Chapter 7. Gosh! This Is Embarrassing!
No one has ever tried to paint computing, especially the Internet, as a bright, fun-filled meadow full of flowers, friendly, curious animals, and the soft warmth of children's laughter. No, the Internet is more like heavy, smog-choked traffic: noisy, contentious, and rude, and you're sitting in a hot car behind a smoke-spewing bus. Worse, as you go, you pick up various digital mementos, embarrassing or unwanted evidence that clings to you as you complete your journey. How embarrassing!
The stuff you gather from the Internet, as well as from your regular computer activities, is collected because the computer is programmed to indiscriminately remember just about everything you do. Remember that time you took a wrong turn in the hotel room and found yourself standing naked in the hallway? So does the computer. What this chapter does is show you where the computer remembers those things and how you can effectively eradicate the evidence.
Ghosts of Documents Past
For convenience, Windows makes it easy for you to recall things you've recently done. Specifically, you can find a list of recent files you've opened, which makes reopening those files easier. It also makes it easy for anyone else to see what you've been doing on your computer. Uh-oh!
There are two places where ghosts of documents past lurk: on the Start menu, in the Recent Items submenu; and in many programs, at the bottom of the File menu. The following sections describe how to deal with ...
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