If you have a Maxtor/Seagate drive anywhere in your system here is a clone drive utility on MaxBlast tools and if you are a W/D guy it is in the Data Lifeguard tools (the one you get with a "retail" pack drive)
I use Max Blast and if that system doesn't have a Maxtor in it I just plug one in. The software just needs to see it. You don't actually have to use it for anything. It could probably be dead as long as it is still alive enough to report when the software polls it.
That has been true for a very long time. The bank does a "capture" run on the checks as soon as they can get them to the processing center (the same day for sure) and that run sends the MICR data to the fed to clear the check by about 9PM local time By Midnight EST/EDT al the checks that were captured are cleared.
There is a huge stink if the bank has sorter trouble and does not make capture. It costs them the interest on that money for a day.
Yet they still tell you an out of state takes 2 weeks to clear or whatever they can get away with but they are sitting on the money. The only time this may really be true is if there is some kind of fraud and they don't spot it right away but I bet that still happens in 24 hours.
If you win the lotto, the first thing you need is a safety deposit box. The original ticket goes in the box. NOBODY sees the original ticket except you. Don't tell your wife, your cousin, your best friend, your bartender, your cell-mate, or even your dog. DON'T SHOW THE ORIGINAL TICKET TO ANYBODY until you have everything you want (see below).
You make copies, front and back (after you've signed the back of the ticket). These copies will serve for the remainder of the process. (You can put anything else you want in the box, but we're just talking about a winning lotto ticket), and you put the original in the safety deposit box. Cost: $100 per year. Shit. You're a millionaire. You can afford it.
Then you see a lawyer, a financial advisor, a tax accountant, and no one else. No wife. No bartender. Not even your dog. (You can surprise them later, circumstances warranting.)
You can't "vanish out of the system." The best you can hope for is relative anonymity. Tax agencies in the United States, the state you live in, and perhaps your county, town, or other local government entity, will be notified as soon as you step forward to claim your winnings. They'll be taking some of that ticket as soon as you produce the original to lotto officials.
You CAN, however, keep your name out of the general press (your lawyer will help with this). And this is a good thing. Most lotto winners are so happy about their windfall that they blab to everybody they know about it in very loud, happy terms. As soon as your name is published in the general press, con-men, grifters, long lost "relatives," "deserving" non-profits, capital investment specialists, J. G. Wentworth, and the Pope himself will come crawling out of the woodwork to "share" your good fortune with the world (meaning, mostly, themselves).
Your life will never be the same. And the changes won't be all light and roses. The reality of handling millions of dollars of personal money will overwhelm you like a cancer. You will curse the day you bought the ticket.
Ask me how I know.
Frank
Yes, I've read all the horror stories. That is why the thought of the cash settlement (minus Ceasar's share, of course), converted to stacks of used 50 and 100 dollar bills, and hidden away, is so appealing. With no interest income or investment income or whatever, there is no further tax obligation in most states. Move to a small town somewhere, buy a shack in the boonies, and don't give anyone the new address or phone number.
You forgot "move to Florida" or some other no income tax state. Establish residency, then cash your ticket. You usually have 180 days, plenty of time to sell your house, buy a house, title your vehicles, register to vote etc.
Plus, you can get 16GB micro-mini-SDHC/DX cards
According to wikiP they are 11.0mm by 15.0mm by 1.0mm thick with a volume of 165sq mm and a mass of 0.27 grams. The standard supports 2TB - we'll see. Right now, 16GB is enough. First started seeing them in cellphones and video pen recorders, now they're everywhere. Not sure if they're all the same - the ones I get are labeled Transflash or TF. For a guy who used to work with 5MB Bernoulli carts, the idea that I can fit 3 million Bernoulli disk's (about 8 x 12 x 1") worth of data on something you could hide between two quarters is pretty amazing. In a year or two I might even deem them reliable, but it's too early to tell. So far, no bit errors when copying.
The real problem with typical offsite backups is that you've got a bootable image for a burned up machine. That sometimes turns into a royal panic hunting for a machine to restore to when you've got to recover data quickly. Data and programs are horribly intermingled in typical systems and then the OS ties that all to the particular hardware it is running on. So a backup Ghost type image made on one machine usually won't boot on machine with even a modest configuration change. Things get even dicier when the client is two or three versions behind the latest software version. Ebay has been a godsend for many, allowing them to scarf up exactly the same machine they used to have for a decent discount. Of course, that's all most policies will give them for the dead machines, so it's still a hassle.
-- Bobby G.
VERY amazing!!!
If only gas mileage, 401K income or solar panel efficiency matched the gains in memory capacity in the last few decades. A 2 TB hard disk costs $100 these days. I remember paying $600 for one of the early 20MB drives. It would take 1000 of them to equal 2TB (I think!) - that would be $600,000 in
20MB drives.-- Bobby G.
agree!
computing power has become cheap
and good thing too!
Now if decent connections at home would get cheap, I could work from home a couple days a week, and save some gas money.... (Trying to run a VPN client through a 384 pipe just Does Not Cut It.)
As an aside, have you tried Mikogo (mikogo.com)? It's a remote-control or demonstration tool that does not require installation on the remote computer and is free, even for commercial use.
Not An Option, sadly. Company (the Feds) machine. I only still have admin rights on it because they forgot about me, but when I get issued a replacement sometime this year, it will be locked down hard.
-- aem sends...
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