Zone Alarm Firewall?

I am looking for a third party firewall that offers solid protection & is user friendly, light on resources, etc.

My only hesitation is since I’m not very familiar with computers outside surfing the web, e-mail, basic programs, etc, I’m afraid that I will give access to bad "people" and programs. Like for instance, on the Zone Alarm and I’m sure other firewalls, the pop ups come up to ask if you want to accept or deny access. If they randomly come up, how do I be positive that the program is safe? If I said "ok" by accident, it’s then possible for pretty bad things to happen to my computer, correct?

Any input for a beginner would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you can suggest a user friendly, solid firewall that’s light on resources that would be great.

I have Windows XP SP2, IE 6, and I use the computer for surfing the web, e-mail, and realplayer, etc. I have 1 GB of RAM.

Is this a good way to backup an old hard drive while upgrading OS?

I need to upgrade the OS in an old computer from Win98 to WinXP. The problem is, the computer has no DVD writer and the CD writer is unreliable (screwed up CDs many times).

The hard drive is partitioned into C and D, C for the Win98 installation and D for personal data and everything else. I wonder, is it a good plan to use TrueImage to image just the C drive and save it onto the D drive, and then upgrade WinXP and install it onto the C drive replacing the Win98. This way the data in my D drive will not be affected by the upgrade, right?

What if the upgrade fails and Windows cannot be started, how can I retreive the image on the D drive using TrueImage? Can someone explain this since I’ve never used TrueImage before. Thanks.

PS: the C partition only has 4GB of space and currently only 1 GB free. Is it enough for the upgrade to XP? Should I enlarge the partition before I attempt to upgrade?

Where can I get free anti-theft software for Nokia N70 Music edition,to make it useless for thieves if stolen?

Also,how do i backup my n70 data stored on the 1 gb memord card as I have many pics,videos,files stored on it?..Is there a free software to ensure privacy,using password protection on n70?

Does Windows Backup and Restore create files on the local disk when backing up to an external disk?

Just recently I attempted to backup some of my files to an external hard drive using Windows Vista's Backup and Restore center. I noticed that during the backup, about 1 GB of data showed up on my primary hard drive. What are these files, and how do I remove them?