Sunday, March 30, 2008

101 Useful Sites

The 101 most useful website

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There are tens of millions of sites to visit. Not forgetting telegraph.co.uk, here are the only ones you actually need. Compiled by David Baker

TECHNOLOGY

1 Google
www.google.com

The powerhouse of the internet and the only place many people go for information. But if you thought Google was a still a mere search engine, look again. Click on 'more' at the top of the homepage to discover the work of 'GoogleLabs' - more than 50 free tools and web pages that could change your internet life.

GoogleDocs lets you create documents, spreadsheets and presentations, store them online, share them with others and access them from wherever there's an internet connection.

Googlemail is probably the best email program - it has virtually limitless capacity and you don't need to change your email address to use it. The Google calendar is a powerful searchable diary that you can allow others to access, so family members can make appointments together.

SketchUp could be just the tool you are looking for to design that conservatory extension and see what it will look like once the builders have gone. Add to that databases for searching academic journals and books in the public domain, the powerful GoogleMaps, with its engaging satellite imagery, a finance page with live stock quotes and an easy-to-use online messaging system, and you can see why some people say Google is taking over the world - and, with GoogleMoon and GoogleMars, the rest of the galaxy, too.

2 Anonymouse
www.anonymouse.org

Surf the web without disclosing who or where you are.

3 iLounge
www.ilounge.com

Hints, tips and troubleshooting for your iPod and associated software.

4 Only2Clicks
www.only2clicks.com

If you use just a few websites, this lets you create a home page that has links to them all. Simple, free and practical.

5 Zoho
www.zoho.com

A suite of free business programs. From word processing and presentation software to tools for taking notes in meetings, planning projects and creating databases.

6 Backpack
www.backpackit.com

To-do lists, notes, ideas and calendar. Excellent for juggling projects and much more versatile than a ring folder.

7 GetNetWise
www.getnetwise.org

All you need to know about keeping the net safe - protecting children, preventing spam, avoiding viruses and stopping others accessing your personal details.

8 DaFont
www.dafont.com

More than 7,500 free fonts (for Mac and PC), so you can at last stop using Copperplate for your party invitations.

9 Pando
www.pando.com

The superfast way to send large files over the web. Don't attach that family video to an email, Pando it instead.

10 FlipClips
www.flipclips.com

Turn your home videos into animated flip books. Much more appealing than another DVD.

ENTERTAINMENT

11 Digital Spy
www.digitalspy.co.uk

Entertainment, media and showbiz news. Plus, a surprisingly good forum for technology-related problems - a great place to sort out your broadband.

12 BBC iPlayer
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

On-demand television and radio programmes from the BBC.

13 Whatsonwhen
www.whatsonwhen.com

Events, attractions, openings and exhibitions from around the world. Enter a location and dates and the site will show listings.

14 London Theatre Guide
www.londontheatre.co.uk

What's coming on and what's making an exit in London's theatre world. Especially good for seating plans, so you can see where the box office staff are putting you.

15 The Internet Movie Database
www.imdb.com

The world's biggest (and still growing) reference for actors, directors, locations, plots...

16 Rotten Tomatoes
www.rottentomatoes.com

A round-up of what the critics thought of films on general release.

17 Screenonline
www.screenonline.org.uk

The British Film Institute's definitive guide to the British film industry. Plots, features, statistics and news from the film world.

18 Good Reads
www.goodreads.com

Expand your reading. Catalogue your books online and others make recommendations based on what you seem to enjoy.

19 TV Guide
www.tvguide.co.uk

News, features and listings for Britain's terrestrial and cable television. Customisable interface so your favourite channels are always at the top.

20 Football365
www.football365.com

The authentic (and often tangential) voice of the Britain's 'real' football supporters.

21 CricInfo
www.cricinfo.com

Everything you want to know about the world of cricket.

22 Beijing Olympics
en.beijing2008.cn

The official Olympics site, with news, scheduling, features and a countdown to the games themselves.

23 Radio Locator
www.radio-locator.com

From shock jocks to orchestral baroque, thousands of internet radio stations to listen to on your computer.

