Long... The list has been so quiet. I have had several folks write to me and ask WHAT HAPPENED? You are missed, not just by me. I want to encourage you, to maybe, when you get a few moments, from your hustle and bustle of this time of year; to sit down and post a message for us. We always enjoy reading genealogy and Ware County, Georgia area history. We want to know who you hope to find in 2002. 2002! Can you believe it? I sure can't. Have any of you made any recent discoveries or received any good leads on your lines? Any new photos of ancestors? I know many are worried, even afraid, about posting due to all the new "nasties" coming along every day. After the last post to this list about someone here being 'infected', we had a number of folks leave us. That is a shame. I always hate it when evil, wicked people [terrorists] cause the innocent to give up their liberties and freedoms. That is what the writers of these destructive programs have done to us. It isn't just GAWARE with this problem, but every list. Because, [DUH!] we use computers for all of them. <G> It is the computer that is infected, not RootsWeb! Not ANY LIST that is hosted by RW, INCLUDING GAWARE. 'Infected computers' are the carriers of these "nasties;" owned by members who have inadvertently opened something that had a "payload" in it. As some have kindly suggested, if you are concerned, you could get a free Hotmail account and not use your regular e-mail to post to lists. http://lc3.law5.hotmail.passport.com/cgi-bin/login Of course the best policy is still, to be very cautious. Stay on constant guard. Do not ever 'assume' that just because an e-mail says its from someone you recognize, or the title looks like something you were expecting, it is safe to let your guard down. These writers are using new tricks every day to fool us. LOCK/UNLOCK PREVIEW In Outlook Express: I use Outlook Express. I now have all my patches from Microsoft in place, which protects from most of the "thangs" that are out there right now. This is important! http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ I now use my LOCK PREVIEW to view ALL my mail before opening. This is easy to do. If you don't know how. Here is the way: Open Outlook Express. See if you have "Preview" as one of the buttons up top, if not...Right click on any area or button of the tool bar at the top. You will see a box with "customize" at the bottom. Click customize. You should see a box with two panels similar to your Family Tree Maker options. Find Preview on the left, highlight by clicking it, click "Add" in the middle to send it to the right column. Now you should have a "Preview" button show up on your tool bar, when you close out this box. To USE this feature: click the Preview button now found on your toolbar. It will immediately freeze all your mail locked closed. Now to read a mail without opening you can right click on the message and you'll see a gray box with "properties" this is the one you want. Now a box with two tabs, that read: general and details. On general if you see just a couple of KBs you can pretty much assume it is okay, but if you want to make sure click on the details tab, now choose "Message Source" I usually make mine full screen size, so I can really see what's going on. Read closely. But if you have ANY doubts delete it! Why not do a search on google.com for some sites that teach about file extensions? So you will know what you are looking at. http://www.google.com/ With this "locked preview" You can delete the suspicious mail, then go to "Deleted Items" folder and delete if from there, all without ever opening the mail. I will use "*" and spaces to keep from setting off folk's v i r u s filters. RootsWeb Help Desk. A great site, with MANY helpful links. Scroll Down to the section on 'this' subject right after the Social Security section. Begins with V. http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ You can get a free v*i*r*u*s scan here: Housecalls from PC-cillin http://www.antivirus.com/pc-cillin/ or here at PC-Pitstop: They will check your whole system if you want. http://pcpitstop.com/ Free Anti-V*i*r*u*s protection and many love this one: AVG AV http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.htm This one is very important, if you don't already have it. ZoneAlarm. >From the add at site: Stay Ahead of Hackers ZoneAlarm Pro provides world-class protection against Internet-borne threats like worms, Trojan horses, and spyware. Connect to the Internet with confidence! Compatible with Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 and XP http://www.zonelabs.com/ The free version is in the lower left hand corner. A very GOOD program. Want to see how secure your PC is? Steve Gibson's Research Center is a well respected site for many years. Very interesting reading there too. http://grc.com/default.htm In no way do I profess to be a professional, just want to help our list. I miss hearing from y'all. Hope to read some good queries and other posts soon. May the Lord bless each of you and those you love, Happy New Year! Friends and Cousins. Sharon Driver Wright