I recently bought a new computer. Mine was getting old, had lost its whistle, and few remaining bells didn't ding a nicely as they had in past. Yep, it was time for a new state-of-the art dream machine with CD burner, DVD player, a bazillion gigabyte drive and more RAM than Rambo has. I whipped out my trusty credit card and told my local CompUSA to ring it up.

Well, needless to say I was enthralled. Blazing speed, working whistles, and bells that were more like Big Ben gong! I could tear through spreadsheets with one CD-ROM tied behind my back. One day, about three months later, my Son came home from college. Having heard all about my new pride and joy, he sat down behind keyboard and fired that puppy up. He put it through its paces for about 30 minutes and then turned and said 'It's nice Dad, but I thought it would be faster'. HE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FASTER? What was he, crazy? This box was so hot that it came with it's own fire department.

Then he started poking around hard drive. 'Dad', he said, 'You need an exterminator. Your PC is infested.' 'Infested with what, bugs?'. 'Nope', he said 'Spyware'. 'Spy What?'. 'Spyware', he replied. And then he explained.

Even thought I had a good virus prevention utility installed, it didn't protect me against Spyware. Spyware, it seeks, are nasty little programs that get downloaded in similar fashion to way a virus does. It can be attached to an email, or even one of those new talking E-Cards. it can hide in one of those 'Click Here to close this window' boxes, or in any of seemingly a hundred other secret ways.