, in the Sony
case, their products don't wear well after fixing, excepting a couple
of their rather expensive "professional" series products.

I suspect that the 100-plus Apple owners don't really use the machines,
otherwise, if they were so reliable, why does Apple desperately avoid
repairing their own products, when HP has provided top-level professional
technicians (not boys in dusty back rooms of cheap-ass computer stores)
to fix their products, and done so consistently ever since the beginning
of the PC business in 1966?