24 Live Plasma
www.liveplasma.com

Expand your music and movie tastes. Enter the name of a song, band, movie, actor or director you like and Live Plasma will return some pretty intelligent recommendations for further investigation.

25 Blinkx
www.blinkx.com

A clever way of searching for video clips on the internet - from uploaded episodes of your favourite soap to comedy home-video moments.

26 Lulu
www.lulu.com

Self-publishing made smart again. Write, design and then print your own books - though you'll still have to persuade others to buy them.

27 VideoJug
www.videojug.com

28 Wonder How To
www.wonderhowto.com

Two great sites full of short videos showing you how to do almost anything, from the incredibly useful (exercises for diabetes sufferers, tying a Windsor knot) to the revelatory ('learn different kinds of kisses'), via the wonderfully obscure ('make a moving jaw for your werewolf mask').

29 Instructables
www.instructables.com

DIY projects from zombie make-up to LED balloons. Excellent selection of rainy-day projects for bored children (and adults) at home.

30 Flash games
www.k2xl.com

Addictive series of Flash games including the hypnotically soothing Boomshine.

31 GameSpot
www.gamespot.com

News, reviews, hints and tips for virtually every console game on the market. Essential if you are still up at 2am trying to find a way into the castle on Zelda.

32 Anagrammer
www.anagrammer.com

Online anagram machine for Scrabble players and crossword enthusiasts. Also solves Sudoku.

ADVICE AND INFORMATION

33 Newsmap
marumushi.com/apps/newsmap

A wonderfully graphical - and customisable - display of news stories from around the world. Click on an item to see the full story.

34 The Eggcorn Database
eggcorns.lascribe.net

Continually updated guide to modern-day Malapropisms, misunderstandings and other manglings of language. From 'high dungeon' to 'wreckless driving', Eggcorn names the culprits and nudges them in the right direction.

35 Arts and Letters Daily
www.aldaily.com

World-class articles from intellectual and influential journals around the world. Browse the day's selections. Like The Week for eggheads.

36 Ask Philosophers
www.askphilosophers.org

The academy comes to cyberspace. A panel of mainly American and British philosophy scholars answers questions sent in by the public. Search the database, from Abortion to War, or send in a question of your own.

37 When Is
www.when-is.com

Shows you the dates of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and American holidays from now to 2010.

38 Rhyme Zone
www.rhymezone.com

For when the muse has gone, a rhyme and synonym generator to help you towards the perfect mot. You can also search for Shakespeare quotations, biblical references and other literary inspirations.

39 Nationmaster
www.nationmaster.com

Giant but easily searchable database of statistics, maps and profiles for every country in the world.

40 Digg
www.digg.com

The people's approach to news and features, Digg brings together items from across the net, ranked according to how many people have felt them worth recommending. Sometimes a little techie-heavy, but excellent for discovering what the cyberworld is getting worked up about.

41 They Work For You
www.theyworkforyou.com

A powerful way of keeping tabs on MPs and peers: attendance records, voting patterns, recent statements and more.

42 Time Bank
www.timebank.org.uk

Volunteering opportunities for young people, sorted by region, interest, skills and need.

43 Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org

Controversial, democractic and sometimes error-strewn encyclopaedia that has brought Darwinism to the world of knowledge. Make it your first port of call for looking something up. Just be sure to check somewhere else that what you find makes sense.

44 Wiktionary
www.wiktionary.org

Wikipedia's online multilingual dictionary. Immensely powerful and far less controversial than its encyclopaedic forebear.

45 Motley Fool
www.fool.co.uk

The original - and still the best - personal finance site on the web (the American version is at www.fool.com). For savers, borrowers, stock spotters and day traders, sound, independent advice that cuts through the jargon.

46 Martindale's 'The Reference Desk'
www.martindalecenter.com

From the arts, business, science and technology, a dry but authoritative conglomeration of data from around the world.

47 PubMed

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed

Free and authoritative database of more than 17 million medical research papers. Not always easy to understand if you are not a medic, but a far better place to look for information than the random sites that come up on Google.

