How To Merge Avi Movies With VirtualDub

VirtualDub is a software with the ability to merge avi files.
You can also use this tutorial for other purposes, for instance to merge episodes of a TV series, or multiple videos that you have shot with your camcorder, digital camera or smartphone. Everything is possible as long as the input format of the videos is avi.

First download the latest version of VirtualDub from the official website. Unpack the portable software to your hard drive after download, and run the VirtualDub.exe afterwards.

You load the first movie with a click on File --> Open Video File. Click on File again and select Append Avi Segment for each additional part that you have as a file on your hard drive.

You can only load one movie at a time, which makes the process somewhat unhandy if you have many different parts.

Switch to the Video menu and make sure Full Processing Mode is selected there. Click on Compression under Video afterwards, and select one of the available video codecs. Please note that you need suitable codecs installed on your system for a solid result that offers a good image quality and suitable file size.

You can furthermore add filters to the process, for instance if you would like to resize the video, change the brightness and contrast or add a logo to one of the corners. You can preview the changes by pressing enter or by selecting File > Preview Filtered.
Once you have made your selection select File > Save as Avi and pick a directory on the local hard drive to save the video to.

 VirtualDub will display a status window where you can get information about the current processing status, as well as an estimation of the file size of the new video file. You can jack up the process priority if your computer is idle otherwise.
And that’s it. Just wait for the process to finish. It is recommended to play the video once on your hard drive to make sure that the merging was successful and without errors like out of sync audio.

How to Dismantle and Destroy a Hard Drive

There are a ton of reasons why you might want to physically destroy a hard drive rather than use disk wiping software:

higher confidence that the data is destroyed, a recourse if your drive has failed and no longer accessible, and sheer fun.

If the thermite method and other extreme physical disposal methods aren't for you, dismantling the drive to get to the platters is an alternative method.

The main process involves removing the screws around the outside of the drive, pulling out the screws holding the electronics, and then popping the cover off.

After removing the magnets, you can get to the platters, the heart of your hard drive.

First run the magnets over the platters to degauss them. Because that's not a guarantee that the data is unrecoverable, you should then physically destroy the platters, bend them or break them with a hammer or saw them into pieces.

And that will be the end of those discs and the data on them.

The video below shows how Google use a disk crushers and the destruction of old hard drives to prevent leakage of customer data.