Busy travelers stopping for layovers at airports often take time to check email from their phones or laptops. Each time they do so they potentially expose themselves to hackers who can gain access to private data. Many public wifi hotspots are not secure and leave unwary travelers unprotected against malicious attacks. There are a variety of ways you can secure your Internet connection and your browser to help thwart potential privacy invasions.

Iron Key sells its secured USB drive that encrypts the data you write to it, and most importantly, contains portable Firefox which runs on a secured session through Iron Key’s servers every time you use it; so it is like having an instant secured VPN to browse the web on, check your G mail, etc.

Iron Key is reviewed here.

These are not very expensive, and come in 1 GB ($79), 2 GB ($109), and 4GB ($149). Iron Key includes secured backup software too. However if you want a do-it-yourself solution, you can try one of these options:

One effective way to keep your browsing and email secure is to set up a secure connection at home and create a VPN on your laptop that you use for traveling; allowing yourself to securely VPN into your home network. Vendors that provide this service include gotomypc and webex pcnow; or you can set up a VPN on your own using instructions such as these.

A very important initial step in this process is to disable SSID broadcast in your broadband router settings (usually through an online dashboard that lets you change these settings for your account). Uncheck the box for this option as it is unnecessary for the router to broadcast its name information every few seconds. The Wifi signal will still work in your home with this option unchecked, and disabling it will make it that much harder for hackers to gain access to your data.

Additionally routing your Internet activity through secured servers such as offered by OpenDNS can help keep your network secure by allowing you to filter sites you select, and by blocking phishing sites. OpenDNS also offers reliability on their zero downtime network.

I have been reading about how Word 2007 makes it easy to create professional looking documents. I am intrigued because I am sitting here using Word 2002 on my laptop, and I even still use Word 97 on my old NEC mini laptop, which I appreciate because I can carry the NEC anywhere and use Word, then beam Word documents to my laptop later. I’m thinking I should upgrade after seeing how handy this new Word 2007 looks. Here are some of the features the new Word has to offer:

The layout of Word 2007 offers an intuitive interface that brings many hidden features to the surface. Instead of the familiar file, edit, view, insert, etc. drop down menus, Word 2007 provides a new tool called the Ribbon which puts document creation tools at your fingertips. In older versions of Word many features such as headings and styles were harder to access. In this Word 2007 screenshot you can see the improved tab-based interface. In the screenshot you can see the “write” tab offers font, paragraph, headings and styles options within easy reach. The Galleries section of the Ribbon (which looks like small squares or windows containing relevant document formatting tools) allows the user to select tools that they want so they can create documents faster.

When you have created your document you can press the Office button at the top left and choose to save, print, or publish the document (in addition to other options); with the publish selection offering an option to create a blog post from the current document.

I have tried almost every word processing program out there, and often use Google Docs and Open Office. However with all the new features in Word 2007, I may have to try this newest iteration from Microsoft.

I’d love to hear from experienced Word 2007 users out there who can give me more reasons on why I should upgrade to Word 2007. Is it really as intuitive as it appears? Do you like using it? Which word processing program do you prefer? Talk about your experiences in the comments section below.

Have you ever been running errands downtown and needed to remember something for later, or had your latest business brainstorm? But, you didn’t have a pen and paper!

Jott and reQall are services that allow you to make a call from your cell phone and record a message. This message is then transcribed to text and emailed to you along with the attached recording. You get home, open up your email, and there’s the idea you wanted to remember waiting for you. You can also manage your messages on the services’ websites, and you can setup reminders that will text message you at the time you set.

Each service is a little bit different. Jott has lots of options for sending messages to other people by transcribed text message or email. reQall seems more aimed as a task manager/mini calendar, with the ability to choose between categories such as Tasks, Meetings, or Notes, and to assign a date and time using natural language (Jott just added organizational folders too). Jott, however, has the power to be connected to web services via their APIs, giving it a leg up on reQall. Some of the services already connected include Twitter, Blogger, Remember the Milk, and Google Calendar, letting you blog by cell phone or let your social network know what you are doing. The Cranking Widgets Blog has a nice post about how handy Jott is.

If you use web services to manage your life then give Jott a try. If not, reQall might be better, especially if you have lots of appointments during the day.

To use Jott you must be in the United States or Canada, but reQall also has you covered in the U.K..