48 About.com
www.about.com

The internet's version of that clever uncle who always seems to know the answer to your questions. There are few subjects the site doesn't tackle, though the coverage can be superficial. A good starting point for idle research.

49 NHS Direct
www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk

Online information and advice about health and illness, run by Britain's National Health Service. The site includes a useful self-diagnosis tool that can reassure you that your hangover is not in fact meningitis.

50 Legal Services Shop
www.freelawyer.co.uk

General legal advice relating to housing, family law, employment, motoring, consumer issues and personal injury, plus wills, conveyancing and divorce. Good starting point to see where you stand. Will also, for a fixed fee, answer questions and put you in touch with a solicitor.

51 How Stuff Works
www.howstuffworks.com

Engaging encyclopaedia of the modern (and not so modern) world, with good illustrations and clear text. Can suffer sometimes from an 'it's amazing!' tone of voice..

52 XE
www.xe.com

Currency converter covering every world currency. Azerbaijan new manats to Cayman Island dollars? Just a click away.

53 Advice Guide
www.adviceguide.org.uk

Find where you stand legally with the Citizens Advice Bureau's online information resource.

54 Need2Know
www.need2know.co.uk

Advice and information for young people, including health and fitness, drugs, problems with bullying, how to study and applying for jobs.

55 Royal Horticultural Society
www.rhs.org.uk

Advice and suggestions from the world's leading gardening organisation. A good 'how-to' section and seasonal tips for the time of year.

56 Babelfish
babelfish.altavista.com

Automatic translation to and from most European languages and Chinese. The results are sometimes a little strange, but you will usually get your message across.

57 eHow
www.ehow.com

How to do just about everything, from getting stains off curtains to buying a second-hand car.

58 Eat the Seasons
www.eattheseasons.co.uk

Updated weekly, information, tips and recipe ideas on British seasonal food.

59 Age Concern
www.ageconcern.org.uk

Website of Britain's leading charity for the elderly, packed with advice about maintaining an active life.

60 Weather.com
www.weather.com

The queen of weather sites, with more information than you would possibly imagine you might need, from pollen counts to surf forecasts.

61 Uncyclopedia
uncyclopedia.org

Spoof Wikipedia-style encyclopaedia where nothing is true, but a good deal is very funny indeed. Idle away an afternoon or, even better, hone your comedy skills by making a contribution yourself.

62 Kiva
www.kiva.org

An easy way to lend small sums (from $25) to business projects in the developing world. Kiva keeps track of your investment, updates you on progress and repays your loan as the business grows.

63 Embarrassing problems
www.embarrassingproblems.co.uk

From bad breath and piles to cold sores and beyond, Dr Margaret Stearn dispenses invaluable advice.

HOUSE AND HOME

64 Noise Mapping England
www.noisemapping.org

Click on an area of the map to find out how noisy a street, or even a section of the street, is - handy for light sleepers planning a move. At the moment only London is mapped, but the rest of England will follow.

65 Prime Location
www.primelocation.com

One of the best sites for finding property. It is UK-based but has a good international presence.

66 Rated People
www.ratedpeople.com

User reviews on local tradesmen. You describe the job you need done and how quickly and suppliers contact you with quotes - with previous customers rating them.

67 Zoopla
www.zoopla.co.uk

Possibly the most dangerous site on this list, Zoopla gives sale prices of recently sold homes and - the tricky bit - estimates the value of the rest. We dare you not to look.

68 Money Saving Expert
www.moneysavingexpert.com

Subtitled 'Consumer Revenge', this is where you find the discounts, tricks and tips to save money. The weekly email is essential reading for canny consumers. It caters only for Britain, but every country should have one.

69 MetaEfficient
www.metaefficient.com

Practical guide to making your home more environmentally friendly, from low-flow showerheads to 12V lighting. US-based, but many of the products are available elsewhere.

70 Design My Room
www.DesignMyRoom.com

For budding Laurence Llewellyn-Bowens everywhere, it provides the ability to redecorate your home in cyberspace. Choose colours, furniture, accessories and finishes and then publish the results online.

