Sure it can be hard to keep a secret, but our computer passwords are secrets worth keeping.

When I used to audit companies back in the day, I was always surprised to see how many people kept their passwords posted at their desks or taped inside their top drawers or written on index cards that were tucked underneath their desk blotters.

I always thought these folks were playing with fire and I swore I would NEVER make that mistake. Still, in the last year, I’ve been the victim of cyber-crime not once, but twice.

First, imagine my surprise when I was showing my parents Zuburbia.com for the first time and discovered that every catalog page was displaying Google Ads! Some enterprising crook had somehow hacked in to my site and placed very unattractive Google ads on all the e-commerce pages so he could pocket pennies and dimes from the clickthroughs.

Then a few months ago my server company contacted me because I was exceeding my file capacity. A little investigation quickly revealed that all those files didn’t belong to me. They belonged to some other company who had hacked in and parked them on my server thinking I wouldn’t notice.

As you can imagine, I’ve since become much more savvy about my computer passwords.

Here are a few tricky tips I’ve implemented to create more secure passwords that you might also find helpful:

* Since you shouldn’t use personal information or easily obtained data for your passwords (like names of family members, pets, license plate numbers, etc.) try using a mnemonic itstead. The password Mhall is easy to remember since it’s the first letter of each word in the phrase Mary had a little lamb.

* To make your password even more secure, be sure to include a few capital letters so Mhall becomes MhAlL.

* Then, since this password is still too short for some sites, tack on a numerical extension or integrate numbers within the password itself. MhAlL could become 8MhAlL4 or MhAlL84.

* Since you should change your passwords frequently but NOT write them down, it’s helpful to use a consistent naming convention. For instance, next month I might change my password to FfOsRtS84 or 8FfOsRtS4 (for Fashion fades only style remains the same).

Of course, we don’t just need to protect our internet assets like unauthorized access to our Facebook pages or online checking accounts.

Remember I told you recently about my neighbors’ break-in on January 30?

Well they were dismayed to discover that the wedding ring that was stolen wouldn’t be covered by their insurance because it exceeded the $1,000 limit for jewelry on their Renters Policy.

Should you be the lucky recipient of a glitzy Valentine’s Day gift like today’s VPOD, a pair of gorgeous ruby and seed pearl dangle earrings from the 1970s, be sure to thank the gift-giver and then call your insurance agent pronto to make sure they’ll be protected from loss or theft.

These are just smart moves to protect the assets of Vintage Crusaders!

Available at Beladora.

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Going, Going, GONE!

CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO EBAY AUCTION

(Auctions all end within the next 5 days.)

Vintage 1970s Lace Mini Dress (hellhoundvintageclothing) | Vintage Hattie Carnegie Elephant Brooch (vtg_treasure_hunters) | Vintage 1950s Beaded Sweater (paris.vintage) | Vintage 1960s Fringe Cropped Pants (thriftwares) | Vintage 1950s Ostrich Handbag (badger201143) | Vintage 1970s Icelandic Wool Sweater Coat (ttlg2quit) | Vintage 1950s Rhinestone Belt (badger201143) | Vintage 1950s Silk Dress (weatitsatvintage) | Vintage 1950s Lace Cocktail Dress (peeweekatz) | Vintage Italian Figural Tomato Purse (just-a-dab) | Vintage 1950s Romper (nhal6856) | Vintage 1960s Malcolm Starr Evening Gown (divinefinds) | Antique Petit Point Purse (2c2bid) | Vintage 1950s Brocade Evening Coat (thriftwares) | Vintage 1970s Trifari Lucite Necklace (sugapea) | Vintage 1970s Tooled Leather Handbag (vintage317) | Vintage Trifari Matsumoto Lucite Bracelet (getreadygo2) | Vintage 1940s Crochet Clutch (stencilwoman) | Vintage 1970s Alfred Shaheen Jumpsuit (thekissingtreevintage) | Vintage 1960s Leather and Brass Belt (beltsandbling) | (Disclosure: Editorial selections are made by Zuburbia without direct promotional consideration from Bay sellers. Zuburbia is an affiliate member of the eBay Partner Network).

PLEASE NOTE that Zuburbia does not endorse the use of fur, feathers, leather or animal skins in fashion. These selections are offered only as more thoughtful and eco-friendly alternatives for contemporary fashionistas who have not yet eliminated animal products from their wardrobes.

(To receive Going, Going, GONE or any of Zuburbia’s other Vintage Roundups for FREE via email, sign up here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)

I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with Ugg Australia hammering them with questions about where they source their sheepskins and what standards they have in place for the ethical treatment of animals.

