How to Properly Wipe and Return a Laptop

This week, I had the chance to experience something that is a rare occurrence: returning a laptop to my employer. Microsoft has been good to me, and I wanted to make sure I properly returned the laptop to them and saved both them and me from hassle.

In this blog, I will describe a process for properly wiping a laptop of data and making it ready for a new owner. You may want to use this advice if you plan to sell an old machine to a friend too.

An Interesting Blog to Follow

I know some of you track Conor Cunningham’s blog, which I highly recommend. The information on query optimizers is rather sparse out there – and it is a real privilege when people who know what they are talking about share their information freely on a blog. There are just not that many of them.

Here is something to think about in that context: Even if you are only interested in SQL Server, there are good things to be learned from studying other database engines – they are after all very similar. One of the good blogs for that purpose is the Oracle optimizer blog: http://blogs.oracle.com/optimizer/. It is delightfully free from marketing, and packed with good stuff. Don’t worry about the fact that they like textual query plans over there in Oracle. You might be used to viewing plans graphically, but I am sure you agree that such minor difference in display preferences can be set aside in the name of reading good material.

Tips for the Frequent Traveler

A bit off topic: I just stumbled on Paul Randal’s blog post about travel tips that he and Kimberly is sharing. I found it very interesting to read the way they travel. I am personally a very frequent traveler (250K miles clocked up on One World last two years) – so I wanted to share my travel tips. Following Paul’s structure: