SafeHouse keeps your confidential files in special data vaults better known as volumes. The term volume roots back to the early years of computers and disk drives. All you really need to know is that with regard to your files, these volumes are simply large encrypted container files which are used to store your sensitive information.

The magic behind the SafeHouse programming makes these volumes show up in Windows as a new drive letter, which makes them 100% compatible with Windows Explorer and all of your favorite applications.

Any file you save to this new Windows drive letter (a virtual drive) is automatically stored into the volume and encrypted.

SafeHouse gives you several easy-to-use tools for creating and working with volumes. These tools are found on the Tools tab of the SafeHouse system tray utility

These tools are all pretty simple. Our user's guide has more information on what each does and how to use them.

SafeHouse volume files are actually standard Windows files. We just access them in a special way. You can't open them with a word processor any other standard application because all you see is a bunch of encrypted junk. Only SafeHouse, in combination with your secret passord, can make any sense of these files.

Volume Properties:

• Volumes are standard Windows files. You can view, move or delete them in Explorer just as you would with any other kind of file.
• The file extension for SafeHouse volumes is .SDSK. You can easily identify them by their distinctive red folder icon (shown above) .
• The maximum size for a volume is 2,000 Gigabytes, or the size of your hard drive; whichever is less.
• You can create as many volumes as you wish.
• Volumes can be located on internal and external hard drives, USB drives, memory sticks, CDs, DVDs and network servers.
• Every volume has a password. Passwords can be changed as often as desired.
• Volumes can be securely backed up to other drives, tape or DVDs using standard backup software.
• Windows will treat your volumes as new "virtual" hard drives which are only accessible once you enter your password.
• You can choose a Windows drive letter to associate with your volumes. Use this new drive letter in Windows Explorer and your applications to work with your document files just as you always have. They'll never know the difference.
• Volumes support all drag-and-drop file operations in Windows Explorer.
• When your files are saved inside a volume, they are protected using super-strong encryption.
• When you move a file out of a volume, it is no longer protected by SafeHouse.

When you create private storage vaults (volumes) in SafeHouse to hold your confidential files, SafeHouse adds a new phantom (virtual) drive letter to Windows to make it easy for you to work with your files.

The reason we chose the approach of working with new Windows drive letters to represent your protected storage areas was to create an unmistakable distinction between your confidential data and any of the other files you may have on your PC. This also makes it easy for us to completely hide all the file and folders names relating to your sensitive files.

We believe our concept makes using a privacy product like ours very simple to understand. You enter your password and a new drive letter appears. Everything you put into that new drive letter is protected. That's all you need to know.

On the other hand, products which attempt to lock individual folders on your standard C drive could confuse users because you might forget which folders are protected and which are not, and you might end up saving a confidential file to a folder which is not secure.

SafeHouse hard disk encryption is a perfect tool for distributing private data files to others.

The SafeHouse trial version is freely distributable and can be included on your CDs and DVDs if you have a need to publish or distribute private information to your customers. All SafeHouse encrypted files can be read without restriction using the trial version as long as you know the password.

My recommendation for publishing encrypted data to CD/DVD is that you include our setup program on the CD/DVD along with your SafeHouse volume file which contains your data. This way, the recipient has everything they'll need to read the data.

Although the trial version expires after 30 days, its ability to read protected data never expires. Your customers will never need to purchase their own copy of SafeHouse unless they wish to author their own encrypted files. And even then, the trial version can be used to author new files for up to 30 days.

Our approach to this is very similar to how Adobe lets you work with PDF files. The PDF reader is free to anyone, yet to create PDF documents you need to purchase their authoring tool.

The techniques just described can be used to distribute thousands of CDs, or even a single CD containing information which you cannot risk being intercepted along the way. For example, I know a number of our customers who create SafeHouse CDs to send QuickBooks accounting files to their accountants. This way, they can send the CD by mail and not worry about anyone gaining access to their records. They then communicate the SafeHouse password by phone.

I was recently discussing with a colleague the diffrences between how home users search for a security product, and how corporate IT managers search for the same thing. I thought I'd share some of these thoughts as they relate to SafeHouse.

SafeHouse is encryption software. Using encryption, our software is able to completely lock, hide and protect your files.

Corporate IT managers recognize that encryption is the means to accomplish this goal. Of course, it's sort of their job to know that. When they go searching for products in Google, they include the word encryption in their search phrases.

On the other hand, when normal people go searching for a security product to keep their files safe, they rarely use the term encryption in their searches. This is because they know they want security and privacy, but they don't necessarily know that encryption is the technology that will give them what they're looking for. And of course, one shouldn't expect them to know this or anything else about encryption to use an encryption product. After all, when I shop for a car with anti-lock brakes, I don't go searching for the parts used to manufacture them -- I just want a safe car.

I've also found over time that encryption seems to be a scary word for many people outside the industry. People inquire about SafeHouse in their search for total privacy, and sometimes tell me they don't want a complicated encryption product. Well, they're half right. They really do want an encryption product (even if they don't yet know it); they just don't want a complicated one.

SafeHouse is simple and easy to use. How simple? Watch our video.

So if you're looking to keep your files and folders safe and out of site so nobody else can get at them, please take a look at SafeHouse. It's as strong as an encryption product as you'll find, yet you'll never see the word encryption when using the product. That's right, after countless conversations with people where I've had to explain that encryption is indeed the technology needed to gain the desired level of privacy, we decided it was time to learn from our customers and remove all references to the term encryption from our product, except for one page in the help file and some information on our website.

What does all this mean?

If you're looking for a strong encryption product, try SafeHouse. And if you're not looking for an encryption product, but would rather get a product to keep your files private -- try SafeHouse. They're one in the same.

The only thing you'll need to remember when you choose SafeHouse is your password.

BTW - If you can't remember your password, we have a really cool feature that lets you securely store your password on a USB memory stick. SafeHouse can read the password from the memory stick so you'll never need to type it yourself. We call this our virtual smartcard feature.