71 Up My Street
www.upmystreet.com

Neighbourhood information based on postcode: schools, shopping and, juciest of all, how much the house down the road sold for recently.

72 Home For Exchange
www.homeforexchange.com

One of many sites where you can swap homes with someone else for a period. This is less cluttered than some of the others and has a good geographical spread.

73 SimplySwitch
www.simplyswitch.com

The fast way to compare utility suppliers and other services, from broadband to home insurance. Enter your postcode and the site comes back with the best deals.

74 101 Cookbooks

www.101cookbooks.com

Enchanting recipe and foodie blog from a Californian cook who believes in good food. Subscribe to the email alert service and transform your cooking repertoire.

SOCIAL

75 Facebook
www.facebook.com

The most grown-up (just) of the social-networking sites that are fast taking over the world. Excellent for staying in touch with far-flung friends, though pretty good too for re-establishing contact with those you hoped you had lost.

76 Wordpress
www.wordpress.com

The quickest and easiest way to create a blog of your own.

77 Ringsurf
www.ringsurf.com

Like an online Mothers' Union meeting (though sometimes a little more risqué), Ringsurf is a chatroom where people exchange ideas about anything from politics to relationships. The quality is not always high, but users have been known to discover new (real-life) friends with interests they thought no one would share. A tribute to the information-sharing capability of the net.

78 bubbl.us
www.bubbl.us

Organise your thoughts by creating mindmaps online and sharing them with others.

79 Technorati
www.technorati.com

An intelligent, intuitive and inspiring way to read entries from some of the millions of blogs that dot the internet. You can browse by subject or area of interest, read the postings that are catching the world's attention and bookmark blogs that catch your attention. And if you want to join in...

80 Flickr
www.flickr.com

The website you graduate to once you've discovered how to put your holiday snaps on the net. Here, everyone's photos are linked by using tags, such as 'Spain', 'beach' or 'happy', which sets you off on an exploration of others' uploads.

81 BabyCentre
www.babycentre.co.uk

There are plenty of great parenting forums out there - Netmums, Mumsnet - but this is still the best source of considered, authoritative, often soothing advice on everything from colic to tax credits.

82 Friction TV
www.friction.tv

YouTube for debaters. Upload a short video about an issue close to your heart and others reply in kind or by text.

SHOPPING

83 GiftGen
www.giftgen.co.uk

Gift ideas for when you can't think what to buy someone. You enter their age, sex and interests and how much you want to pay and it scours the net for ideas.

84 eBay
www.ebay.co.uk

Online shopping for (nearly) everything you might want to buy. The original auction formula is still going strong, but plenty more features have been added since it began. Take a look at non-UK sites, such as ebay.fr and ebay.de, too, for bargains others may have missed. The layout is the same even if you don't speak the language.

85 Who What Wear Daily
www.whowhatweardaily.com

Fashion tips, advice and suggestions. Includes Ask a Stylist for those tricky co-ordination problems and a What Was She Wearing? inquiry service to help you track down your favourite celebrity's fashion choice.

86 Gumtree
www.gumtree.com

Unabashedly straightforward classified ads site, for everything from new homes to online romance.

87 AbeBooks
www.abebooks.co.uk

The Amazon of the second-hand book world. More than 13,500 booksellers selling 110 million books. If it's not here, it's not worth looking for.

88 Kelkoo
www.kelkoo.co.uk

There are plenty of price-comparison sites on the web, but this one seems to get it right more often than most. Type in what you want to buy and Kelkoo will come back with the cheapest prices it can find.

89 Endgadget
www.engadget.com

A (digital) finger on the pulse of the technology world. All the newest developments, discoveries, gadgets and toys - before they hit the shops.

90 Cork'd
www.corkd.com

Discover more about wine by reviewing what you've enjoyed and receiving tips and suggestions from others.

91 I Love Jeans
www.ilovejeans.com

Find the right jeans for your fit before you even leave home. A cheeky but revealing 'body type' guide takes you straight to the brand you should be trying. Search by style, body type or brand. Women only.

