Jody, there are some basics you can do to lockdown your computer and you don't have to be a geek to do it.

I'm assuming you are on Windows XP Home edition. I have no real experience with Vista.

Accounts:
Go to: Start --> Control Panel --> User Accounts. Set a password on your own account and delete any other accounts. If you want to give access to somebody else, create a new account and set it to limited. Also the Administrator account for the computer needs to be password protected.

If you want to give somebody access to the internet, but want to block certain sites or be notified when certain sites are attempted and blocked, I suggest you install the Parantal Controls software Tech linked to below. It will even save a screenshot for you if you want it to. I'm using it on my home computers now. Its the best I've seen so far.

Just take it one step at a time. This isn't very hard and there are plenty of geeks around here, so just ask if you get hung up on something.

-Steve G.

Extra Credit: If you don't want anybody on the machine at all you can set a password that is required even before Windows boots up. This is called a BIOS password. The only easy way to defeat it is to open up the machine and pull the battery off the mother board. But then you will know it was done. The way to do this is different on every machine, but as soon as the bootscreen comes up push the button for setup mode. On Dell computers itsusually F1, on others it may be DEL, regardless you should see the what to push for setup for a few seconds before Windows boots. (You may have to push Esc in order to see it). Once inside the Bios its a matter of looking in all the menus until you find the password option. The menus are arranged differently on every machine, so you just have to look.