Okay, both "effect" and "affect" can be used as nouns.

Effect: a result or change produced by some causitive agent or activity, i.e. the effects of smoking, meaning things brought about as a result of smoking.

Affect: an emotional posture or aspect, demeanor, mood. The "affect of smoking" would be the sort of "bad boy/girl" image of a smoker as someone who habitually does something kinda dangerous for kicks.

Now, on to the verbs. "To affect" can mean both "to cause an effect (on)" and "to produce or project an affect." In the first sense, "to affect" takes something other than the effect as an object, you always affect something to produce an effect. In the second sense the object of the verb is the affect produced, not the entity on which the affect was produced. You can affect an affect.

Effect, as a verb, means something quite different. When you effect something, you cause it to come about or into existance, it is not merely affected, but effected by your action. Thus all your actions as a parent affect your children, but only one activity effected them by causing them to come into existance in the first place. "To effect" is always takes the effect effected as the object. If you effect something, it exists as a result of your action.

There is a special case in which "to effect" means "to put into effect", where the object is a plan or design which has not yet been put into action/production. Thus, "effecting a plan" can refer either to the creation of the plan itself or to putting the plan into action. To avoid ambiguity, it is safer to only use "put into effect" or "conceive/develop/imagine" when referring to plans and designs. But the double meaning of "effecting a plan" can be useful at times.

af-fect...v.t....To act upon; to produce an effect or change upon; to influence; to move or touchby exciting the feelings; to aspire to; to follow after habitually or gravitate toward; make a show of; to assume the appearance of; to pretend.---af-fec-ted-ness, n.

ef-fect...n....That which is produced by some agency or cause; a result; a consequence; power to produce results;force; validity; the result intended; purport or intent; tenor or significance; the state of being operative; operation or execution; accomplishment or fulfillment; the result upon the mind of what is apprehended by the faculties; a mental impression produced, as by a painting or speech; a combination, as of form, color, light, or shade, producing a particular mental impression. Pl. goods; movables; personal estate; property.---v.t. To bring about; accomplish, fulfill; produce or make.---for ef-fect, for the mere impression on the mind of others; as, to talk for effect.---in ef-fect, in result or conseqauences, as: The two methods are the same in effect. In fact or reality, as: It is no other in effect than what it seems. In operation, as a law.---ef-fec-ter, n.---ef-fect-i-ble, a. Capable of being effected.

[Edited to correct a few things. It ain't easy copying out of the dictionary.]

My theory is that the culprit was a brief surge in the popularity of the phrase "to effect change in", which, by attaching the noun in which change was to be effected with the preposition, served as a rough syntactic (rather than grammatical) equivalent with "to affect". If you understood that sentance, then you probably don't need help knowing "effect" from "affect"

Anyway, since "to effect" can be used for grammatically correct if meaningless or misleading statements simply by dropping the words "change in", it became popular to do so. If you want to use the phrase "to effect change in" or some grammatically similar construction, you can please those idiots who think it sounds better than "to affect" without saying things that simply don't make any sense. In fact, since "to effect change in" is probably preferred for its doubling of the verbosity compared with "to affect", it should also look better when compared with "to effect". For variety (and further verbosity) you can switch in different prepositions for "in" and a couple of different nouns for "change". "Our policy will effect an enhancement with respect to relative obscurity and literary qualifications."