[Iowa Granny]

thank you. I'm not very tech savay. I may just get a new computer. This one is less than a year old, but I just can't figure it out.

And Dell doesn't seem to be answering their phone, so tech support is nonexistant. I started calling yesterday around noon,,,, still no answer,,, the line is busy.

[Bikers4Bush]

See post #12.

[dfrussell]

I may just get a new computer

This assumes that the new ones will not be vulnerable, which is probably not a good assumption :)

You might want to just install a personal firewall and shut off most services you don't need/want (almost everything for most people).

ZoneAlarm, Sygate and BlackIce work reasonably well. Just don't get excited and start complaining to ISPs when you discover your system is being probed a lot... waste of time usually.

If you have a firewall, things like this are pretty much moot. You also might want to consider using a filtered ID from spamcop.net or hushmail.com rather than using your ISP... they run $30 a year and provide virus and spam filtering.