Kmail on my Linux machine was the email client and it is being replaced as we speak. The client will be the same or some flavor closely related. I do use Outlook on occasion. Email on this machine is always downloaded thru Mailwasher. Mail is gleaned from several servers. Web mail is used as well. I rarely open attachments and sometimes even phone people about them. NEVER will I reply to a "you HAVE to return this" or forward something in chain letter fashion.
ZoneAlarm runs at all times. I really don't mind its occasional query about programs trying to 'hit' the net. To me, there's a sense of security about seeing this happen. I use a very old popup killer on this machine that is no longer supported. It's called Popup Killer, LOL. Hey, don't fix that which is not broken.
My mornings start with Slashdot, Arstechnica, Google News, Yahoo News, etc, and my daily check of the state of Windows over at the Update site. During weekdays it is very difficult to contact me from 6:00pm thru 7:00pm. My virus scan is set to run at 6:00pm because I am usually in front of the TV watching The Screensavers on TechTV. If they get off on an Apple tangent I may get up for a few minutes and do something worthwhile besides listening to that malarky. Sorry, old and expensive orchard technology bores me. Most of the time I stay for Tech Live which is news oriented.
Building a SmoothWall proxy server may start today. I have the machine and the program. Really excited about incorporating this into my network.
No great voodoo going on here. This combination protects 5 PCs and virus infections have been thwarted so far. I have been hacked twice (my own fault ) with no real damage. I do shut things down unless they are being used.
This machine? OS is W2K Pro, Asus CUV4X-D motherboard, 128meg Nvidia card (forget the model #), 1 gig of 5.4ns SDRAM, boot drive 9gig 10,000 spin SCSI, data drives dual 18gig 10,000 spin SCSI, dual 1gig PIII processors slightly overclocked, Audigy Platinum Sound Card, TDK CDRW, Pioneer DVDROM, ZIP 100, Antec case that has 9 fans total , 2 Jump Drives, etc. So this is not the latest greatest hardware, but it suits me fine for now. It keeps company with several other dual proccessor PCs one of which is a dual Xeon, with Raid 1 boot drives and a Raid 5 array of 6 drives in a Netserver cabinet. That's a story for another time.
Please remember, I scrape by making a living as a "puter tech." This network has come together over several years. There is a new PC in the planning stage that should be built in the next few months. Protection will be basically the same with the addition of the SmoothWall unit. Keeping installed applications and utilities up to date is the most important ingredient in this protection scheme. Pictures of some elements will be posted eventually.
Be sure and read Corinth Chris's latest post over at 'from the mind of a geek wannabe'; a link is posted. K, enough. Need some rack time.
"Who is Paige Fault and why is she screwing with my computer?"
-Billy Wobblynife
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