Affect/Effect- What's the big difference?

In the past week, out of maybe ten appointments, I had at least four clients question their usage of the words "effect" and "affect." Somewhere in the back of my brain, was an answer to their confusion. I simply told them, "In most cases, an effect is affected." I tried to tell them that usually effect is a noun (as in the cause and the effect) and affect is a verb (meaning to have an influence). Coincidentally, I was watching a new television show Tuesday night called "Fringe" and I heard a character use affect as a noun. I started to think that everything I had been saying was totally wrong. So, I waited for a commercial (the show is really intense) and I searched through the dictionary, but came up unsatisfied as to what the difference really is between affect and effect. Then, I went to the computer (consequently missing part of the show) and I searched google by typing, "the difference between..." You know how google finishes the phrase for you. Well, the first phrase said, "the difference between men and women" with 12,000,000 results. Shockingly, the second phrase listed was "the difference between affect and effect" with 52,100,00 results. Apparently, I thought as I chuckled, more people are interested in using words correctly in a sentence than getting to know the opposite sex. That seems like a good thing to me, being that I am a future English teacher. But the more I think about my sociology background, I realize that the reason there are so many more results for affect vs. effect is because of two reasons: 1) grammar is more objective and 2) we, as a people, think we know everything there is to know about each other. Wait, I'm getting off topic... The point I wanted to make is that the first couple of search results were enough to make me feel better about myself. I realized that what I had been telling clients was partly true. But when I found the sight linked to this, I had an even deeper understanding. The site offers a concise, yet very clear answer to the confusion that over 52 million different sites want to clear up. Both affect and effect can be a verb, just as they can both be a noun. And though I missed the ending of that great show, I realized that the character who used affect as a noun was a psychologist (psychology apparently being the main field that would use affect as a noun). Therefore, I was correct in saying that affect was mainly a verb, meaning to "influence or change." However, effect can be used as a verb as well, meaning "to make it happen." Mainly, effect is the noun we would use, meaning "result" (www.askoxford.com). The site linked to this blog and mentioned above offers this same explanation and a couple examples for deeper understanding. I just thought, because this issue comes up so frequently, it might be worth blogging about. Without checking, I am guessing that the 52 million results will more or less all say the same thing.