TRAVEL

92 Sky Scanner
www.skyscanner.net

Monitors prices and destinations for all the low-cost airlines so you just type in where you want to go and when to find the best deal.

93 The Man in Seat 61
www.seat61.com

Routes, tickets, tips and advice - the only guide you need to travelling by train from Britain to Europe and the rest of the world.

94 Walk It
www.walkit.com

Online pedestrian routefinder for London, Birmingham, Newcastle and Edinburgh that shows you the best route to walk from A to B. Includes calorie counter, CO2 savings and points of interest on the way. Other cities coming soon.

95 Transport for London Journey Planner
journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk

Indispensable and almost always spot-on guide to negotiating the capital's public transport system. You enter your starting point and destination and it gives you the best bus, tube, cycle and even boat routes to get you across town.

96 ViaMichelin
www.viamichelin.com

A hi-tech hark-back to the days of leisurely motoring. ViaMichelin gives you maps, routes and directions throughout Britain and continental Europe with added panache. The maps have a pleasant printed quality about them and, naturally enough, your route is accompanied by gastronomic highlights to be found along the way. There's also information about destinations.

97 Carbon Neutral
www.carbonneutral.com

Information on your carbon footprint and how to cut it down. Includes an online calculator to measure your effect on the world.

98 Expedia

www.expedia.com

Excellent all-round travel site. Use it for good prices on flights and holidays, but click on 'Destinations' for some well-researched and up-to-date travel guides.

99 SeatGuru
www.seatguru.com

Aircraft seating plans, showing you the prime seats, possible annoyances and seats you should avoid.

100 Airline Meals
www.airlinemeals.net

A consumer guide to what you can expect to eat on board. There are news and features from the airline catering world, but the best part is a gallery of photos of on-board meals sent in by passengers and listed by airline.

101 World Hum
www.worldhum.com

Travel writing with a twist. Click on the destination you have in mind and be prepared to be inspired. The site also offers tavelogues, news, books reviews, blogs and slideshows.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Ultimate Protection Portfolio


If you're new here, you may want to learn what this site is about. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

For the past few months, I've been pursuing a paperless personal finance system. I've scheduled electronic transactions with my bank, and I scan important documents when I receive them. My method is still very much in "beta", but I hope to write about it later this year.

My sister-in-law, Tiffany, isn't a computer geek, but she's been trying to get her financial documents organized, too. So when she saw an advertisement for Suze Orman's Ultimate Protection Portfolio, she figured it was worth $66.24 to make her life a little easier. She ordered the kit, and has spent the past week putting it to use. When I dropped by her house today, she showed me the system.

The Ultimate Protection Portfolio
The Suze Orman Ultimate Protection Portfolio comes in a big blue plastic case, which is ostensibly water-resistant. (I didn't actually put this to the test.) Inside the case are:

  • A custom accordion-file system with ten pockets designated for specific areas of your personal finances. The outside of each pocket contains "Suze's Advice and Checklist" for that particular topic. For example, the Credit/Debt pouch advises, "Review your credit report at least once a year to make sure all information is accurate." The pockets are wide and cozy and will contain a lot of information.
  • Ten short booklets with topics corresponding to the the pockets in the accordion file. Each booklet is 48 pages long (except Estate Planning, which has 80 pages) and contains a brief overview of the topic. The Investment Records booklet, for example, covers financial advisers, mutual funds, and risk tolerance (or "fear factor" as Orman calls it). The information in these booklets is from 2005.
  • A Protection Portfolio CD-ROM containing financial forms, record-keeping software, and a tool to help draft a will. You must have an active internet connection to use this software.
  • A special integrated organizer with pockets for passports, social security cards, and more.
  • A variety of forms and checklists, including an emergency contact list.

"That's a lot of stuff," I told Tiffany. "I can see how it would be nice to have everything in one place. What do you think of it?"

"I do like the fact that everything's in one place," she said. "But this is an expensive way to do it. I don't regret buying it, but I do feel like I could have made something similar myself for less money. It might be worth it if the books were any good, but I think they're lame."

