[Stevie]

Good morning!

Well, it seems to be that time again.

I am seeing more and more posts on multiple message boards about emails coming through that have viruses attached to them.

There are two things that you can do for free to assist with this.

One, if you are using Outlook or Outlook express (usually the latter) I would suggest switching to Mozilla Thunderbird. It has by far the best junk email filtering system I've seen to date. No more hunt and peck to get to the real stuff. Don't get me wrong, you will still have a few slip through, but if you are like me and receiving over 150 junk emails a day, it weeds it down by about 95%. You can import current messages and address books as well.

Two, there is a great free anti virus (the BEST) software available to you at http://free.avg.com/ - it is basic, but it does have an active email scanner, and scans all files downloaded to your computer - if you are of the means, then go for the advanced. But the basic is a great tool for those that either need protection or are tired of paying update fees.

Both of these programs though effective are very "light weight". In that they don't bog your computer down with a bunch of extras that are not needed or overly heave graphical user interfaces that can slow you down.

One further advice, if you can do it, I would add second hard drive to your computer so that if the primary drive with the operating system does fail, you don't risk the loss of vital info. Store the important stuff on disk 2.

Surf Safe!

Stevie