I've been getting a few new toys of late, one has been a little BEFVP41 VPN router  from Linksys- this is an incredibly cool, easy to use IPSEC VPN router which lets me connect to my office (where we have another one of these installed) to access out sourcesafe, email etc... You can use little software clients like the lovely SSH Sentinel (no longer free unfortunately, if anyone knows a free one, please let me know). I have a feeling that these will become a lot more widely used in future as people become more aware of security issues. This thing is a breeze to set up, has a great HTML interface and is a pretty robust firewall to boot...all for not much more than a non-VPN version of the same thing! If you're using a laptop from a public hotspot, I would really recommend you use some form of VPN - it is WAY too easy to crack WEP (the most commonly used wireless encryption technology) and even if you don't

• how much do you trust your hotspot provider :-). Anyway, if you're in the UK, have a look here,  oh, and Ebuyer is by FAR the best online computing shop!