The internet is not just about web sites either. Email is fastest and most efficient means of forwarding information possible. If you are skeptical about web sites please do yourself a favour and purchase a computer even if only for email purposes. In this day and age you will get left out without it. Your customers will not be impressed either. Personally, very thought of walking over to a fax machine, inserting a piece of paper, dialling number and waiting until connection and slow trundling of paper begins just makes us come out in goose bumps. How old fashioned. We can send 20 emails to 20 different companies in time it takes you to walk to fax machine and dial number. Now how important is your time? You should also consider cost difference between sending a fax vs email.

Consider graphics designer in Solihull who was driving to Halesowen twice a week to deliver his precious documents for printing. Although a graphics designer he was just coming round to wonders of IT and internet. Costs for petrol and time per annum spent travelling were estimated at £2,200. Enter one low spec computer at a cost of £300 and an internet connection with a local ISP. No more travelling to Halesowen. The graphics were forwarded by email. Problem solved.

The golden rule in setting up your website is to establish what you want it to do for you. Time spent now in formulating a plan is money saved later.

The long and short of it is – not much. In this case, best offense is a strong defense. Download a strong firewall, along with effective ad ware and spy ware deterrents. Report all spam, and never ever respond to it. That only encourages spammers to send more. After all, if it wasn’t profitable, they wouldn’t send it.

Since I write a lot of articles, I’ve found that using a service to distribute them seems to protect against excessive e-mail abuse. While I do receive some spam, it isn’t much – perhaps eight or ten messages a day. Some writers I know receive thousands of unwanted messages daily.

I can’t say that being hijacked was a good experience, but it did teach me a valuable lesson about securing my computer. I’m now much more aware of what can and will happen if I don’t take appropriate steps to block it.