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appreciated. In fact, most people probably prefer a personal note from their e-mail friends now and then over a lot of forwards.

4. KEEPING YOUR SYSTEM HEALTHY
Viruses. Yuck! Not only do computer users have to worry about viruses, there are also Trojan horses, "password sniffers", and other malicious files to look out for. These will be discussed in further detail in my Virus section. Your best defense is to have an up-to-date anti-virus program installed. Norton and McAfee offer good AV programs for sale. If you're using someone else's computer, and they won't install an AV program (!), you can have your computer checked for viruses online using Housecall (this can't repair your system if it detects a virus, but you will know if one is present.) There are some files out there that aren't viruses, but can damage your system if opened. As a precaution, avoid downloading attachments from people you don't know. If you have a high-speed connection (cable, DSL, etc.), using a firewall (such as Zonealarm) is recommended.

5. WARN EM FIRST!
If you're sending an e-mail as an attachment, it's a good idea to warn your recipients first, since some people will delete e-mails with attachments unread if not warned beforehand. Also, please keep in mind that just because your e-mail program supports pictures, sound files or stationary, doesn't mean everyone else's does. What looks like a beautiful e-mail with nice stationary, lots of pictures, and background music on your computer may simply show up as three pages of code, or worse, as a multi-file attachment on someone else's. How do you compromise? You may want to find out from your friends whether they can receive pictures, HTML, etc. in their e-mail or not. Send the pretty ones to your friends who can, and send a plain text version to those who can't. Also, keep in mind that e-mails that have been forwarded numerous times may sometimes be automatically converted into attachments that can only be read using certain mail programs. More on eliminating this problem can be found below.

6. MAKE NEW FRIENDS, BUT MIND YOUR MANNERS
Never add someone you've met to the list of people you send e-mails to without asking them first. However well-intentioned, sending someone a lot of e-mail they haven't asked for may still be considered spam, and you could lose your ISP account if someone complains. Don't risk it!

7. IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN MAILING LIST
It's advisable to use one of the free mailing list services availiable, rather than simply creating

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