Sarah FalsonAustralians do strange things to their technology, often in an effort to act as Mr Fixit, with a leading data recovery company revealing a list of the 10 deadliest sins performed on computers this year.
According to data recovery company OnTrack, 2007 saw more reports than ever of ‘whacky’ computer problems caused by water, ant infestations and spilt acid, to name a few.
 |
Most sins were reported by users of mobile technology, with an increased number of people reporting dropping phones and cameras in the sea, in toilets or even in a bowl of baby food.
OnTrack kept a list of data recovery service calls it received throughout the year and provided its favourites for publication:
10. A woman called Ontrack Data Recovery engineers complaining she had ‘washed all her data away’. Her USB stick had been through a cycle in her washing machine and unsurprisingly she couldn’t retrieve any data from it.
9. Rushing home from work to feed his baby daughter, an over-enthusiastic father forgot about the USB stick in his top pocket. As he lent over the high-chair, the device fell in a dish of sticky apple puree.
8. A fisherman thought that he would take his laptop along to play a few games whilst waiting for a bite in his rowing boat. As he stood up, both he and the laptop went overboard, taking all his data to the bottom of the lake.
7. A wedding photographer faced the potential wrath of a new bride when he discovered he had overwritten her photos with ones from another event.
6. A scientist spilt acid on an external hard drive during an experiment. Thinking all the data had been burnt, he called in the experts, who were able to successfully recover the data on the drive.
5. In the heat of an argument, an Australian businessman threw a USB stick at his partner. Containing valuable company plans, the stick ended up in several pieces on the floor.
4. A fire destroyed the majority of the contents of an office, only leaving a few CDs. The sticking point was they had melted to the inside of their cases – a unique job for the engineers.
3. A British scientist was fed up with his hard drive squeaking, so he drilled a hole through the casing and poured oil into the mechanics. The squeaking stopped, and so did the hard drive.
2. In an effort to test the functionality of a parachute, a camera (acting as the cargo) was dropped from a plane. Unfortunately, the parachute failed its test and the fragile cargo shattered into several pieces.
1. Discovering ants had taken up residence in his external hard drive, a photographer in Thailand took the cover off and sprayed the interior with insect repellent.