Firewall warnings

After a huge Internet bill, Amanda installed a firewall program and is concerned about the warnings she's receiving about attempted access. Apart from the Bigpond heartbeat, these should be ignored. While a few may be evil hackers attempting to break into your computer, most are harmless but all should be blocked except for those you want to access your computer.

Mac support

Rae has been trying to export her Outlook Express, while we could help with the PC versions, Rae's using a Mac and we couldn't help. Microsoft have a solution to this question on their knowledge base. Joan called later and has helpfully provided links to the Mac Club and the Sydney Macintosh Users group.

Strange returned mail messages

Bob keeps receiving mail messages advising a message he has sent contains a virus. The problem is he didn't send it. This is the work of the Klez worm which pretends to come from someone else, the messages should be ignored.

Cannot get ADSL

ADSL access is becoming a major problem in many areas. Telstra uses various technologies to increase the capacity of their system. Some of these technologies prevent subscribers from accessing services like ADSL and ISDN People in this situation find they can't even get the full speed out of a 56K modem.

The solution to this problem lies with Telstra so you'll have to put pressure on them. Write directly to the Telstra directors, if you're a shareholder you may want to raise this at the AGM, and you should harass your local Federal MP or Senator. One Senator, Kate Lundy, has a web page on this issue.

We covered a lot of ground on Friday and still had a screen of callers waiting. We should be on Nightlife again in the next month so please try again then. If you’d like to be informed of upcoming spots please e-mail us. Happy computing.