In the past couple of months a network of spam-bots has actively been sending the stock stuff. These are computers infected by a virus, which means that they are programmed to send out spam as requested each day by a central site. This single network appears to be responsible for over a 100 emails a day in my case! That is on top of the 80 or so varied ones about viagra etc. The senders will be different each time of course since you are dealing with a large network of zombie computers. Not much you can do except bin them as they come.

The ones I'm talking about are easily recognisable though since you will notice that the format of the title is consistent.

I'm sometimes plauged by spam email but at present I get hardly any. Most of my mail is currently routed through either BT or Myhosting, both of which have very goood systems for marking mail as ##SPAM##. However, they must have some system to completely block most of the bots because most of the time it does not even get as far as being marked.

If you want to do your bit to stop spam-bots then set your firewall to prevent all outgoing traffic on port 25 except to your ISP's SMPT mail servers. Should your computer then be infected, it will be much more difficult for the virus to send outgoing email.

Optimist, should it matter about blocking port 25 if I run antivirus s/w all the time (AVG free in my case)?

SC

Blocking the port on your firewall will not stop your computer getting a virus, you need anti-virus and anti spyware to do that (hopefully). The advantage of blocking that port is that should an email spam bot get through your defenses, then it would only be able to send outgoing mail via your ISP's outgoing server which the virus would then have to be clever enough to figure out.

Blocking this port has no downside for most people as they only send mail to one SMPT server, and if you have a firewall that can send an alert, then you would no immediately if that sort of virus was active.

Thanks Optimist

Having random Pc problems - I've jus noticed the Hard disc light is just about visible - I take it this is not good? Could this indicate a internal power supply problem or hard drive problems?

Skinny

It could be a dodgy LED or something more serious but I wouldn't worry about it unless there are other problems.

Optimist thanks - and there are :-( I'll try and post later.

I'm being urged to install IE7. Has anyone any experience of it and/or any issues with it before I proceed?

Thanks. G.

been using it without problems for over a week now - just a matter of re learning where everything is and adjusting to the multi tab window format but I've not had any difficulties. Bon Nadal

Gracias kernow

I'm using Windows XP Pro. When I switch on it has against my ID the number of programs running and the number of unread EMail messages, which is usually wrong. How do I stop the EMail count appearing.

Greystone. I've been running IE7 in Beta for a few months and now with 'pukka' version. Only problems have been with other sites that couldn't use it. Bt/Yahoo mail and RBS come to mind, but they've both said that they are now compatible.

Finding my way around Explorer 7 but cannot find way of saving or filing a page into my documents. Grateful for help

You may need to get to the file menu. Hit the Alt key or F10.

It was like "Looking for a needle" Haystacks - but both of your suggestions work - I am most grateful - thank you - Merry Christmas and a profitable New Year to you

Hi,

I have just encountered a problem opening my camera transfer software, which will not open anymore. I cannot transfer photos from the camera to the PC.

I get an error message Error 0x80040707.
I have googled this and not knowing much about computer I am not sure how to tackle this problem.

I run Registry Mechanic, but that wont fix the problem.
Any basic help would be appreciated.

Cheers Ron

Are you running XP? It will usually recognise most cameras that have USB connections and treat them as a storage device. You may have to reinstall the driver for the camera which probably came on a CD.

To be honest I never use the transfer software. I just plug the camera in and use the file manager and copy from the camera's file system.

I agree with Haystack, Using XP there is no need to run camera software - it's a simple file transfer. If that doesn't work, you could always get one of those card readers and slot the card into that - that would give you the same file transfer options.

I am running XP.
I have tried and cannot re-install the driver or anything from the CD, it just gives the error message 0x80040707.
The camera does not have a USB connection.

The problem didnt exist until a few days ago, all was well, but something has gone wrong, and now it wont work at all.