Why?

Because a dear, dear friend gave me a pair of Ugg boots for Christmas.

Yep, Uggs. Made from sheepskin. And as you all know by now, I don’t wear fur.

Since my friend knows I don’t wear fur, what was he thinking?

Well, being a guy, I think he knows that Uggs are a part of LA culture and, as an Ugg-lover himself (he literally wore out a pair of their slippers) he knows that even I can’t deny that they are comfy and cozy.

Plus he insisted that wearing Uggs is no different than wearing leather. Hmmm. Really?

I wanted to keep them — even if I only plan to wear them at home — but could I live with myself if I did?

If you’re gonna talk the talk then you better walk the walk, right?

So I Googled and sorted through the unsubstantiated and confusing claims about Uggs on the web until I found articles by respected journalists including the Wall Street Journal. I reached out to the company itself and to its American distributor to clarify and confirm what I needed to know to feel okay about wearing their product. I even digested an article about how kundalini yogis use sheepskins to enhance their meditation practices. Yes, yogis.

And it turns out my friend was right. If you wear leather, wearing a pair of Uggs is no different.

The sheepskins used to make Ugg boots are a by-product of the food industry. Just like leather.

Still, I try very, very hard to only buy vintage leather, so does this mean I should refuse this gift from my dear friend?

I must confess that I struggle so hard with this animal products in fashion issue. I’m a vegetarian, not a vegan, and there’s still an ongoing war that goes on inside of me because of that.

The intelligent, rational, evolved side of my brain says we don’t need animal products in our lives today. But there is something buried in my DNA that sees them and remembers how an animal hide kept my Cro-magnon sister from freezing. How learning to fashion and use tools and gadgets and products from animals fostered our evolution.

So while I hate that Hermes raises crocodiles to make handbags, I hate even more that seeing their craftsmanship makes me swoon. In a survival-of-the-fittest way, I’m proud to be part of the species that survived to fashion these items and yet I despise that my species still fashions these items in the 20th century and that some deep part of me can still view them as beautiful or useful.

So I struggle with whether to feature any more fur, feather, leather, snakeskin, alligator, crocodile, sharkskin, suede or coral items here at Zuburbia. And I wonder where to draw the line. I mean, according to PETA, 3,000 silk worms die to make a pound of silk, too. Cashmere production is creating major environmental problems.

If you look at the Buddhist idea of ahimsa (non-harm) does it mean we should give more weight to animals than to the good of the planet? Shouldn’t our overall footprint count more than each individual step? And what’s better? To purchase a new leather or vintage handbag today that will last another decade or a vegan version from a discount store that will far apart in six months?

What I learned from this Ugg experience is that these types of ethical dilemmas are very personal and very, very complicated. And while I believe that it’s fine to share our stories and our thinking, as I’m doing here, I don’t believe it’s right for me, or any of us, to judge anyone else for their personal choices. The more I learn the more I realize that moral, green, ethical decisions almost always involve some sort of trade-off and there usually isn’t one single answer that’s best for everyone.

That’s why each of us needs to honestly assess where we are in our individual personal development right now and make the choice that feels right for us right now. And if we want to change our choices in the future, we can. And we certainly will as our awareness and consciousness grows. As Oprah says, when you know better you do better.

And part of knowing better is actually knowing better. So I encourage everyone to reach out as I did and learn what you need to learn to make the best decisions for you. Get educated. Seek out answers to your questions. Then reconcile all the competing issues and voices and reach for that place of deep knowing in yourself that will tell you exactly what is right and best for you and your life now.

That’s why I’m going to accept my friend’s gift and will take a moment to pause, remember the sheep who have provided me this warmth and send out blessings to animals everywhere whenever I slip them on.

And that’s why (at least for now) I’ll continue to feature items like today’s VPOD, a rad pair of c. 1970 Edouard Jerrold suede boots.

Because any thoughtful, conscious fashion choice is the right choice for a Vintage Crusader!

Available at ilovetrash.

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Trompe l’oeil is French for “deceive the eye” and refers to an art technique that can create optical illusions that appear very realistic. But the idea of trompe l’oeil isn’t only applied to art. It also finds its way into fashion.

Fashion, by nature, is often used to “deceive the eye” with prescriptions for looking taller, thinner, or more proportional by wearing stripes or wider belts or smaller prints or narrower trousers.

But there isn’t a combination of separates on the planet that can “deceive the eye” into believing that you are a better person than you are.

You may dress like a Queen but if you act like a Wicked Witch, no designer logo, couture jacket or fresh-off-the-runway anything can hide the real you. Rude is rude even if you’re decked out in Chanel.

