[DonandBonnie]

A while back I posted that I was having a problem with my computer that I thought was related to ice on the satellite dish. A couple days after the post I had a complete crash. Turns out that the problem was on my computer, not the satellite dish.

I had Norton Utilities for protection. I thought that all was protected, but I did not realize that the version I had was only an anti-virus program and did not protect against spyware and had no firewall. When the computer repairman checked things out, he found 46 spyware programs on my harddrive that locked the computer up tighter than a drum. The only repair was to reformat my hard drive and reload all of my programs. I only had a part of my data backed up, but he was able to salvage most of it. I only lost a few emails that I was saving and my email address book.

The reason that I am sharing this is to encourage all of you to regularly back up your data and to make sure that you have some sort of computer protection that includes anti-virus, anti-spyware and a firewall. It is also important to keep these programs up to date as the sleezeballs that are trying to ruin your computer are always trying new things. The computer guy sold me a program called McAfee. It contains all three protections, whereas many are sold as three individual programs. The thing I like is that when you do an internet search, the McAfee will monitor each web site and will place a green check behind it if no problems are detected or a red "X" if a problem is found. Click on the red "X" and it will tell you what the potential problem is without opening the web site.

I learned a hard lesson and an expensive one. I hope I can help someone avoid the same mistake that I made. The good news is that I'm now back on line with no problems.