Following up on Ciara's post, I thought I would run through a few things that you can do to make sure your tracks are covered.  While this is especially essential to those of you in the hobby with SO's / wives, it can just be generally useful too.

I'm not trying to insult anyone's technological intelligence.  I don't proclaim to know it all.  And there's probably stuff that I haven't thought of.

But this also isn't an exercise in paranoia.  Crap like this happens *all the time*.  And people are often smarter or more inquisitve than you think - or know someone who is.  

So...onward.  Most of these tips will be geared toward Internet Explorer - though some are universal. I'll have to dig around in Firefox to see what other specific pitfalls might be there.

First the easy stuff.  

1- As Ciara pointed out, don't use the AutoComplete feature that's part of most later versions of Internet Explorer.  AutoComplete stores data from forms as a 'helpful' way of prefilling those forms the next time you come by.  The possible pitfall here should be obvious.  Disable AutoComplete by going to:

Tools -> Internet Options -> Content and clicking "Autocomplete..."  The options for the feature will appear.  Especially don't allow AutoComplete to memorize your passwords.  You may think having Hotmail or Gmail makes e-mail private for you - but not if the password to the account is sitting on your machine.

2- Delete your history.  Then make *sure* it's deleted.  Later versions of IE occasionally ignore the 'Delete History' instruction.  Follow this process:

Go to  Tools -> Internet Options -> History

and set Days to Keep Pages in History to 1.  Then every time you use the machine for browsing, go in this same dialog window and click 'Clear History' when you're done browsing.  Answer 'yes' to the confirmation question.  Then, just like in school,  *check your work*. Go to your history (CTRL-H or the little clock with the green arrow icon in the browser window) and make sure its gone.  Close all open windows of IE, then re-launch the browser and check the history (i'm serious).  If any history records persist, right-click on them in the history window and delete them all one by one.  Then repeat the check.

3- Delete your temporary internet files.  To speed browsing, smaller graphics from websites are cached in temporary directories on your hard drive.  These can be deleted using the

Tools -> Internet Options -> Temporary Internet Files -> Delete Files...

command.

This is more important than it might seem.  If a provider's site has a graphic banner or graphic-based navigation or banner ads, these will be cached.

4 - Delete your cookies.  Cookies contain little identifiable information, but their filenames are usually something like

cookie:[email protected]/

You can see the problem.

5- Be password smart.  Don't don't don't don't don't (and also...don't) write your passwords to gmail, Hotmail or whatever on a sticky note and paste it to your monitor.  Choose a password that you don't use for anything else - but that's easy for you to remember.  Pick a word that meant something to you when you were 12 - but that would mean nothing to anyone now.  Then replace letters like "O" with zeroes, "L" with a 1, "E" with a 3, "A" with an @.  

Did I mention: don't write it down anywhere!

6- Don't use your native Outlook e-mail for hobbying.  Why would you?  There's a truckload of free web-based e-mail out there.  Use Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail.  If you must use Outlook: delete sent e-mails from your Sent folder, empty the Deleted Items folder as soon as you're done deleting private mails from your box and make a rule in Outlook that sends all incoming mail from specific addresses or with specific words to some other folder and marks them as read.  This way, problem messages won't come directly to the Inbox and since they are marked as 'read', you won't get that bold number in parenthesis next to the folder you're sending them to.

But really, don't use Outlook if you have an SO.

------
That's all I can think of at the moment.  Again, follow all or part of this based on your comfort level but remember - anyone can find this information with a little looking.  And it's often the thing you didn't think was anything to worry about that comes back to bite you in the ass.

Don't be paranoid, but be smart and safe.  Take a few precautions and have less stress.

Good luck,

-PV