Thus, some clever webmasters have come up with alternate ways to allow their web sites to know that "you are you" as you move around on their site. A very sloppy method consists of adding a username and password on to end of each URL.

For example, suppose you log into a shopping site with a username and password like so:

URL: http://www.anyshoppingsite.com Username: innocent Password: naive

If you moved to a page called "toys.htm", URL might become:

http://www.anyshoppingsite.com?u=innocent?p=naive

You see problem? Not yet? Okay, there is no problem as you move around from page to page within shopping site. The problem results when you surf to another page outside of shopping site.

What happens? Well, if you surfed to another site from page above, that URL complete with username and password would be added to server log files. Guess what, your username and password just got recorded in plain text somewhere completely unexpected.

So what's problem really? Well, let's say you went to your shopping site, logged in and made some purchases. To make it simple for you, your credit card numbers are stored on site and you can retrieve them at any time after you are logged in. Everything seems safe because you need a username and password to get in.

Now, when you are finished shopping you are supposed to log out. This would remove username and password from referrer. However, you don't do this and instead surf to another site. You leave your username and password in that webmasters log files. If that webmaster happens to check his log files he could get your username and password, log into your account and get your credit card numbers.

Are you alarmed yet?

Okay, how do you stop this from happening? It's relatively easy, actually. You get a product called AdSubtract and install it on your computer. By default this product will remove referrer field as you surf around. You are now protected.

Oh yes, one side effect is you cannot just surf to that shopping site, since login information is removed by AdSubtract. Fortunately, AdSubtract allows you to configure exceptions. All you need to do is enter "filters" section, add your shopping site and specify to not remove referrer.

And that, my friends, is how you protect yourself from one of internet's biggest gaping security holes. I hope this has been of use to you.

Now, regardless of whether you are using a separate drive, a partition or just a folder, do following.

Create a subfolder called "Backups". Under that folder create some additional subfolders for things you want to save. You might create "Stationary" for your outlook stationary and "Fonts" for your font files. For example, if you had a folder called "C:My Stuff" you would create following:

C:My StuffBackups C:My StuffBackupsFonts C:My StuffBackupsStationary

Now use a program such as Second Copy to copy files from your system fonts folder (remember it's usually called "C:WindowsFonts") to your own backup copy of Fonts. (If you don't want to purchase a program like Second Copy, you'll do these steps by hand or with some other backup package). Do same for stationary files.

Now, create some additional folders under your main folder. These are completely up to you, and should somehow organize your work. You might wind up with something like example below:

C:My StuffHome C:My StuffHomeDownloads C:My StuffHomeGames C:My StuffHomeScripts C:My StuffWork C:My StuffWorkInventories C:My StuffWorkMemos C:My StuffWorkWork In Progress

Now, as you work, just be sure and save things in proper folders. Oh yes, remember to move your old stuff into new folders as well.

Now comes important part. Use your backup program to create a backup. I personally like to set up Second Copy to back up everything from "C:My Stuff..." onto a writeable CD. I keep same CD in drive for a week or a month or whatever my backup cycle is (the amount of time before I change media).

I then tell Second Copy to do this copy from "C:My Stuff..." onto writeable CD once every day. Second Copy is pretty smart and only makes a copy of files that have changed. Once a month or so, I remove CD and put it on a shelf, then insert and format a new CD. This ensures I can always go back if necessary.

The beauty of this backup method is that once it is set up it almost completely runs itself. Second Copy keeps making backups as long as there is something to write to in writeable CD drive. All you need to do is occasionally remove CD, and insert and format another one.

The disadvantage of this method over a full backup is if you do have a complete disaster you have to completely rebuild your system and reinstall your applications.

To sum it all up:

- Choose a backup media such as writeable CD - Choose a backup product such as Second Copy - Ensure that you can rebuild your system at any time by keeping your original installation materials. - Create a folder for your stuff - Create a subfolder called Backup and subfolders under that for anything that you want to keep from system or applications area. - Set up Second Copy (or a similar program) to create back ups of those files. - Create subfolders in your stuff folder for rest of your stuff - Set up your backup program to back up all of your stuff (including backups of system and application stuff) onto writeable CD or other media. - Remove media occasionally and replace so you have a backup outside of your actual machine.

I know it sounds complicated, but believe me, it's a lot simpler than going through frustration of having no backup of your critical files.