December 26, 2007 If Santa's Elves gave you a new computer, Blackberry, or new cellphone for Christmas I bet you are having fun with it.  But what are you going to do with your old one?

Over time you have stored all kinds of information on your present device, and now is the time to protect yourself from Identity theft. If you give that old cellphone, PDA, or computer away, remember there is information stored on it that could fall into wrong hands, and cause you problems.

In the case of the computer, if you take it to the local landfill site there are components in it that may harm the environment.

If you are going to donate your old electronics to your favourite charity, protect them and yourself, by stopping in to your electronic store and asking them to remove all data from the device. 

In the case of a computer they can run a low level format on the hard drive to make sure everything is gone.  Then If you wish they can reinstall all your programs so that the charity has a computer which they can use for years to come.

I have a Blackberry, and would not know where to start to remove all the data stored on it. Again I would take it to the dealer, and make sure every last bit of information is removed before I disposed of it.