Hacked?

The only thing even remotely 'weird' that happened to my machine is that I got a funky email. It was blank....

I get blank e-mails all the time. Most of them are spam probes. Though you are courting disaster if you're using Outlook. I'd recommend Eudora or another mail client. Outlook is nothing but a virus-friendly, trojan-friendly, worm-friendly piece of Microslop junk.

Does anyone know anything about Avast! software?

I personally recommend Grisoft's Free AVG Anti-Virus program to Windows users. It's free, updated regularly, and it's worked well in every situation in which I've implemented it. You can check it out here: http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/.

A blank e-mail might have what's called a "web bug", an image that only has to be one pixel in size, and if it's white, it'll never show, though who will normally notice one tiny speck of any color?

For example, take this smiley:

I paste an image link, which is a command telling your computer "access this image from the server/computer JoJo specified", and when you access this page again and see the smiley, your computer downloaded it into the cache from the server it's hosted on. A "blank" e-mail in HTML format can do the same. (Look at the source code).

Spammers can keep a record of how many times that little bug was accessed, giving them an idea how much coverage they're getting, if your e-mail account is currently active, and they can also have a record of all IP addresses. Take that blank e-mail and click Edit>Select All and squint and see if there's not a tiny speck on the page. Your highlight color will reveal it.

If I'm right about the web bug, your only real protection is to set your e-mail program for plain text only, or to only open mail while OFF-line, so the signal to "phone home" won't be sent.

You can download a trial copy of The Cleaner which will locate and remove any Trojan Horses or zombie software.

I don't know your firewall, maybe some one else does. I have used Zone Alarm since they came on the market and would recommend it for a home user since I know it does the job and doesn't mess with other software.

Is it possible for you to upgrade to XP?

If you believe you may have a virus/trojan/worm (which your full-time AV possibly missed) you may want to scan your system with one of these free on-demand virus scanners.

Antidote Superlite is an on-demand virus checker. It does not require installation; i.e. no registry changes, added .dll files, etc. Simply download the exectuable, run it, make your choices and scan.

MicroWorld Toolkit is another on-demand virus scanner, similar in use to Antidote.

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