WF - No LAFFING! Ok - I'm grinning too, but NO LAFFING. It's really NOT FUNNY. I'm trying to be serious here. . . .STOP IT. ..(grin) I get these STUPID calls this time of year - from friends that went shopping - and didn't have ANY form of protection. . . .I just want to hand them my credit card and tell them to throw the machine out the window. I'm serious. . .tis the season. That and the "what should I buy" stuff with those ads - every freakin' ad that comes out in some da*mn newspaper. . .trying to explain to someone NOT to purchase anything with a celeron - an athalon is fine - watch out for this, that and 15 other things. I go into a complete psychosis at this time of year! No laughing! Comonnnnnnnnnn. . . .(grin) I just wanna play in the dirt! Leave me alone! Buy a set of crayons and write your order! (very sarcastic grin) Speaking of . . .I have to go in tomorrow and fix a corrupted profile from someone who can't stop surfin' . .jeez I'd like to slap some people. . . .and then re-write an app that is misbehaving. . .the users won't use the command buttons right so I have to "disable" some of those in the application. Ya know, how many times do you have to tell people not to "crash" out of a shared database? Want me to draw PICTURES FOR YOU?!?!?! I'm gonna disable the red X. Stopped the corruption in the other ones when I disabled it. No laughing - this time of year stinks for some of us. LOL. . .(sigh!)

I have two Visa accounts with the same major national institution. This is two separate accounts. One is only used on the Internet and telephone ordering, and has never been out of the house. The other I carry. About five years ago both were hijacked within a week, and a year later the Internet card was hijacked again. I was fortunate as all three instances were detected in a very short time. The last time by the institution itself. To this day I believe the institution was hacked in all cases as they were overly cooperative, mailed my new cards in overnight mailers, and didn't even require any affidavits. From my experience, and if the available tools are still the same, I recommend: Trust no one. Contact any one of the three credit reporting agencies and advise them of the occurrence. They will place a watch on your account, and notify the other two agencies. If your credit card purveyor has alerts, enroll. In my case anytime a charge of over $50.00 is made I get an automated telephone notice, and an e-mail. If your credit card purveyor has a website, enroll and monitor your card. Go to the institution you use for general banking, and check to see what safeguards they have available for your account(s). I placed a password for all in-person withdrawals, and any type of inquiries. If you have never made a purchase through a particular website before, research the site then make the purchase by telephone the first time. From then on as you wish. Do not embed credit car numbers in any site when shopping. NEVER respond to solicitations by e-mail or telephone regarding personal information or account information. Finally, trust no one. DA

System secure? Absolutely. Scared of the dark? Never. Quality protection? Priceless. Experienced members are just that, experienced. They know how to obtain and how to ferret through material to make an informed decision. This forum has members like any other forum who are minimally experienced users and newbies who already want to scan for this and scan for that everyday. They want to scan in the morning. They want to scan at night. Some want to run two anti-virus applications. If their system burps they go on line and do a "free" scan. They want to restore or reinstall because they think they have something malicious. It's not that they are paranoid, they are just concerned in protecting their systems and inexperienced in doing so. God knows we were all in their position at one time, and still are in some categories. I couldn't tell you anything about .html as I have never had a desire to study it so in that vein after all these years I am still a newbie. As experienced members it is our responsibility to when asked clarify, teach, and suggest regarding all phases of computering. It is not for us to contribute to their fear. I read a lot and I am quite comfortable in reporting I have heard a recommendation to scan daily for malicious 'ware only once before. Does that make me right? Of course not. However, it does comment on the need. I wish I could give the member his/her due as I am quoting but unfortunately I don't remember who posted " ...the best anti virus protection is in between your ears..." I expand this thought to 'ware protection. DA

Matti, I tried to reach out to you and Georgie. Chemocurl was working with me on the other side with new computer techniques. I even made a Halloween card that included Georgie's dog and others for Georgie using my new training.I got in trouble for posting the final result of my training but I was thrilled to have chemocurl as my friend. Very patient and I learned a lot and liked that she is so darn real and tries to be kind and encouraging. I was moving right into Georgie's backyard and she asked me where I was going to live. when I told her where I was moving to I got no answer. I understood and moved on. When georgie called out for me I told her I was on the Computer Help side. No answer and when I came back to trivia it was not the same for me. Jasdip was clear I was not wanted even though when she was having personal problems I offered her a place to run to. Georgie, never spoke to me again and jasdip missed the fact that I won 2 days in a row. Not much to analyze. For a long time the questions were repeats and too easy to google and I didn't want to be a part of people who did that. I enjoyed the smart answers to the dumb questions that were impossible to answer. Quite a mess but possibly a misunderstanding on the part of you and georgie and me. Someone suggested journaling every morning and and what I wrote back to you all it was off the page in a couple of minutes due to an onslaught of everyone writing at once. I got lost in the shuffle and was off the page before anyone could read it. I probably was not the only one whose posts were missed. A bad idea that I guess stopped. But I am on other sites like Computer Help and Decorating where one can go off the subject and talk about any thing off topic from decorating on a side channel. I will continue to come over here but I miss so many who got passed over and left. It is great to have a core group and I find Alisande and others spot on with good questions so when it comes to someone being ill or losing a spouse I am there. Like Phoggie who lost her husband. I don't see her and because she was brought to this site maybe by raven she got taken care of and was able to move on. I miss mommyme if that is the right name and wrote her when she got ignored and sue va who doesn't answer my e-mails. I remember the big build up when you join. The hellos and glad to have you but they don't last for some of us. There is a core group of wonderful people like Glenda who has always something going on. Inspirational and would love to meet her. And others who never recognize my questions or praise. But I feel the need to tell them they are clever like lazypup and his frog.It would take another 10 years to be recognized by some. Sorry, Susan that I hijacked this. It may be that I only want a few to know how I feel. But I suspect people are concerned about your health and will find this rant but may pass over to get to your new info. You have been a great help for many people I understand and taught them to journal about their life. Good stuff. It seems that so many are glad you did that. Let's see you figure this out. I am hoping for new news and good treatment. Yes, you are someone I would like to meet also. Please keep journaling your time of day and reactions. And if your BP is important stay with it because mine fluctuates so very much without a bit of caffeine in my body. Enough... Ellie