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Morning!

Good Morning!

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and in case I don't see you, Good Evening.

Received an E-Mail from sur5er1998 at aol.com which was deleted because of a virus. Don't think there's a connection, but thought I'd put it here just to make sure, or, in case it's really the same, a virus check might be in order.
No matter how, have a nice day!

Mornin'

does anyone know what will repel red squirrels from basements, houses, etc? high speed lead works well, but only when i'm there.

Cats and dogs

Danbury,

Wow, that's strange. No, I didn't send you an email. OMG, that's my email address too....that is too creapy. Let me report that to AOL...thanks for the info. Glad to hear that your virus protector stopped it before you opened it.

Good morning from Mishawaka IN. Yesterday on whats up there was a picture of a Calumet Webcam. Can someone give me the address to that site? Thanks.

NKR,

Here's the link to the Calumet webcam. Right now, it seems to be a little off kilter. Well it says it is of mainstreet...and it is...literally...so it's not too far off. :)

http://www.mainstreetcalumet.com/

Sur5er,

No need to be too creeped out. You and danbury both have your email addresses available here and its a common virus distribution technique to forge addresses so that they look like they might come from a another contributor to a site. It could also be a case where you and danbury have exhanged email with a person in common and THAT person has a virus which replicates by scanning email messages on their system for legit addresses. The social engineering used by these folks can be very clever.

Keep your anti-virus software up-to-date and when in doubt, contact the sender directly to see if they've sent something.

Dave.

Dave, thanks for that information also. Without helpful info from folks like you, some of us would never keep up with all the electronic "developments".

Thanks, Dave. While I knew about the second alternative, the thought that the adresses had been picked up here was new to me. A virus check would be useless in this instance - the usual benefits aside. Still, if not, the people who mailed me - well, u know.
Sur5er, I thought so, but still thought it better to mention it. Hope you're clean - I just had to completely re-install the whole system after I caught some trojans I couldn't get rid of otherwise. Quite a nuisance, and there are still programs that won't work properly (unimportant ones, luckily). Doesn't sound like whatever it was came from your computer, anyway.
Good night y'all!

Recieving those messages are called spoofing. these hackers and virus senders do it all the time. I have recieved messages from myself. With a good quality VIRUS program and a FIREWALL most of your problems are eradicated. Knock on wood, haven't had those problems in a long time.
It takes out the Trojans, Worms, Spy-Ware, Ad-ware, Viruses Etc. Etc. Ours has an Automatic update for both programs. We pay for these programs but that is better then haveing all the problems.

Yup, it's the scourge of the computer age. I keep getting 'returned undeliverable' mail that I never sent. Just don't open anything where you do not recognize the sender. Hackers are very clever in devising names and subject lines that will intrigue you.

sur5er, Thanks for the info.

Iditarod Sled Dog Race
As of Wednesday afternoon the 3 U.P. mushers are still in the race.
Greg Hickmann 23rd place
Ed Stielstra 41st
Andrew Letzring 68th
I got a chuckle out of some of the dog's names for these mushers. Ed has a dog named Yooper and Andrew has one named Sisu.
Also noted on some of the photos of the race, that they have some spots in Alaska with very little snow. Maybe next year they'll have the Iditarod in the U.P.
If you're interested in the race, check out the following.
http://www.iditarod.com

Thanks DH :)

Danbury, sur5er, and others. I am running XP and have Service Pack2 installed. Also have automatic updates turned on. I just recieved an update from Microsoft which downloads a free virus scan, places it on your system, and will remove itself from your hard drive after it is done with the scanning process. It is currently scanning for the Blaster virus, a Trojan horse which is out there, and other viruses. Microsoft is planning to do this process each month to help make your PC more secure.BE SURE TO GO TO MICROSOFTS WEBSITE TO DOWNLOAD MANUALLY IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBT WHERE THE UPDATE IS COMING FROM.I am A+ certified...if anyone cares to know.

Thanks, Mark, I did that and it took only a few minutes--hopefully will save me future computer grief.

Thanks Mark. Another free virus scan is the McAfee. You can download the scan at www.mcafee.com

As soon as I finish the McAfee scan, I am headed over to the Microsoft site.

Mark, Copper Harbor--I also have automatic updates on my compter. The last 2 months my installation history shows an update "Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool--Feb/March 2005". Is that the virus scan you are talking about? I, too, have XP & Svc Pack 2.

you don't need to pay for good virus software...avast home edition is great....www.avast.com. But don't forget you need to protect from spyware and ad-ware too....anti virus software won't do it all and if you have two virus protection software's on your computer, they may conflict with each other, thinking the other is a virus.

This looks like a good day to let everyone konw about some well respected, free computer protection tools:

AVN - antivirus from grisoft.com
ZoneAlarm - firewall from zonelabs.com
Adaware - "scumware" removal tool from lavasoftusa.com
Spybot S&D - spyware removal from security.kolla.de
Microsoft Antispyware from microsoft.com

I haven't used AVN, but have heard good things about it. The others are installed on all of my personal systems. Lack of a budget is not an excuse to leave your system unprotected.

Once you have all of these, the first investment I would make would be a hardware router/firewall, even if you have only a single system connected via broadband ("always on").

The bad guys are getting smarter by the day.

Dave

Computer Associates E-Trust was a freebee for 1 year, contains anti-virus & firewall, works beautifully. Had many problems while running Symantec 2004(Norton) with windows 98SE. I know, I know, time for a new computer...............

Good Morning ev'rybody!
Maybe so, but the advantage of using W98 is that quite a lot viruses and stuff are not programmed for it anymore. Same goes for the browser, which is why I usually don't run IE.
Almost everybody I know runs Spybot, including me, and it seems to work as good as it get's - nothings quite foolproof. AntiVir is good, too, and the third part of my defence system is a decent firewall. The E-Mails, on the other hand, are accounted for by the provider, which is supposed to have one of the best virus protections. I wouldn't know, but as so far, I've yet to catch a virus via E-Mail. Knock on wood ...

Grisoft's free anti-viral is called AVG. I have been using it for years. It also scans incoming and outgoing mail. I had problems with Norton being too invasive, too large and about impossible to remove.
Don't forget that XP comes with it's own firewall.
I also use three programs to remove spyware. One doesn't seem to catch it all.
Goggle's toolbar will block pop-ups nearly 100%

It costs $50 with a $20 rebate to install Norton once a year. That's not a bad price to pay for peace of mind. Adaware and Spybot cover pretty much everything too. The last two are a free download. Additionally, I use Spamfighter (which is free). This is an excellent tool to download. My IS person at work turned me on to Spamfighter. Check it out, it stops all that nasty email.