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Dress Up Firefox With Personas

, I didn't realize just how gray and drab-looking Firefox was until I started fiddling with Personas 2.0.

This new feature from Mozilla Labs lets you choose from thousands of themes with which to spruce up Firefox.

Granted, the browser has supported themes for years, but those require downloading, installing, etc.--and in my experience, many of those themes are just overkill.

Personas are more like window dressing: They add a splash of color and design to the menu/tab/toolbar area, but that's it.

Even better, you get to see a live preview of any theme before installing it. Just mouse over any theme in the Personas gallery, wait a second or two, and presto: It appears. You can do likewise in the Personas menu that gets added to Firefox under Tools, Personas.

Google's Daily Agenda Option

Do you know about the daily agenda option in Google Calendar? This is one of Google's great little tweaks that not many people know about. When activated, it automatically sends your to-do list for the next 24 hours from your Google Calendar to Gmail at 5am daily, so it is in your email inbox when you wake up and log-in every day. You can edit your to-do list any time before that email is sent and it will update the list.

If you prefer another email client, you can set up a Gmail account and have it automatically forward your Gmail inbox to your preferred email account. Instructions can be found here.

If you have multiple calendars in Google Calendar, you have to setup a notification for each one, which is easier than it sounds. No matter how many calendars you select, they will all come in one email, which has a list of all you have to do that day. This is great for avoiding updates from calendar like birthdays, where you just need to know the date, but don't need a specific action to go along with it.

I'd recommend setting up a calendar called "To Do List" and just syncing that calendar. This way you can look at all the other items for that day like "Toms Birthday", decide what specific actions you are going to take towards it and update that on your to do list calendar. Plus, you still get all the other information backed up on your Google Calendar.

How Do You Do It?

First things first: open Google Calendar. On the left hand side of the screen, you will find "My Calendars". You'll want to click the little arrow next to the calendar you want to sync. If you only have one calendar the default setting will work just fine.

After you have clicked the arrow, go to "Notifications" and it will take you into Google Settings. Now, when you get to this point all you have to do is tick the box marked "Email" next to Daily Agenda, click Save and it's done!

Now go back through those steps for each calendar whose contents you want sent to you daily at 5am. If you want to add a new calendar simply click on "Add" underneath the my calendar section and name it.

I'd also recommend that you color code your calendars to your liking so that you can see which of the calendars events are most important and which aren't. This is helpful when you get the email and can quickly scan over your to do list for today. Red is a great importance color for me.

The next morning when you wake up and log-in you will have one email in your inbox which includes all of what you have to do for that day which looks something like this.


Practical Uses

- You can use this to set goals for yourself too. You could set a goal of writing 1,000 words for your blog each day, increasing by 50 words per day. All you have to do is what it says to do in your inbox each day and you'll be writing 2,500 words every day within one month!

- Put everything you have to do on your Google Calendar and share a calendar with others using Google's calendar sharing features and your boss or friends can update that calendar!

- Birthday Reminders - You can check if a birthday is coming up or a fancy dress party and set a reminder to come on your calendar a fortnight in advance so you have time to prepare.

Tips from Rudy

What is the difference between downloading, uploading and installing?

Downloading: This is the process of moving a file from the internet (or over a network)or a thumb drive, a cd or dvd onto your computer. For most of us downloading is just a matter of clicking a link on a web site or the disc and saving the file to your computer.

Uploading: This is the opposite of downloading. With uploading, you take a file from your computer and send it to a computer on the internet (or a computer or server on a network). Usually this is done with an FTP client, but some modern web sites you'll come across will allow you to send files to them with your web browser. This if you are building web sites or doing a blog. For most of us it means sending an attachment like a document or a picture in your email.

Installing: This is often confused with downloading., but it's different. When you install something, you basically “put” the program on your computer so you can use it. Normally this is done via a setup program or “wizard” to make installation easy. Once you have finished installing a program, you can usually run it from your Start Menu.

Check the Strength of Your Password

Microsoft’s free password-checking site tells you instantly if your password is hacker-friendly or Pentagon-safe.

A good password can mean the difference between identity safety and identity theft. Unfortunately, too many otherwise intelligent people rely on ridiculously weak passwords, the kind that make hackers rub their hands with glee.

If you’re not certain about the strength of your password(s), head to Microsoft’s password checker. This free tool couldn’t be simpler to use: Just type in your password and get an instant strength rating: Weak, Medium, Strong, or Best.

Don’t worry: Microsoft isn’t secretly collecting pass­words for its own eeeeevil purposes. The page doesn’t record what you type, it merely generates a response based on the nature of the input.

So, what kinds of passwords can get you a Strong or Best rating? Here’s a clue: The dog’s name won’t cut it. Neither will “1234” or, heavens, “password.” According to the password checker, you should aim for a minimum of 14 characters and include a mix of numbers, symbols, and both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Personally, I’m a fan of taking an easy-to-remember phrase (like, say, “PCWorldRules”) and replacing vari­ous letters with similar-looking numbers. Thus, my password would be “PCW0r1dRu135.” According to the checker, that’s a good, Strong password.

Identity-Theft Protection: A 12-Step Program

Save some money by carrying out a do-it-yourself protection plan.

You don’t have to spend $100 to $200 a year to de­fend yourself from identity theft at the level of pro­tection that a paid service offers. You can do almost everything the services do, for free. But following these steps will require time and effort.

