Yesterday I stressed the importance of scrubbing clean your computer before donating it (or putting it in the trash). Charitable organizations generally don’t remove the data from your computer when you donate it. Consequently, they pass all your private electronic data on to the next owner.

Here’s what to do in order to prep it for donation:

1. Copy everything on your old computer to your new one. Be thorough, you never know what you’ll regret having trashed. Try the SimpleTech Signature Mini, which I wrote about earlier.
2. Remove e-mail contacts and messages. People often remember to delete bank information, but forget these things.
3. Clear out your browser bookmarks/favorites. You might have sensitive information marked for easy retrieval that you forgot was in there.
4. Likewise, clear out your Internet cache. Here’s how to do it in Internet Explorer, and a nice little video on how to do it in Firefox.
5. Remember to delete your photos, journal entries or any stored frequent flyer or credit card information.
6. Delete all your documents, including what’s in the recycle bin or trash folder.

Now that you’re done with that, realize that you’re not done. What happens when you delete a file is that it’s not really gone. It’s just made available to write over. It’s like an Etch-a-Sketch. When you’re done making concentric circles (the only thing I was ever able to do), you don’t throw it away. You shake it so you can draw another picture.

So first step is to call your computer manufacturer’s technical department and ask how they recommend to your personal files. They built it, they should have ideas on how to delete it.

Depending on what they tell you, you might be asked to pick up some disk-cleaning software. There are many free versions available; just type “file shredder” into your favorite search engine and pick one. If you want to spend money, try Symantec’s Norton SystemWorks for about $50. But pick something, and make sure you clean it up.

My partner spotted one of these at the jQuery conference in Boston on Sunday. It’s a cheap ($249.99 on Newegg.com) and adequately powered (2GB) tiny (2 lbs, 7″) laptop. It’s the perfect little buddy to take with you to conferences, off-site meetings or other events.

It’s also got a solid-state disk, which means you can knock it around relatively worry-free, since nothing is going to come loose inside. It’s also got a built-in WiFi that that the manufactures claim “automatically detects and connects to the Internet at any hotspot.”

It runs Linux rather than Windows, which keeps it fast and cheap. But the downside is that you won’t have a copy of your Outlook for mail or other Windows programs you’re addicted to. Some report that it doesn’t handle video well, although the manufacturers tout sharing videos on YouTube and Flickr. It also comes pre-loaded with Skype, one of my favorite programs for the nonprofit.

Backups are the buzzkill of most people who work on computers. Being organized is often tedious. But spending a few minutes on a regular basis making sure that the information on your computer is safely stored somewhere else for emergency retrieval is time well spent.

SimpleTech Signature Mini makes the job a little less tedious, because this external backup device was designed by Italian sports car designers. It’s also very handy, because it’s about the size of a deck of cards, and you can bring it with you wherever you travel.

This one includes local and online backup and comes with Fabrik Local Backup software, so you can schedule automatic backups from your computer relatively easily and store around 2 GB – quite a lot – of your important information. Not all backup drives do this.

It’s also worth noting that you can use this cute thing not just for backing up documents, but you can have a handy place to put your photos, songs, or anything else you might want to bring along for a lecture or meeting presentation.

Think about using an external tool for backing up your important data. Check out this post I wrote earlier on handy tools for saving your data from yourself.

If any of you have started podcasting or video blogging, you might have noticed a discernible difference between what you’re doing with your computer microphone and what the pros are doing when they’re making voice-overs. Namely, you’re likely to hear very pronounced P sounds as you talk into the mic.

We’ve addressed a couple different ways to get past this (such as talking past the microphone rather than into it or getting a good yet inexpensive headset), but this excellent article in Nextplease shows you How To Make Your Own Microphone Pop-Filter.

This article will show you how to make your own microphone pop-filter. A pop-filter is a small screen that goes between a microphone and your mouth to prevent sharp popping sounds (known as plosives) like “P” and “B” words from overloading the mic level and distorting.

The whole thing, which is essentially a pair of pantyhose stretched over a wooden embroidery ring, costs about $6. I’ve found similar results by stretching an old pair of hose over a hanger and placing it in front of the microphone when doing my own voice-over work.

You’ll be surprised how much this small adjustment can make a difference in the way your recordings sound.

The thing about weblogs is that they’re supposed to be quick and easy to put together. A theory that’s compounded by the number of people who “blog” live events. That’s to say they attend an event and bring their computer with them and provide nearly real-time feedback on what they’re seeing.

That’s of course the idea, but it takes much more work than that to actually crank up the blogging machine. That’s why I liked this posting by WebWorkerDaily about what one contributor takes with her to do live blogging. Her list of hardware includes:

• Computer
• Good, capacious computer bag
• Flip video camera (I’ve mentioned this before on my own weblog)
• Digital recorder

The software, well, that’s another big list altogether, and fodder for a future post.