The point is this:

Are you living as good as you look?

Sometimes I think that we spend so much time and effort to LOOK good that we forget to BE good. To be polite. To be considerate. To have empathy. To remember what’s important.

Yesterday, for instance, I was shopping at The Grove and witnessed two sides of fashionably dressed human nature:

First, I was one of fifteen people waiting in line to check out at Barnes and Noble with only one person—yes, just ONE!—working the register. Sure I may have wanted a word with management to suggest better staffing, but I also wanted to give a standing ovation to the fourteen souls who waited patiently and pleasantly with me in the spirit of the season.

Unfortunately, this concern for my fellow man didn’t extend to the parking lot where I was nearly taken out by someone channeling Mario Andretti in a Prius. Here the sweet sound of Christmas carols was overshadowed by a cacophony of blaring horns and squealing brakes.

Now I understand that you have important people to see and important places to go and important things to do. And I realize that parents with young children, the elderly, and the handicapped may all take a tad more time entering and exiting their vehicles and crossing over the pathways designated for vehicles. But living as good as you look means having as much patience in a parking lot as you do when you’re trying on swimsuits or jeans.

Living as good as you look also means choosing to wear and use products that align with your values. And purchasing those products from companies who have values that align with yours, too.

And living as good as you look means realizing that your personal style isn’t just an assessment of what you wear but is also greatly impacted by things like your tone of voice, your vocabulary, your manners, your morals, your behavior and your ethics.

So if you want to deceive the eye of the masses with a little fashion trompe l’oeil, just carry a fun little vintage 1970s tote bag like today’s VPOD by Roberta di Camerino. But realize that any deception stops there.

You’re not fooling anyone if you’re dressing to look good but not living as good as you look.

And that’s true for all Vintage Crusaders!

Available at thekaliman.

(To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)

It’s Cyber Monday so let the online holiday shopping frenzy begin!

Actually this is my kind of frenzy. No waiting in line for stores to open their doors. No pushing and shoving. No pepper spray.

Just me, in my bare feet, in my quiet apartment, sipping a cup of green tea and knocking out all my holiday shopping in an hour or so.

Now as someone who studied adult learning for a good part of my career, I believe that just as there are kinesthetic or tactile learners, there are also kinesthetic or tactile shoppers.

These gals need to touch and feel the goods they’re purchasing. They actually enjoy the shopping experience more when they can chat with a sales clerk, try on clothes, move hangers down a rack or press the buttons on an appliance before making a purchase.

And they probably battled the crowds to do their holiday shopping on Black Friday.

But for gals like me, there’s Cyber Monday, which offers great online deals and other distinct advantages:

1. You can buy local even though you’re far away.

These days most small businesses have a presence on the Web.

This means that someone like me, who shops for family and friends on the other side of the country, can forgo gift certificates from big box retailers and instead send treats from local florists and favorite hometown restaurants. I can support local independent movie theaters and bookstores. Or even purchase cooking classes, music lessons, or artwork from local experts.

And those large, bulky gifts that would cost an arm and a leg to ship? Well, with a little bit of cyber research, you can often find a local small business willing to deliver the same item for a fraction of the cost.

2. It’s good for the environment.

This is particularly true if you do all your shopping from one online retailer.

Instead of traipsing across town to a sporting goods store, book store, electronics store and kitchen store, you can just visit a large online retailer like Amazon and get all that shopping wrapped up (literally!) in one fell swoop.

And by using one online retailer rather than four, all those gifts will be shipped together and reduce the impact on the environment in terms of both carbon emissions and packaging waste.

3. It’s good for your pocketbook.

There’s no doubt that it’s much easier to comparison shop online and there’s also plenty of customer reviews online to help separate reality from hype.

Plus it’s a whole lot easier to resist impulsive buys when you’re pushing a mouse around instead of a shopping cart. After all, when you click “Go to Checkout” online you don’t have to walk by a bunch of tempting sales racks.

And there aren’t little extra expenses like parking or pit stops at Starbucks to take bites out of your wallet.

But one word of caution.

Work hard to stick to a cyber shopping plan or like me,  you’ll start your morning shopping for TVs and somehow find yourself drooling over a beauty like today’s VPOD a few short hours later.

And this vintage 1970s beaded jersey dress by Stephen Burrows truly stopped me in my tracks.

I mean, if you’re wearing a treasure like this, it won’t matter how many LED screens or pixels are in a room. All eyes will be fixed on you.

It’s a real showstopper for a Vintage Crusader!

Available at Dorothea’s Closet Vintage.

(To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)