Thought Id pass this along My dear family, friends, and fellow seekers, A new virus is out (I didn't even bother to get it's name), so I thought that this might be a good time to remind everyone to protect themselves. It is particularly important in a community like ours where we are much more freely passing information between people that we meet on-line. It also means that we could accidently spread a virus rather quickly. As with most things, Common Sense is important. 1). Do NOT open an attached document on ANY un-solicited e-mail. It doesn't matter if it says you are going to receive millions of dollars by doing. Just don't do it. Also, if you receive an e-mail that seems a little strange from someone you know -- it may not be written like that person usually writes -- don't open it until you contact that person. 2). Do NOT click on the unsuscribe button or any other web link on un-solicited e-mail. It can take you places that you don't want to go to. 3). Backup your precious data regularly. I keep all of my data and documents under a directory called "Data" with sub-directories for the various tasks (Genealogy, Music, Recipes, etc.) That way, all I have to do to backup all of my data is to copy the "Data" directory to floppy's (my new computer has the 120 meg floppy drive which is great.) I'm not constantly backing up all of my program files and I don't have to look all over the hard-drive to find all of my data underneath individual program directories. 4). Get a good virus protection program. This computer came with McAffee but I also have Norton on other computers. They are not that expensive and can really help to keep you safe. 5). The Documents that you need to be most concerned about are those which are created in programs that have a full-featured Macro or Program language and that you use the program with those features to read. Also you need to be careful of running ".EXE" programs or documents. These programs include "MS Word", "MSExcel", "MSOffice", etc. (the list is by no means exhaustive. You should always read Word Documents ".DOC" in Word Viewer or QuickView first (if you don't have it, it should be available on the internet). Notepad and WordPad have no macro language so reading text files in those programs should be fairly safe. Also, .GED (GEDCOM) files are actually text files in a particular format, they have no program commands in them. Also, if you are attaching files to someone else, it is best to attach them as plain text files (Notepad or WordPad readable files) until you and the other person have agreed to share the version in a full-featured word-processor from. I don't mean to scare anyone, but I thought that some ideas for a little prevention might just get everyone thinking. We can keep this wonderful media for sharing our family and our-selves safe for everyone with just a little caution and common sense. Happy Hunting, Scott Pittman rsprgv@aol.com