Keep your private data private
Everybody today has something on the computer they don't want everybody to see. May it be private pictures or text documents. I have seen people who recorded their whole lives on the computer. You can imagine what can happen if these files fall in the wrong hands. What if your computer gets hacked or your home is broken into and the computer is stolen, it can be as simple as having the computer repaired and the computer technician takes a peek at your harddrive. I have even heard of local cases where harddrives have been copied by a technician to be examined later. To keep your private information safe you can encrypt them. Encryption can range from single files over parts of the harddrive to the entire computer. Not all encryptions are equal. The built in encryption of Windows XP Professional is more like a joke for a hacker. To get serious protection you can get a number of FREE high end encryption programs. See links below.
None of these encryptions has been broken, not even by the NSA. The actual weak point is your password. Usually people get lazy when it comes to passwords. Something like “love” or “000” takes just minutes to crack. Birth dates and names are an equally bad idea. The point of a password is NOT to be remembered easily but to make it hard to crack. A password should look more like this “Y6/hKscnT5/q9”. To remember passwords there is still pen and paper. Or you can use one of the many password safes, also links below.
An encryption subcategory is steganography. StegaWhat you might ask. Well steganography is a pretty safe and fun way of encryption. Steganography hides an encrypted file inside a picture. Nobody would actually notice without appropriate software and password. See pictures below.

This one is just a picture.

This one contains a secret message. You can decrypt it with the “Hide In Picture” software from the links below. Password is “pass” (without the quotes).

If you think when you delete a file it is gone, you are wrong. By deleting a file you just tell the computer that the space where the file was can be written to again. The information is physically still there and can be recovered, in some cases years after deletion. Makes you think twice about selling that use computer, doesn't it. But of course there is help and we have links to a whole bunch of great free software this week.