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A good tool is something that helps you get things done better and more efficiently. A saw helps you make things smaller. A lawn mower helps you make your grass shorter. But how about tools that let you do multiple things? So much the better.

CleanUp! is a two-in-one tool. What it does is help you get rid of the leftover junk on your system, the dreaded "temporary files", which as we all know are often anything but temporary. Now there are a couple of problems inherent with temporary files. First of all, they take up extra space on your system. Get rid of them, and your system will probably run faster, and you'll have more room to store your ever-increasing collection of MP3s. In addition, there are potential security issues there. These temp files contain cached copies of web pages you've visited, and goodness knows what else. With CleanUp! these all go away.

It's easy to install and use CleanUp!. It's small enough that you can stick it on a USB thumb drive or a diskette (kids, ask your parents), and configuration is a snap. And if you really, really want your temporary stuff to go away, it also supports a secure delete, making it next to impossible for the curious to resurrect your deleted files. Afraid you might remove something important? Start out in "demo" mode to see what it thinks it ought to be deleting.

CleanUp! is a free download, and runs on Windows systems.

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USB thumb drives are handy, to be sure. The fact that you can take a gigabyte—or 24 or more of them—of data, stick it in your pocket, and walk out the door is pretty amazing stuff. The flip side of that, of course, is that anybody else can do the same thing with your data. That's not so handy. So how do you safeguard your data while at the same time still affording yourself the convenience of the portability of that little stick of memory?

USB Safeguard is a tool that lets you encrypt the contents of your portable drive. Using 256-bit AES encryption, you won't need to worry about your data if you and your drive become separated. It features drag-and-drop encryption, so adding files to the drive is no problem. Going the other direction, you can shred files you want to get rid of, making it just about impossible for anybody else to get their hands on your info.

You can score a copy of USB Safeguard for free. It's a Windows app and will be right at home on your WinXP or later system.

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There are trash cans and there are trash cans. When you've got stray bits of this and that, a simple wastebasket will do. But when you've got something you really need to get rid of, you probably want to run it through a shredder first. The same logic applies to your electronic life as well. If you're just deleting junk from your system, drag it to the Recycle Bin and you're done with it. But for the serious stuff—last year's taxes, next year's business projections—you want to take a stronger stand. Remember, stuff you delete from your system isn't really gone—at least not right away—and can be brought back with a little bit of know-how.

If you don't want those things coming back, you need a "file shredder", a tool that, like its namesake, mangles those files beyond recognition and makes it really, really hard to put them back together, if it's even possible. Easy Shred File Shredder falls into this category. Unlike some apps that simply overwrite your deleted data with other data, this tool actually encrypts the data before it overwrites it. The advantage here is that, even if the overwritten data is successfully recovered, it's still encrypted, so that chances that your sensitive documents will somehow be misappropriated is just about zero. And that's a good place to be.

Easy Shred File Shredder is a free download for your Windows machine.

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Passwords are only as good as their strength. You know the drill: no dictionary words; longer is better; mix 'em up with alphabetic characters (upper- and lower case), numbers, symbols; use different passwords in different places; and all that. With so much hanging on the strength of those passwords, it's not something to play around with.

Remembering all those passwords can be a challenge, so there are lots of "password locker" tools out there that help keep track of them for you. What there doesn't seem to be as many of are apps that help you create those super-duper extra secure passwords.

Infinite Password Generator can give you a hand with this important task. You supply a master password and a keyword for each password you want to generate, and this tool will employ an MD5 algorithm to generate a password that will be next to impossible to hack, yet if you happen to lose of forget it, you can re-generate that password based on the keyword. No more having to fear that if your password list goes away that all will be lost.

A free download, Infinite Password Generator is a Windows application.

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What's worse than losing your data? How about losing your computer with your data on it? Youch!

Laptops are handy things. You can grab your whole workspace and bring it with you. Working on a big project? Bring it home and finish it there. Pretty swell, until your laptop goes missing. So let's keep that from happening.

LAlarm features a bunch of different alarms to help protect you, your computer, and the data stored on it. Along with an anti-theft alarm, it comes with several other alarms as well. If your hard drive starts acting like it's going to fail, LAlarm sounds an alarm to let you know your data may be in danger. If your battery's about to run out, there's another alarm to let you know that you really ought to save your files. It's even got a "panic button" alarm that lets you sound an alert in case you happen to get into trouble while using your system—presumably something more than marauding bands of geeks.

LAlarm is free for personal use. It runs under Windows XP and later. Business users need to purchase a license.

