Inbox

By DON McALLISTER

Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your internet questions.

Infectious mayhem strikes! A flood of virus-infected e-mails this week shows the Badtrans virus has hit Herald Inbox readers hard - many being unaware of the latest virus as it made terrifyingly effective use of their contact lists.

Discovered on November 24, the W32.badtrans.B virus can be stopped if your virus scanner is fully updated. But if you receive e-mail from one of those unfortunates before you have the relevant update, you'll also join the fold and infect any contacts in your e-mail address book who haven't updated. If you suspect you're infected, go to Symantec W32.Badtrans.B@mm for discovery and removal instructions. Another tip: a couple of months ago Dave suggested Private Base to prevent viruses using your address book to spread their havoc. It works by encrypting the contacts list to stop these nasties in their tracks.

Maifele's printer refuses to print e-mails from Outlook Express without losing a block of text off the side.

The setting that controls margins is hidden within Internet Explorer, Maifele. Open the program and go to File/Page Setup. Now set all the margins to 7.5mm - the default setting.

"Rabbit Mail" could be a term to describe Ruby's Incredimail problem: When she tries to send, she gets a Norton AntiVirus message: "Too Many Hops".

No rabbits there, Ruby. Your SMTP ( the server that sends your mail) setting is incorrect. The mail keeps bouncing round between Norton and Incredimail, then after 30 "hops" inside your machine, it hops back to you. Go to Tools/Accounts/Properties/Servers/. The setting to change is "Outgoing Mail Server" to - in your case, because you use Xtra - smtp.xtra.co.nz.

Rob has "Critical Update" woes. Several attempts to download the package from Microsoft for his fresh install of Windows 98SE have failed. He reckons it's baiting him on purpose by downloading the 788Kb of files and not installing them.

Yes Rob, I too found it frustrating when it happened to me. Download Internet Explorer 6. Once that is downloaded and installed, the critical update package will operate correctly. The current critical update was posted after IE6, therefore it expects to see Version 6 or later.

Private Base


* If there's anything you want to know about the exciting world of the web, just e-mail inbox@nzherald.co.nz.