1. Get a free copy of your credit report by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com. Don’t be fooled by look-alike sites that promise free reports if you sub­scribe to their credit-monitoring services. Better yet, order by phone at 877/322-8228.

2. For DIY credit monitoring, order a free report every three months from a different bureau. Scan the report for unfamiliar information, such as accounts you don’t remember opening.

3. Place a fraud alert on your credit report by calling one of the credit bureaus. (You can find contact information for all three bureaus by browsing to the Fight Identity Theft Web site.)

4. Put a recurring event in your online calendar to remind you to renew your fraud alert in 90 days.

5. Tell the bureaus to stop selling your information to credit services, by calling 888/567-8688 or visiting OptOutPrescreen.com. Doing so will reduce but not eliminate the number of preapproved credit card offers you receive.

6. Request a free public records report from Choice­Point . You’ll have to print a form and mail it, along with copies of your driver’s license and proof of address. Scan the report for addresses and other details not related to you.

7. Take your name off other marketing lists by sign­ing up for ProQuo.com’s free service. In some instances, you may have to mail letters or navigate to a marketer’s own site to complete your opt-out request.

8. Buy a mailbox that locks, or use a post office box. This will help prevent thieves from stealing your identity via paper mail.

9. Buy a crosscut paper shredder and shred junk mail to frustrate dumpster-diving identity thieves.

10. Never click a link from an e-mail message to log in to your bank or to any other financial institution. Type the secure site’s address into your browser, bookmark it, and use that link to access your ac­counts. Otherwise, you risk having your identity stolen by phishers.

11 If you believe that you are a victim of identity theft, contact the Identity Theft Resource Center. Volun­teers there can walk you through the process of restoring your identity.

12. Get educated. Mari Frank’s IdentityTheft.org, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and the Federal Trade

Commission maintain huge libraries of information on how to avoid being victimized, and what to do if it has already happened

People Search Engines: Slam the Door on What Info They Can Collect

Take these steps to stop the new generation social search engines from telling the world every­thing about you.

As we slowly put more and more pieces of ourselves online, specialized search engines are making it easier than ever to pull them together into a highly detailed (and potentially invasive) profile of our virtual lives.

In our story “People Search Engines: They Know Your Dark Secrets...And Tell Anyone,” we investigated the reality that these new social search engines—which include CVGadget, Pipl, Rapleaf, and Spokeo—can readily collect a mountain of personal details about you that you might prefer stay hidden (or at least widely dispersed) online.

Test requests that we entered at these sites uncovered random details about co-workers’ and acquaintances’ college roommates and boyfriends from the 1980s, political donations, shopping preferences and musi­cal tastes. Fortunately, you can take steps to limit the information these sites may collect.

Search Yourself

One way to grab control is to turn the tables and use the new services to search for information on yourself.

For instance, Spokeo lets you see a limited amount of data without subscribing, Pipl and CVGadget are totally free, and Rapleaf offers an open tool to manage your Internet footprint.

You can come in and sign up and see all the things that we found about you,” says Rapleaf’s Joel Jewitt.

Take Action

Once you know what kind of information is out there, you can decide whether to try to remove it. If you de­cide that you do, here are some options to consider:

1. Rapleaf offers the option to opt out of its services

People

By entering your e-mail address on this Rapleaf page, you can have your data permanently deleted from Rapleaf’s database. There’s no charge, and once you respond to Rapleaf’s confirmation message, your infor­mation won’t appear in the company’s reports ever again.

2. Many other services, Spokeo included, update their caches based on your external settings.

In contrast to Rapleaf’s opt-out method, Spokeo and many of the other services work the way a standard search engine does: If the content disappears from the Web, it also disappears from the search results. That means you need to visit the individual sites connected to your e-mail address and adjust the privacy settings within each one. In the case of Spokeo, the info will stop showing up in searches within about a week of your making the changes.

3. Most well-known sites give you the option of making your data private. It just might not be obvious.

People search engines glean their material about you from many well-known sites,including Amazon.com, social networking sites such as Facebook, and music sites such as Pandora.

You’ll usually need to go within each individual site’s account configuration pages and look for the privacy options to adjust to suit your comfort level.

Here are some places to visit:

• Amazon: Wish Lists are made public by default. To change that setting, go to this page and select the option to sign in. You can then view any Wish Lists associated with your account and designate them as private.

• Facebook: Once signed in, look under the ‘Set­tings’ tab at the top of the page to find the privacy control panel. Click the Profile option to set parameters regarding who can view your content.

• MySpace: Click the My Account button at the top of the page after logging in, then click Privacy to adjust your settings. Bear in mind that your age and location are typically displayed publicly even if your profile is set as private, as was the case in one of the examples cited in “They Know Your Dark Secrets...And Tell Anyone.”

• Pandora: Your playlists are public unless you specify otherwise. Once logged in, click Account at the top of the page, and then follow the option to edit your profile info. From there, you’ll see a checkbox that you can select to make your profile (and thus your playlists) private.

These are the steps for just a few of the most widely used sites that the people search engines scan. If you decide to rethink your level of privacy, the most important first step is to search yourself or your fam­ily members so that you’ll know exactly which sites’ privacy settings you need to reconfigure.

Ultimately, the power is in your hands. Switch off auto­pilot and take control­