Great write up from Lifehacker about how to backup stuff at home.  It’s essential you do this with all that critical data (you know you’re wedding photos, first photo of a new born or the first time your kids ride a bike without stabilizers).  I would personally skip the local backup and throw Windows Home Server into the mix or just have Windows 7 do the backup for you.

Never the less, this is a superb option and very simple:

Set Up a Foolproof and Fireproof Automatic Backup Plan.

Flash is a requirement for lots of great content , like streaming video from uTube, Vimeo et al.  The latest version includes support for h.264 encoding the short version of the story is that it’ll make your PC run a little quicker and video stream a little better by offloading the work to play to video to a different bit of hardware in your PC.  Go get Adobe Flash Player 10.1.

Great article from Lifehacker on the differences between all the nasties that you can get on your computer.  Some very handy tips and don’t forget to read the comments.  Lifehacker: What’s the Difference Between Viruses, Trojans, Worms, and Other Malware?.

The new features that are coming in the next big release of Hotmail are just fantastic and security is going to be a big part of it.  The big one is SSL encryption for the whole session – that means that the whole time you’re using Hotmail on the web everything you send between the computer you’re using and Hotmail is wrapped up in a fluff protective layer.  It makes it much more difficult for someone to intercept your mail and read it which is super useful if you happen to be on some unsecured WiFi.

There are other features, but Sarah does a great job of explaining them On10 here: One-time Passwords, SSL and More: New Hotmail Focuses on Security | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10.