"I can see that," I said. "I looked through a few of them. They information is solid, but it seems pretty basic. And they tend to skip over a lot. I think they're just designed to get people started."

A Do-It-Yourself Alternative
Tiffany was probably right when she said she could make something similar for less money. The Ultimate Protection Portfolio is worth the $66.24 if it motivated her to get things organized, but in retrospect there were cheaper options available:

  • At its heart, the Suze Orman Ultimate Protection Portfolio is simply a good old-fashioned expanding file. We probably have one in the garage. Maybe you do, too. Even if I had to buy one new, Amazon has a variety for around $10.
  • The ten booklets seem excessive. With a quick trip to the public library, you can pick up many great personal finance books for free. (They probably even have a couple Suze Orman books, including The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke and Nine Steps to Financial Freedom.)
  • You can buy Suze Orman's Will & Trust Kit for $13.57 from Amazon. It's even sub-branded "The Ultimate Protection Portfolio", so I'm willing to bet it's the same software.
  • Instead of an integrated organizer with pockets for your passport and other important items, you can simply stick these all in a large zip-loc freezer bag and place them in one of the slots of your expanding file.
  • You can find many free, printable emergency forms on the web, including these at Organized Home. If you own a copy of Quicken, it may actually contain an Emergency Records Organizer utility. Often it's most convenient simply create your own.

For about $25, you can build your own custom emergency records portfolio. I admit that this system won't be water-resistant, and it won't have Suze Orman's advice, but I'm willing to bet that you won't notice the difference. You'll still have peace of mind knowing all your important household and financial documents are in one easy-to-reach central location.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

March 19, 2008 | Issue 44•12

CHICAGO—According to witnesses, a loud black man approached a crowd of some 4,000 strangers in downtown Chicago Tuesday and made repeated demands for change.

"The time for change is now," said the black guy, yelling at everyone within earshot for 20 straight minutes, practically begging America for change. "The need for change is stronger and more urgent than ever before. And only you—the people standing here today, and indeed all the people of this great nation—only you can deliver this change."

Enlarge Image Black Guy

The black guy is oddly comfortable demanding change from people he's never even met.

It is estimated that, to date, the black man has asked every single person in the United States for change.

"I've already seen this guy four times today," Chicago-area ad salesman Blake Gordon said. "Every time, it's the same exact spiel. 'I need change.' 'I want change.' Why's he so eager for all this change? What's he going to do with it, anyway?"

After his initial requests for change, the black man rambled nonstop on a variety of unrelated topics, calling for affordable health care, demanding that the government immediately begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, and proposing a $75 billion economic stimulus plan to create new jobs.

"What a wacko," Schaumburg, IL resident Patrick Morledge said. "And, of course, after telling us all about how he had the ability to magically fix everything, he went right back to asking for change. Typical."

"If he's really looking for change, he's got the wrong guy," Morledge added.

Reports indicate that the black man has been riding from city to city across the country, asking for change wherever he goes. Citizens in Austin, TX said they spotted the same guy standing on the street Friday, shouting far-fetched ideas about global warming. Cleveland residents also reported seeing him in a local park, wildly gesticulating and quoting from the Bible. And last week, patrons at the Starlight Diner in Cheyenne, WY claimed that the black man accosted them while they were eating, repeatedly requesting change.

"I saw him walk in and I knew he was headed straight for our table," said mother of three Gladys Davies. "He just stood there smiling at us for a while, and asked how our food tasted. Then he went and did the same thing at the next table over. The nerve of some people."

Those who encountered the black man Tuesday said he engaged in erratic behavior, including pointing at random people in the crowd and desperately saying he needs their help, going up to complete strangers and hugging them, and angrily claiming that he is not looking for just a little bit of change, but rather a great deal of change, and that he wants it "right now."

"I'll be honest, when that black guy said he would 'stop at nothing' to get change, it kind of scared me," local mechanic Phil Nighbert said. "Just leave me alone."

Though many were taken aback by the black man's brazen demands, some, such as Jackson, MS's Holly Moser, sympathized with him. She gave the black man credit for boldly standing up and asking every last person around him for change.

