In securing a wallet, there are some things that you need to do that are applicable to any secure computer.  First and foremast, you need a state-of-the-are firewall!  This will keep away 99.9% percent of the hackers, their trojans and key loggers.  Next, don't download shit unless it is from a reputable source that you can resonably trust. For example, I thought I would be a savy techie and download Kazaan to get free MP3 downloads.  It was not until much later on that I realized that I had downloaded a key logger that most likey was able to read all my PGP passphrases.  Lesson learned here, if you are going to deal with software pirates, remember that age-old adage, "there is no honor among theives."  Also, don't be cheap on your firewall.  Symantec, McAfee, Force 7, Avira, and any of their true competitors is what you should be running.

So lets say 1) you have a secure firewall, 2) you have not downloaded any shit from dubious sources, and 3) done a complete full system scan for viruses and trojans from the above mentioned antiviral programs listed above, and 4) after all that are reasonably confident you have a malware-computer.  Then you are ready to download the Bitcoin client.  If you think you are ready, then you are probably not and should download, let's say another anti-virus client, like Avira, and do a full-system scan again!

Once you download the Bitcoin client, get the hell offline.  Disable your wireless, unplug your usb/ethernet cable.

Now run the client and create your wallet.

TrueCrypt, PGP, or GPG are three good ways to encrypt your wallet.dat file.  Of course, you should have downloaded these earlier, only after you believe (not think) you have a secure firewall and a malware-free computer.

Refer to my earlier post about letting the wallet read all the current block chains.

Then go offline again!

Encrypt the wallet and then shred (rather delete) the unencrypted wallet.dat file.

Read my earlier post about what to do next.

In closing, many have compared Bitcoin to the Wild West of the Internet.  This is true.  So if you are going to be a player in the Bitcoin world, you need to learn a lot about data security and encryption.  It is these two elements that are the real instrinsic value in Bitcoin.

P.S. to all you fucking hackers--I know this site has been compromised, so I have to change my fucking passwords again becuase the host of this forums can't even follow the most basic security... ah fuck off!