BB FANS

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!

Do not open any message with an attachment entitled 'You have received a POSTCARD from a family member,' regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called' POSTCARD,' even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

COPY THIS AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS.

THIS is what Snopes has to say about it.

A couple simple things to check if your using Outlook / Outlook Express.

In the security settings make sure you have "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus" checked.

Also as neither program by default has a button at the top called "Preview" ,right-click on the toolbar and select 'Custom'.
A box will appear.

On the left is a list of available toolbar buttons and on the right is the current toolbar buttons.
Scroll down the lefthand list until you find 'Preview' .Highlight it and click 'add'.
You can change where it appears in the toolbar by using the 'Moveup' and 'MoveDown' buttons.

Once you have done this click on 'Close'.

Now click the 'Preview' button .This means that you have to open you mail manually rather that it automatically opening when highlighted.
If you have sub-folders in you in-box then select each one in turn and click the 'Preview' button.

The two things together should make you mailbox a lot saver.

Plus make sure your anti-virus program is up to date !
If you got Norton free with your PC and have never paid a subscription then the program isn't doing anything for you.
Go get one of the free programs like AVG. Thing the works computer has one called Anti-Vir. And remember to delete the old one first.

I'm not too worried about viruses as I mainly use Linux and I have two very good firewalls.

Have to say that Linux is looking good these days. Even Microsoft is getting worried about the cheap laptops appearing with it .

I have two routers both with their firewalls enabled in front of the PCs here then each one has a good firewall installed. Plus live monitoring for Virii and Spyware/adware. Plus Windows remote access is disabled and P2P programs aren't used ,with the exception of the BBC iPlayer.

I have one PC for normal Internet usage ,one for downloads (Newsgroups) ,one for eMail ,and one for graphics / Video (which is very powerfully with duel Xeon CPU). It might sound like overkill but at least not all the eggs are in one basket so to speak. Each one has multiply hard drives so if the smaller ones with the operating systems on go down they don't take everything with them.

Also each computer has it's own UPS (battery back-up in case of power cuts).
With 3 keyboards and mice it can get confusing. The 4th is a laptop (no UPS as it has a battery).
There's one monitor shared between 2 and any other I might have to fix and then my 32in LCD TV is used for 1080 HD from the Graphics / Video PC.

All the security works well so if you happen to download something infected it warns you before you get a chance to run it. And on-line checks prove the network is very stealthily hidden from scanners etc. The wireless side is also hidden and running good encryption. A signal meter will still find it but unless you know it's there a PC scan won't tell you of it's presence. The latest Anti-virus and Spyware software even blocks access to know hacker sites.
Phishing sites (those that pose as another site like banks or eBay etc) are blocked by the current browsers as are most of the ads.

With 1/2 to 1 hour spent installing and configuring software the Internet can still be a safe place. The rest in common sense like not giving personal details out and if you must use chatrooms only talk to those you actually know from else where.

I wish I could afford a set up like that.. I'm just a poor student.

I don't have that many power cuts though as I'm down the road from the hospital and I seem to have the same power grid as the hospital is.

Their not a great as it might sound. There are only two that I bought new and one of those is nearly 4 years old and the laptop is two years old. The email PC is coming up to 10 years old and is low spec by today's standards.

The Xeon server came off eBay in it's basic form with 2GB memory and a 40GB hard-drive delivered for £200. And it's faster than a 2.8GHz duel-core. You can get these servers with 2.4GHz CPU for as little as £99 but I wanted the faster one for video work. I have changed it a bit adding a DVD Writer and a better video card with HD 1080i (and cheap) ,plus I have an old PC case with a few hard-drives fitted to USB2 adaptors which connect to the server drastically increasing the storage. But most of the bits ,apart from the USB2 hub and video card ,were leftovers so didn't cost anything.

In the past I have built expensive custom PCs but everything devalues so quickly it's better looking for bargains.

At work we have UPS' for every PC so it was a natural thing to fit them this end. So if we get a power cut as longs as the PCs can be shut down safely I could continue using the laptop even on-line as the routers and the cable modem will continue to operate off the battery back-up system so long as the cable network doesn't go down at the same time.

We don't normally get many power-cuts but when they start you can expect a series of them in the coming weeks after the first one unless it's storm damage. The only draw-back is the constant beeping from the 3 UPS which means if it goes off at night I have to turn them off or I can't sleep.