The internet has the potential to store lots of information about you, sometimes whether you like it or not. Signing up on social networking websites, submitting comments and ultimately writing a blog will allow readers to contact, interact and research unique things about you.

With a simple Google search, you are able to find mentions of your online username and sometimes bring up relevant results using your full name. A recent project from the MIT Media Lab; Personas, is a new tool that searches the internet for mentions of your name and collates it’s results in categories of where it thinks your online presence is most suited.

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If you are an IT professional or similar, you will be well versed in ghosting, backing up and restoring data. Many programs in this field tend to be highly overpriced but ultimately lacking in features.

Cobian Backup 8 is a multi-purpose piece of software that allows you to schedule and perform routine backups of important data, transferring data to different drives on your computer or over a network share. In cases where data has a somewhat smaller footprint, FTP transfers of the data are also supported (both downloading and uploading).

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In the rush to get their hands on a Windows 7 download and a product key, some people may have forgotten to backup all of the files that they wanted to port across to their new Windows installation. Many users have run into issues with failing to backup their Firefox profile’s and related sensitive information.

If you upgraded from Windows XP or Vista, chances are that Windows 7 will have archived all your old Windows information from these systems in a folder named “Windows.old”, located normally in C:/Windows.old. This isn’t a secret, as the installation program tells you as you go through the installation process, but it sure can be handy.

Inside this folder, you will be able to navigate back through your old install, grabbing your Firefox profile or FTP saved passwords, copying and pasting them into your current installation.

I was lucky and backed up all my information, so I deleted the folder the next day. It’s handy to keep for the first few weeks but it can take up a lot of hard drive space (mine weighed in at 40GB I think).

Any other tips? Shout them in the comments.