"I told him I'd give him some if I saw him later, even though I probably won't," Moser said. "Very nice man, though."

Most, however, ignored his requests.

"I'm a hardworking American who pays his taxes, and the last thing I need is some guy on the street demanding change from me," said William Overkamp, a Springfield, IL gun-shop owner.

He added, "What he really needs is a job."

Friday, March 14, 2008

Secure Your Laptop

Security guide to customs-proofing your laptop

laptop border guide

If you travel across national borders, it's time to customs-proof your laptop.

Customs officials have been stepping up electronic searches of laptops at the border, where travelers enjoy little privacy and have no legal grounds to object. Laptops and other electronic devices can be seized without reason, their contents copied, and the hardware returned hours or even weeks later.

Executives have been told that they must hand over their laptop to be analyzed by border police--or be barred from boarding their flight. A report from a U.S.-based marijuana activist says U.S. border guards browsed through her laptop's contents; British customs agents scan laptops for sexual material; so do their U.S. counterparts.

These procedures are entirely legal, according to court precedents so far. A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that an in-depth analysis of a laptop's hard drive using the EnCase forensics software "was permissible without probable cause or a warrant under the border search doctrine." One lawsuit is seeking to force the government to disclose what policies it follows.

The information security implications are worrisome. Sensitive business documents can be stored in computers; lawyers may have notes protected by the attorney-client privilege; and journalists may save notes about confidential sources. Regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley may apply. A 2006 survey of business travelers showed that almost 90 percent of them didn't know that customs officials can peruse the contents of laptops and confiscate them without giving a reason.

Fortunately, you have some technological defenses against overly snoopy border agents. Keep reading for our easy-to-understand, Homeland-Security-inspired, color-coded News.com Guide to Customs-Proofing Your Laptop. (And no, we're not responsible if you end up cooling your heels in some Burmese prison for using PGP; check local laws and use good judgment.)

Let's assume you've already backed up your files before traveling in case your laptop gets seized for an indefinite period of time. The next thing to know is that merely setting an account password is insufficient.

Unless you use encryption, a customs agent can simply remove your laptop's hard drive, plug it into another computer, and peruse its contents. There are plenty of programs, including Guidance Software's EnCase Forensic, that let police extract every bit of data possible from that hard drive.

To guard against that, you can set aside a section of your computer's hard drive to be encrypted. This is the simplest approach because not all the files will be encrypted; the operating system itself and, in most cases, applications you use will remain unencrypted.

For Apple OS X users, FileVault does this by seamlessly scrambling the contents of your home directory (to enable, select the Security panel in Preferences and also click the "Use secure virtual memory" option). PGP sells volume encryption software for OS X and Windows. There's also the free TrueCrypt application, which runs on Windows Vista, Windows XP, OS X, and Linux.

Most people use encrypted volumes to do things like save sensitive files--think tax returns, bank and credit card statements, medical records, and so on.

But encryption isn't enough. Research published last month ("Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys") demonstrates how encryption keys can be extracted from a laptop that's placed in sleep mode when the contents are retained in RAM. They haven't released the software to extract the contents yet, but it's not terribly difficult to write and you may not want to bet your privacy on government agencies being ignorant of this attack.

The solution is to let the contents of RAM decay by turning off your computer and letting it sit for a few minutes. A test they did showed that, after five minutes, the memory contents had completely disappeared and could not be retrieved.

Turning off your computer is especially important for OS X users, at least until Apple patches a security glitch that keeps account passwords in RAM. In the default configuration, the account password is the keychain password and yields passwords to wireless networks, Web sites, accounts accessed via SSH, network-mounted volumes, etc.

There's more. You'll want to delete cookies and browser-stored passwords for Web sites. Erase the cache and Web browsing history. Securely delete files not protected by the encrypted volume so they can't be undeleted at the border. Here are still more tips.

Another problem is that if customs agents have physical possession of your laptop and you can't see what they're doing, they can install spyware. (They have the technical ability to do so; let's put aside for the moment in which circumstances they would have the legal authority to do so. Besides, in some non-democratic regimes, questions about due process are irrelevant.)

