A point related to the thread below regarding securing your cell phone account and access via online accounts.  I periodically delete/clear all cookies, histories, and temporary internet files/cache.  I also have spyware programs.  What are other suggestions/ways that people secure their computers and their 'other' lives?  Thank you in advance!

If you're using a current generation operating system (Windows 2000 or XP), have a C Drive based on NTFS, and you alone administer, you have lots of options to secure your environment.  You give the other users on the system their own logins, make their accounts more restrictive (non-administrator), and use NTFS permissions to prevent access to ANY of your files, including your "Documents and Settings" folder, where cookies and history are saved.

Not bulletproof, but would be damn tough to compromise my files without NT technical knowledge.

You have much, much less prtection if you're not using the NTFS file system with multiple user accounts.

Remember, there's still the risk of you walking away from the computer leaving it logged in to your "spank account", and your account becomes compromised in that way.

which besides virus software and a firewall, has a number of other helpful features. One of them is to have all cookies, history files and temp files deleted automatically.

The best firewall and best anti-virus program, period.

/Zin

Just a note, if I can take out your hard drive and place it into another computer (extremely easy to do), then I have access to those files.

In addition to the security of your data, try to ensure the security of the computer itself. Otherwise you defeat the purpose of security all together.

You won't necessarily be able to see "everything" depending on the OS of the system you install the drive into.  If you install my HD in your XP system, then by default you will NOT be able to look at any of my personal stuff I have locked off so that only MY account can access them.  Your SID won't match the SID associated with those folder trees.  

Of course if you have a little savy, you can overcome that, but you'd need more than a little to break into my apartment and steal my hard drive.