When the kids were little you installed safety outlets, put a lock on the knife drawer, and padded sharp-edged furniture. Now that they’re older you can get rid of those old gadgets–and install a whole new round of safety tools on the computer. Parental control software lets you steer kids away from bad Web sites and bad choices.

There are plenty of different products for different parenting styles. You can lock the kids out of adult Web sites, control when they can use the computer, and limit their instant messaging to parentally-approved pals. Or you can eschew limits but log their every activity silently. Many of the products can send violation notifications while you’re away from home and even let you tweak parental control settings remotely. Which one’s right for you? Check out PC Magazine’s roundup of 12 Tools to Keep Kids Safe Online.

PassPub generates unique passwords to give individuals increased security. Passwords are used everyday to gain access to personal information e.g. email, banking, online shopping. Standard guidance given on selecting secure passwords is to use a combination of letters and numbers. This is a task ideally suited to a computer generated process.

PassPub provides many easy ways to obtain a randomly generated unique password to protect your personal information.

https://www.passpub.com

Browser Security Test is a registration-free service that scans your browser for security issues. It works on Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera browsers. The service is free and takes a couple minutes, depending on your connection speed.

http://bcheck.scanit.be

TrueCrypt is a popular and free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP , Mac OS X, and Linux. Version 5.0 was just released.

Main Features:

Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.

Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive.

Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.

Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:

1. Hidden volume (steganography – more information may be found here).
2. No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).

Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.Download TrueCrypt 5.0

Nobody likes backing up files. Quite frankly, it’s boring, so the job needs to be very simple and require as little effort as possible, for both backing up and restoring the data.

I’ve tried a few online backup solutions. I found most of them were either too confusing to set up, or didn’t give me the options I specifically needed. Of course security is also a major issue. You are backing your files up to a remote server. Who has access to those files?

Enter Mozy. An online backup solution getting quite a bit of attention. In September of 2007, Mozy was acquired for $76 million by EMC Corporation, a public storage company with a $40 billion market cap. It’s safe to say that they’re not going anywhere any time soon.

First thing first; security. Mozy wins major points for wonderful use of encryption; something a lot of other online backup solutions do not offer. When you use the software, your files are encrypted on your computer using 448-bit Blowfish encryption and then transferred to the Mozy servers using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.

They also give you the option of using a random generated encryption key they create or your own private key to encrypt your data. If you use your own private key, you must be very careful about not losing it because if you do, your data is pretty much gone forever. They will not help you decrypt your stuff.

The interface is simplicity itself. You specify which directories/files you want backed up, and Mozy backs that data up securely at regular intervals. To keep network traffic low, it will only back up files that have been changed.

If the worst happens, simply run the program and select the Restore option. Select the files you’d like returned and they will begin downloading back to your system. Alternatively, you can also log on to your Mozy account via their home page and select the files you need to restore there for a “web restore”. If you have a ton of data you need back, they can burn you a disc and FedEx it to you for an extra charge.

Mozy was recently featured in Time Magazine’s best web sites of 2007 list. The service, as well as the software (available for Windows and Mac) will probably come pre-installed on lots of new computers before it’s all said and done.

If you want to test it out, you can sign up for a free account which gives you 2Gb of storage (very generous for a free account). If you need more storage, you can opt to pay according to how much you require. Current price is $4.95 a month for unlimited personal backup.

All Americans are entitled to a free credit report once a year. There are many sites and services being advertised that allow you to obtain your credit report. However, there is only one site that is authorized by the Free Credit Report Program and that is:

annualcreditreport.com

You can order your reports over the phone, online, or through the mail. If you order online, you can download them over a secure link and view them immediately.

Ordering online is simple. First you visit the Annual Credit Report site and enter your information. Then select which agencies you’d like to get a report from (select all 3!). When that is completed, the Annual Credit Report will bump you over to each site one by one to sign in and view your report for free.

A couple notes about the process. Some will ask you to further verify some information about yourself, based on information in your credit report. Simple questions that you should only know the answers to like who is your mortgage or car loan with, how much do you pay, etc. After that step, just about all of the agencies will want to sell you additional reports. If you’d like to see your credit score, that will cost you a few extra dollars. If you’d just like to see your credit report, go ahead and skip the additional offers and continue through. You are not obligated to buy those.

After you’re in, review the information and dispute any incorrect information. All of the agencies tend to have a link or tools to do so. When you’re done with one agency, click the specified link to go back to Annual Credit Report and hit the next agency.

Finally, your free reports will only be available for about a month or so. Be sure to print them all out and save them for your records if you’d like to keep them. Be sure to have a good amount of paper handy, especially if you have a lot of information in your report. All the agencies offer printer-friendly versions of your report, but some will use up more paper than others. I think Equifax is the worst as their format spit out a whopping 27 pages for my personal report. Experian clocked in at 15 pages while Transunion printed 9.

Nonetheless, good information to look over and it’s available for free right now. Once again, that site is annualcreditreport.com

skeeboo.com is a new anonymous proxy web surfing tool that will make you anonymous to the web sites you visit through it. Why would you need to anonymize yourself? Sometimes you don’t want a site to get your IP address. More commonly, you’re somewhere like work or school, or China and your internet access is restricted due to filters. Proxies, in theory, help you bypass these filters.

Proxies have been around for years on the web, however they’re usually very slow or are littered with popup ads. New generations of proxies like skeeboo cut the annoying popups and stick with intrusive free advertising, such as Google AdSense. Worth a try.