Prey is an anti-theft security program that can be used with any Android mobile-phone, Wi-Fi ready laptop, desktop or tablet computer. You can choose to get a free basic version or a paid plan ($5/month, $15/month, $39/month, $99/month, and $399/month).

Prey Pro-Plans can be hooked up to multiple devices. If your computer or phone gets stolen, Prey will accurately track down its location. It would then send you a report as to the geographical location of your device. In addition it would send you information about the status of your phone or PC, the applications that are running, active connections and even a snapshot of the thief (if your PC has a working webcam!).

The first thing that Prey will do once your PC gets stolen is check if there is an internet connection within its immediate surroundings. If none are found, the application will then look for available Internet access points and then attempt to establish a connection. Once connection has been established, Prey will identify the coordinates of the location of your device and then send you a report. It can even provide you with information on what floor of a building your computer is at because it comes with an altitude locating feature.

You can even set-up Prey to lock your device once it has been stolen, which would prevent the thief from using your PC or phone. Once your computer or phone has been locked it can only be accessed after the correct password information has been supplied. Another cause of concern for you if someone stole your PC is that your passwords to sensitive accounts or applications might get accessed by unauthorized parties. With Prey, you can kiss this worry away as you can set up this application to remove important information such as passwords from your PC. You can also configure Prey to hide your Outlook and Thunderbird data.

If your PC has a working webcam, Prey can take a snapshot of the thief while they are fiddling with your computer. You can then pass these images to the authorities and also save them as evidence. You would also be informed as to what applications in your device are being used without consent. What’s more once you have the Prey installed in your device you need not have to periodically check for updates as the application will automatically update itself. Installation is very easy as you can just download a copy of Prey from the Internet.

Windows and Mac. Even password-protected and encrypted public wifi connections aren’t as secure as you think.  There remains the potential for a 12 year old prodigy to steal your passwords and credit card details.  Also,  with ISPs being forced by government agencies to publish details of your surfing habits, you may want to think about securing all your browsing and downloading habits.  With this simple secure VPN solution from Hotspot Shield, you can be sure your browsing and socialising is secure from prying eyes, your ISP, and even your employer.

Use the comments below to say about your use of public hotspots.

Hotspot Shield is completely free and protects your entire web surfing session; securing both your home internet connection and public internet hotspots. It can be used to secure both wired and wireless networks.  Hotspot Shield protects your identity by ensuring all web transactions (shopping, filling out forms, downloads) are secured through HTTPS. Hotspot Shield also ensures your identity is invisible to third party websites and ISP’s

Hotspot Shield creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and their Internet gateway. This tunnel prevents snoopers, hackers or ISP’s, from viewing your web browsing activities, instant messages, downloads, credit card information or anything else you send over the network.

Simply download the small application from Hotspot Shield, and wait for it to install.   Once completed, a small icon will appear in your system tray indicating if you’re connected or not.

Click Connect/On and a browser will open up, and start to establish a secure connection. Hotspot Shield uses a secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnel to encrypt all your internet traffic from anyone (including your ISP) who may be listening for it.

Once connected with Hotspot Shield, you’ll be able to see further details of the connection including your secure IP address.  This new IP addresses means no one will be able to see your real IP address, determine your identity or hijack your session.  Given the importance of online security, I wouldn’t leave home without Hotspot shield.

Hotspot Shield runs on:

• Windows 7
• Windows XP
• Windows 2000
• Windows Vista
• Mac OS X (10.4 Tiger)
• Mac OS X (10.5 Leopard)
• Mac OS X (10.6 Snow Leopard)

Visit Hotspot Shield

Use the comments below to say about your use of public hotspots.

You can use the comments section below to tell us about your fight against spam.

Unlike most email systems, Gmail simply ignores a full stop / period / (.)  in any email address.  Go ahead and try it.

If you add any number of full stops into the name part of your email address, Gmail will simply omit them, and forward email to your proper account.  In fact, Gmail will even let you login using an address with full stops.   No matter how many full stops you use, all the emails will end up in the same email box.  For example,  the following are all the same email account.

John.Smith@gmail.com

JohnSmith@gmail.com

John..Smith@gmail.com

J.ohn.S.mith@gmailcom

We’ve written before about creating temporary and disposable email addresses,  But, you can use this long forgotten feature to create temporary and disposable email addresses with minimum fuss.

When you have to give out an email address, simply add any number of full stops into the address when you provide it.  If that email address is then sold on to other parties,  you’ll then be able to tell exactly who sold on your address.

You then need to setup a filter  in Gmail to forward any mail to that address to the Trash.  Click on the link inside Gmail to Create a Filter, and type the email address with the full stops into the To: box.

Click on the Next Step button,  and then select the “Delete It” check box. Any mail sent to this account will now be forwarded directly to Trash and will never bother you again.