A pen, you may say, is by default wireless. That’s why it’s called a pen and not a keyboard. But the Mobile Digital Scribe GPEN200N from Iogear looks like a pen but is effectively a portable computer.

This device captures 50 pages of your handwriting or drawings – using normal ink – and it transfers them to your computer as a digital document. You can sign checks with this thing, but it has enough digital juice to grab a whole day’s worth of meeting notes. When you’re done jotting, upload to any computer you want – without need of a digital notepad or special paper. The handwriting recognition software (OCR software) converts your notes into digital text.

This has a real benefit for anyone giving a presentation, because you can connect the pen to a digital projector to show your writing in near real time. Forget overhead projectors.

Pretty cheap too. You can buy it for $129 from the manufacturer or pick it up for less than $100 online.

A podcast might be the perfect tool for broadcasting your sermon or special event, but while they’re fairly easy to put together, getting good quality sound takes some thought. The standard microphone that comes with most computers – or heaven forbid the built-in version in your laptop – creates a tinny far-away sound that instantly cheapens your broadcast. If you’re doing any kind of recording on your computer, having decent equipment is a must.

If you’re serious about podcasting, you might want to set aside several hundred dollars to invest in a microphone and a compressor/limiter. But many of our clients are simply using whatever equipment they can get their hands on. if you’re unable to part with much money, you can try the Plantronics DSP-500 headset for around $50. (You might remember Plantronics from an earlier Gadget Monday where we told you how to get set up for using Skype – this headset will do double-duty.)

Plantronics DSP-500 headset

No matter which mic you’re using for your podcast, you can get better results with a few low-tech techniques. This posting from the O’Reilly Digital Media Blog has some useful demonstrations on how to get better results with your recordings, including how to tweak your mic position (hint: talk past your microphone rather than into it).

Also, see this article on how to make a pop-filter out of some old pantyhose.

Here’s a gadget that anyone who works with the visually impaired will love: karaoke in Braille.

It’s from a Japanese company called Nippon Telesoft, actually two companies that have teamed up to build the special machine. A PC plugged into the karaoke machine translates lyrics into Braille and sends them to a special display. The characters appear on the display slightly ahead of the music so singers can follow along in time with the tunes.

Now it’s not just your sighted friends who can get drunk and sing off-key to old Genesis songs.

See the machine in action.

Some scary news: US border control now has the authority to swipe your laptop, cell phone or other electronic device. Bad news no matter which way you look at it, but you could be utterly lost if you’re traveling and US agents decide to retain your laptop indefinitely.

My best advice is to travel with a stripped-down piece of equipment that contains only contact names and travel details and download information from an online storage space when you arrive at your destination.

But you might also give a shot at TrueCrypt, free open-source software that locks down the information on your laptop so that only you can get at it. Not only does TrueCrypt encrypt your files, but it hides them so snoops don’t even know they exist, a practice called steganography.

It’s worth learning a bit about how this works if you travel and can’t live without your laptop. Of course, border control can still take your iPod, so there’s a good reason to travel with a cheapy MP3/4 player.

Skype is so easy to use and costs so little – it’s free, in fact – that I’m always amazed at how few of my clients and associates use it. With one free download, you can be making free calls over the Internet and be sending text chats with other people who also use Skype.

So today on Gadget Monday, I’m featuring three essential tools for cutting your office phone bills and giving you a direct link to your colleagues by gearing up for Skype use.

1. First of all, download Skype.

2. PC Headset. While you really only need speakers and a microphone to use Skype for talking over the Internet, this route means you’ll have to deal with feedback. Your mic will pick up speech through the speakers, and you’ll hear a crazy echo while you’re trying to have a call. Instead, invest no more than $30 in a good headset that plugs into the back of your computer. You’ll look like you’re working in a call center, but your call quality will be great.

I use a nice Plantronics set. They have some great clearance deals on the website.

3. Headset Speaker Switch. The PC headset is great when you’re talking on the phone, but you don’t want to sacrifice using your speakers just for talking on Skype. The solution is the headset speaker switch, which lets you plug in your computer speakers and your headset at the same time. Use the toggle switch when you want to go from headset to speakers and vice versa.

4. Nokia N810. This last point isn’t technically essential, but it’s so cool and useful for other things that I have to mention it here. The Nokia N810 Portable Internet Tablet is a hand-held device that’s an alternative to the iPhone. But you don’t have to use the expensive AT&T contract to make calls. It synchs up with Skype (as well as Google and any other website) so you can talk for free. But you can also use it for on-the-road demos, taking notes, checking your e-mail and more.

Check this page on the Skype website to learn more about how these two dance together.