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Good passwords are necessary for good security. The more complex and complicated your passwords, the more secure your data will be. Unfortunately, the best passwords, with a healthy mix of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, are next to impossible to remember—in fact if you can remember that password, it probably isn't complex enough. So now your stuff is secure, but you can't get into either, because you can't remember the password. You may need some help.

That help may come in the form of FlyingBit Password Keeper. This tool lets you store your passwords so that you don't have to remember them—just copy-and-paste from the tool into your app or web browser. But don't worry about the security of your passwords—they're all encrypted in a database on your hard drive, so even if somebody should grab that file, they're not going to be able to do anything with it. And if you travel, you can even put your password database on a USB stick or other removable media and bring it along. Yes, you will need to have a good password for your encrypted password database, but it's certainly easier to remember one password than dozens.

FlyingBit Password Keeper is a free download for your Windows system. It should run under Windows 98 and later.

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It's the nightmare nobody wants to think about: somebody's taken your laptop. Sure, maybe it was just an accident, since many of them look the same. but nevertheless, whether through careless mistake or by deliberate theft by some low-life, you are here and your computer is somewhere else. With the cost of your system—to say nothing of all the important data that lives on it—on the line, you'd sure like to get it back, pronto.

Prey is a tool that just might give you a hand with that. Obviously you have to install it before your laptop goes missing—something about closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped—but it can then assist you in the recovery effort. The way it works is this: at a pre-determined interval, Prey checks for the existence of a specific URL. If it finds it, everything is just hunky-dory. But if the machine has gone missing, all you have to do is to get rid of the page at that address, and Prey will know that something's up. At that point, it will do things like report on where it is and what it's doing—and if you've got a webcam, you may even get a picture of the thief. It can use a wired connection, or search for a viable Wi-Fi signal, and for Mac and Linux systems, you can install the app as Root, so your thief doesn't even have to be logged in to let you know what's up.

Prey is available for Windows, Mac, and various Linux distros, or if you're really feeling adventurous, you can grab the source code and roll it yourself.

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Sensitive stuff. When you were a kid, your secret decoder ring—just send in three boxtops—was all the protection you needed to keep things private. Things have gotten a bit more complicated since then.

Locknote is a small, secure memo pad. Use it so protect any kind of information you want to keep private: passwords, account numbers, birthday lists, whatever. The executable is self-modifying, meaning that your data is actually incorporated into the program file itself. What this means is that you don't need any additional tool to get your data back—just fire up your data-and-program file, type in the password, and you're up and running. Save stuff for yourself, transfer it to a removable drive, or even send via email. You'll want to keep multiple copies for each type of information you're keeping track of. While it' s not a big-deal security suite, it does offer a quick-and-dirty way to protect data.

LockNote is a Windows application. You should be able to use it on systems running Windows 2000 and later.

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Everybody's got stuff that they want to keep private and secure. Maybe it's a list of passwords, or the winning numbers to next week's Lotto drawing, or maybe just some personal thoughts that you don't want your co-workers or kid sister to get hold of. There are all kinds of encryption programs out there to hide your stuff, but here's one where the program and the data become one.

Crypditor looks and acts like any old text editor—it's even got tabs to work on multiple items at once. You can just type straight into its editor window, or you can import text from other files. When you save the file, it just jams your now encrypted data into the executable itself. That means that not only is your private info private, but you can bring it with you—on a USB stick, as an email attachment—without having to bring along a separate tool to unlock it. Your data should be safe, since Crypditor uses 256-bit encryption. And it's even got a password strength tool, to help you decide whether you maybe want to use a password a bit more secure than "password".

Crypditor is a free download. It's a Windows app and should run under Win98 and later.

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You're only as secure as your password. Whether you're subscribing to a mailing list or doing online banking, you've got to have a password. For low-importance, low-risk applications, you can probably get away with using your pet's name, but you know you really shouldn't. And when it comes to serious stuff, well, you know you've got to have something good.

It's not easy to generate a really good password. They need to be long, include a bunch of different types of characters (upper- and lower case, digits, punctuation marks), not include any dictionary words, and be just as long as you can manage. Unfortunately it's hard to be that random on our own, and you know that Fluffy and Fido will end up with their names in there somewhere.

PassworG is a tool that can give you a hand with this. You can choose the type of characters to be used and the password length, and let the app generate them for you. It also checks the quality of the passwords you've generated, so you can use the baddest ones you can get your hands on. It spits a bunch of them out at once, so you can pick the ones you want to use, or use it to change passwords for all your secure stuff at once. And remember, save them somewhere, because these are good passwords, you're not going to be able to hack you way in if you forget them.

PassworG is a free download. It's a Windows application that runs on systems using Windows 2000 through Windows 7.

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