There are at least three cases in which the Feds have, with a court order, installed spyware on a suspect's computer. As encryption becomes more popular, so will the use of fedware. There may be no easy way to detect it--security software vendors generally say they will--short of booting off of a DVD or another trusted device and checking the operating system for tampering. Linux users can use a Knoppix CD or DVD for this.

All these extra steps are irksome, and stem from the fact that Threat Level Yellow with an encrypted volume doesn't completely protect you.

Why not? Unix-derived systems including Apple's OS X store details about VPN usage and user login times in unencrypted form. Some applications including Thunderbird save working copies of documents in an unencrypted area (/tmp or /private/tmp) outside the home directory. And the contents of the computer's virtual memory file may be readable as well.

That brings us to Threat Level Orange, at which point you should encrypt everything. That means you won't have to worry about whether applications leak data outside the virtual safe of an encrypted volume.

Microsoft has included the BitLocker Drive Encryption feature in the Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows Vista. A perpetual license for PGP Whole Disk Encryption 9.8--often viewed as the gold standard of encryption products--for Windows costs $149. Macintosh users are out of luck for now, though PGP did tell us last month that whole disk encryption for OS X is "in active development." Linux users have loop-aes and dm-crypt to choose from.

The same advice as Threat Level Yellow holds for laptopping-across-the-border: shut down your computer for a few minutes to make sure the memory decays.

While you're at Threat Level Orange, you might as well take some additional steps to harden your machine against other attacks. One of those is guard against having the entire contents of your computer's memory siphoned off through FireWire.

This isn't new. In 2004, Maximillian Dornseif showed how to extract the contents of a computer's memory merely by plugging in an iPod to the FireWire port. A subsequent presentation by Adam Boileau in 2006 expanded the FireWire attack to Windows-based systems; he released exploit code this month.

Under OS X, according to a security guide (PDF) by Paul Day, setting an Open Firmware password disables physical memory access for FireWire devices. Here's how to set an Open Firmware password.

If they're out to get you, or if you're sufficiently paranoid to think they are, you're at Threat Level Red.

One downside with encrypted drives is that they can be a huge blinking neon side to customs officers saying: "Contraband! Likely! Here!" Even if you're law-abiding, an encrypted drive could mean unwanted hassles and delays, and the unpleasant prospect of customs officials preventing you from entering the country unless you type in your password. In the U.S., whether you can be compelled to divulge it by court order remains an unanswered question--and other nations may not observe such legal niceties.

One answer is steganography, which means concealing data in a way that nobody even knows it's there. It's an electronic form of invisible ink. Data can be stored in MP3s, in videos, and even in apparently-empty space on the hard drive.

Unfortunately, steganographic file systems are about as well developed as cryptographic ones were a decade ago--they're still more of a laboratory curiosity than something that's been thoroughly tested and built into commercial products. One exception is TrueCrypt, which offers two levels of plausible deniability, including a standard TrueCrypt volume that appears when you're forced to give your "password," and a hidden one that remains concealed.

Some technologists remain skeptical. Jon Callas, PGP's chief technology officer, says:

I have a rather negative opinion about steganographic file systems. I just flat don't believe they work. I don't believe you can hide the data so that nobody can find it...

If this customs official says, "Aha! I see you have a steganographic file system, tell me the other password,' what do you do?" It is unsafe to use a product that has a steganographic file system since you can never prove you have no steganographic data...

For stegonography to work it must be custom-built for you. Or you're relying on the fact that the person searching for the data is stupid.

So what's left? Concealing the data in other ways. Bring your laptop with tourist snapshots and no steganography. Put your sensitive files on your camera's memory card or your phone's SD card; Sandisk's 32 GB SD card is supposed to ship soon.

Finally, there's always the option of bringing your data across the border electronically--by securely downloading it once you and your laptop have made it safely past customs. It may not work for everyone, and extremely large files may make it unwieldy as an option, but it may be the safest and easiest way to travel internationally nowadays.