Lots of websites collect personal information – some are just more obvious when doing it.

There are those sites that ask for personal information up front before granting the user access. Often, site visitors are asked for their name and e-mail address before gaining access. The Internet is a public place, so how anonymous are you? When you visit any web page, you leave traces of where you’ve been. Worse, if you share a computer, someone can see what you’ve been up to online in just a few clicks.

But there is a way to maintain your privacy through erasing the digital footprints that remain after you close your browser.

What’s important? When you want to cover your online tracks, consider removing the following: browser histories, cookies, cache files, AutoComplete information, e-mail trash, and log files created by chat programs and your internet connection. You can delete these items yourself, or install a program to do it for you.

Here are the 8 best ways to cover your online tracks:

1. Remove Most Recently Used (MRU) list

Most programs keep an MRU list showing the last used items. The most recently opened documents list is one of the ones you might be interested in, as it shows the last documents you’ve opened. You can remove or clear the list in one of several ways.

In Windows XP, you can right-click on the Start Menu, choose Properties > Start Menu > Customize > Advanced > Clear List. You can then uncheck “List my most recently opened documents” to prevent it from keeping a list in the future. Another method would be to manually remove it from the registry. Any time you tweak the registry, you run the risk of damaging your system so do so at your own risk.

If you want to remove the MRU from the registry, the key is found at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and then remove the key for “Recent Docs”. Again, back up your registry before you make any changes, there is always the risk of damage to your system.

(more…)

Overwhelmed and disorganized? Are you fumbling through your day, buried under a mountain of sticky notes and scribbled reminders? It seems like there’s too many tasks and not enough time to get it all done.

As we all try to get to the Four Hour Work Week, we’re always running to catch up on responsibilities and squeeze in that little bit extra to stay ahead of the game.

Everyone is looking for the perfect solution in self-organization. A key ingredient to getting it all done is to maximize and use your time efficiently, allowing you to maximize your productivity.

(more…)

No program is a substitute for parental supervision, but some monitoring tools help you control where your children go online.

It’s great to have a tool that complements your shrewd set of eyes, but you still need to teach your children to be cautious when surfing the internet.

(more…)

Whether it’s tools in mapping, security, DVD burning etc. we are always on the lookout for the latest and greatest features out there. Below are what we felt made the top of the list in 15 different software categories.

1. Tops in parental control

The new version of the web filtering program, Net Nanny, is great for parents who want to monitor their children’s activities but aren’t very technically savvy.

Its filters allow you to block material on the Web and manage what parents want their children to see. Parents can also get a monthly list of inappropriate websites and edit block lists so they’re always in control of what their children can and cannot see.

A white list can also be created so that only the websites on the list can be visited or viewed. Keyword lists can be created to filter out vulgar or inappropriate terms on web pages and on emails.

(more…)

Anti-virus programs are pretty much an essential component of every Windows PC these days. 

Unless you logged out of Prodigy and went to sleep for the last 20 years, you are more than likely aware of just how prevalent, and how dangerous computer viruses can be.  On the low end they can be annoying either flashing a silly message or slowing your computer down.  On the high side, they could completely destroy your system and its data, or open holes for identity thieves and hackers.

Surfing online without an updated anti-virus  program is like crossing the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.  It’s not a matter of if you’re going to run into to trouble, it’s a matter of when.

(more…)

Elephantware. That’s what download.com calls them: programs that, like tanks, pull you down with the undertow and slow your PC to a crawl, causing it to freeze up while you’re in mid-sentence.

You don’t want them, you don’t need them, and you can get rid of them and replace them with friendlier less bulky counterparts. So what are they?

Here’s a list of the top five most annoying elephantware programs:

(more…)

Wordpress is one of the most popular blogging platforms today, and for good reason.  It’s extremely easy to install and can run on Windows or Apache web servers.  There are also thousands of plugins available to extend it’s functionality.

Plugins are additional pieces of code that are "plugged in" to the WordPress core to extend its capabilities, add new features, or enhance existing features.  There are many extremely useful plugins, which will vary depending on how you intend to use your blog. 

No matter your intended use, however, there are a few plugins that no WordPress installation should be without.  Check out some of our most useful plugins.

(more…)

Every time you surf the web, or do something on your computer, you leave tracks of where you have been and what you were doing.

Whether that means pictures, movies, URLs, browser history, etc., it all leaves clues as to your online and offline behaviors.

Privacy means something different to everyone.  Many people aren’t concerned with someone else being able to see where they’ve been online, what files they’ve downloaded, etc.  Other people are VERY concerned and go to great lengths to cover their tracks online.

When covering your tracks online, there are two main areas of concern. 

1. Covering your online activity (masking your IP address), clearing cache and browser history, etc.
2. Covering your offline (local) activity, what files you’ve opened, programs you’ve run, etc.

Here are our Top 5 Ways to address both of these areas.

(more…)

I just recently came across Microsoft’s new blogging client, Live Writer, which allows you to create blog posts to multiple blogging accounts offline, and synchronize, or publish, them your blogs.

The biggest advantage to this is you get full WYSIWYG functionality, and a much bigger area to write your posts.

You also have the added benefit of being able to insert pictures quickly and adjust as needed. There are of course other products on the market that do very similar things, some that integrate directly into your browser, like the Firefox plugin scribefire.

You can download Microsoft’s Live Writer from their website. Although it’s still in beta, it seems to have all the features most people would be looking for.