You can use the comments section below to tell us about your fight against spam.

With namechk.com you can quickly check dozens of sites, including all the popular ones, to see if the name has already been taken.

Use the comments below to tell us how you fair across multiple social media sites.

The site instantly shows you if your desired or branded username is available at the majority of the top social media websites. By typing your username into the “chk” search box, it will query all the social sites listed on the page and display whether the username is taken or available.

This is a fantastic help to promote a brand consistently by registering a username that is still available on the majority of the most popular sites.

Visit namechk.com

Use the comments below to tell us how you fair across multiple social media sites.

Keeping a grip on how the web sees you is more difficult than ever with the proliferation of social networks.

With this great website from Yasni,  you can find out exactly how the web sees you.  With more and more recruitment agencies turning to the web and Facebook to check job applicants,  it’s a good idea to make sure they only see what you want them to see!   You can also discover alter-egos and celebrities with the same name as you.

Yasni aggregates all publicly available personal information on the web from a variety of sources including Twitter, MySpace, Amazon wish lists,  Bebo, IMDB, Google, Bing and many more. Yasni claims to be the world’s leading people search engine with 50 million page views per month and approximately 22 million monthly visitors in five countries.

Simply type your name into the search box, and wait for the results.  You’ll quickly see results of personal interests and contacts, Amazon wish lists,  business profiles, private homepages and websites, publications you may have “written” (or claim to have written!), video and audio files, news and reports, celebrities and politicians, postings on Bebo and MySpace and more.

Yasni also gives a list of what they call “bad news”, i.e. criminal activity, deaths and bereavements.  So you’ll be able to tell if someone is claiming you’ve already popped your clogs!

Protect your reputation – create your own online profile

The Yasni Exposé feature allows you to create a personal online profile which brings together all your legitimate activity across Twitter, MySpace, Amazon,  Bebo, IMDB and Google.

With the Yasni Exposé, you can organize your web links, profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bebo etc) and photos ensuring the best impression on new employers, partners or business contacts. People looking up your name will be directed to your Yasni Exposé – and you decide which links are listed there!

I can’t say I like the overly intrusive pop-up advertising, which does somewhat spoil an otherwise excellent web site.

Visit yasni.com

Other similar sites

Reputation Defender

Having a temporary disposable email address is really useful to register for web sites which insist you provide a valid email address. If the site insists on sending you a password, and you don’t want to dish out your own identity,  why not try one of these free great services.

This website provides you with disposable e-mail addresses which expire after 60 Minutes. You can read and reply to e-mails that are sent to the temporary e-mail address within the given time frame. Simply click the link to create a new temporary email address and then re-load the page to see if you’ve received any mail.  If you navigate away from the page,  as long as your go back within the 60 minutes, it automatically remembers your temporary email address and shows you any messages.  You can also extend the validity of the email address beyond the default 60 minutes if you need to.

Interestingly, they also let you see the subjects of the emails received by other users of this service which isn’t ideal.

Visit Guerrillamail.com

This website allows you to generate an anonymous alias that will forward to your real email address. It will automatically be deleted after either your set time or message limit has been reached.  Simply enter your real email address, and the time or message limit, and a temporary email address is generated.

Visit tempalias.com

This web site also allows you to create a temporary email address which forwards to your real email address.You can create an email address that’s valid for between 3 and 24 hours. It also provides you with a neat pop-up window displaying your new disposable email address in case you don’t have a pen and paper.  Now also available for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Visit meltmail.com

Mailinator allows you to create a temporary email address by giving it any name you like.  Simply type your alias name into the box on the screen, and give that address to any websites that demand it.  Then come back to mailinator and check your disposable email account. You can read and reply to e-mails that are sent to the temporary e-mail address and there isn’t any time limit.  You can also pick up the email from your temporary address using RSS and Atom feeds.

Visit mailinator.com

Many Windows applications which contain usernames and passwords to accounts such as email, and web sites only show the password back to you as a series of asterisks. Once you’ve typed in the password you won’t be able to see it again. However,  for the occasions where you need to see the password again, this cool little tool can help you. 

With ShowPassword from scalabium,  you’ll have access to any password in a Windows dialog hidden as a series of asterisks.

Download the tool and expand it to a folder (no install required).  You then need to hover over the encoded password,  and ShowPassword displays the hidden characters as decoded text.

Works with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and WIndows 7.

Download [via Scalabium]

Fakenamegenerator.com allows you to pick a gender and country to create yourself an alter-ego.  Details provided include a postal address, website address, email address and password, phone number, mother’s maiden name, birthday, social security number, etc, etc.  All details are generated completely randomly from a large database of public domain sources and comply with various acceptable formats, i.e., postcode format, phone number format etc.  The credit card numbers also generated use inactive prefixes to ensure they are not used for fraud.

Visit Fakenamegenerator.com