Put your passwords in your pocket and take them everywhere you go

My own personal favorite password manager, Password Safe, isn't officially portable. But in practice, it sort of is.After you install Password Safe onto a computer, you can drag and drop the program folder onto a flash drive and safely remove the drive. Then you can connect it to another Windows PC and launch Password Safe. You'll want to keep your password database file on the flash drive too, of course.But this doesn't work perfectly. It has...

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Three cool ways to tweak File Explorer in Windows 8

Microsoft may have bungled a few things with Windows 8 (snark reply: "Just a few?!"), but File Explorer isn't one of them.For one thing, the file manager finally earned a home on the Taskbar (even if you have to switch to the desktop to find it). Even better, Microsoft endowed it with the now-familiar Ribbon interface, making for much easier navigation of your files (and Explorer itself).However, I think it could be even better with a little tweaking. Here are three simple changes you can make to improve the File Explorer experience:1. Customize...

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How to safely remove a USB drive even when Windows says it isn't safe to do so

Windows' built-in solution usually works: Click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area (aka the system tray or the systray) and select the drive. When you get the "Safe To Remove Hardware" message, it's safe to remove the hardware.But sometimes, "usually" isn't good enough, and Windows instead tells you that "This device is currently in use."But Windows won't tell you what's using the device. Without that information, it's tough...

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Here's what an eavesdropper sees when you use an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot

You’ve probably read at least one story with warnings about using unsecure public Wi-Fi hotspots, so you know that eavesdroppers can capture information traveling over those networks. But nothing gets the point across as effectively as seeing the snooping in action. So I parked myself at my local coffee shop the other day to soak up the airwaves and see what I could see.My intent wasn't to hack anyone's computer or device—that's illegal—but...

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