Hacktivate

20 minutes ago I was tweaking a NSIS installer that I wrote when I got
a phone call from a guy named Mandira. He said that he had a broken
flash memory card and was wondering if I could fix it for him. He said
he had received my phone number from my wife, so I told him I probably
could not fix it but if we wanted to have me look at it he should
come over to my house. He said he would be here in 5 minutes. And
indeed he was. He was a really nice guy, but I was unable to help him.
He lost all of the data he needs for a board meeting next week. I asked
him how he knew my wife, and he said he didn't but that someone had
told him that the husband of someone at OIBM knew how to recover data.
You see, a week after we arrived in Malawi the laptop that Claudia was
given had a hard disk crash, and a ton of crucial data was on the disk.
I told her to not let anybody mess with it until I could boot Knoppix
on it. The IT staff was worried that I was going to open the case and
void the warranty. When I explained I could do it all without using a
screwdriver, they let me do it. Knoppix helped me get 99.9% of the data
off of the computer (which a month later is still in the shop). OIBM's
IT staff want me to show them my tricks (just booting Knoppix, then
copying data over a network or onto a USB drive) but we haven't gotten
around to it yet. Apparently, though,  my reputation has gotten
around. Too bad I couldn't have fixed this guys USB drive, but then
again, having strangers calling for IT help could get to be distracting.