My local Office Depot offers drop-off recycling services for computers, monitors, and small electronics. Unlike prior offerings of the same, this one you pay for. Buy the size box you need (which includes a pre-paid recycling fee), take it home, fill it up, and return it whenever you want. Compared to what I’ve paid elsewhere it’s a pretty good deal, so I recently bought a few.

While rummaging through my gadget graveyard I came across a couple of old Palm PDAs. After tossing them into a box it occurred to me that their flash RAM conceivably might hold semi-sensitive information. I had used a data encryption tool on at least one, and for all I knew its encryption mechanism was cracked five years ago. And since both had died sudden deaths, I hadn’t even been able to delete the data let alone properly wipe it.

Grumbling to myself, I came up with three options: trash the flash, smash the flash, or perform flashectomy.

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