With an ever increasing attack on everyone's PC being the fashionable thing to do these days for hackers, and the largest software company in the world desperately trying to nail down each piece of software that it makes to prevent hackers from getting inside your PC - it needs to become apparent that software users need to take a more active part in the war on hacking/spamming.

Most software couch potatoes just want to use their software and be left alone to go merrily on their way. That use to work in the days of old when hackers didn't want to steal your identity to empty your bank account. Also you used to only get emails from people you knew or had sent email to way back when, now you get email telling you about a wonderful diet plan that will work in 10 days or less - -and you weigh 140lbs. (I get this all the time, don't ask how much I weigh...noneyabusiness.)

Now things are different and we need to take action - yesterday. With that in mind I humbly define some reasons to get busy fighting spam.

1. Your hard drive looks like a zoo of spam from people you will never know, with viruses plus various malware and is being used to spam other computers around the world.

2. Everyone is spending more time deleting spam-filled email, instead of reading email.

3. Your 14-year old opened an email about a bank account in her name or a free credit card offer in her name and she entered everything she knew about your address and bank. Then asked you for your credit card to pay for postage to recieve the offer in the mail. (True story)

4. The 14-year old's sister opened an email for free access to a cartoon/gaming site and the browser installed a porn-laced bookmark with popups that froze your computers for several hours - even after rebooting 4 times. (Another true story)

5. It feels good to have legitmate emails identified separately from spam so you won't delete the email about a new job offer and don't respond to it until you call and find out the position was filled yesterday...didn't you get our email Mrs. Smith? (ditto)

6. Everyone in your house can open their email without fear of release some form of malware that spreads faster then gossip.

7. The only popup you see is from the software saying spam eliminated/identified, no viruses found, port scan blocked and malware destroyed. (That's a good thing..)

Daviyd Peterson: 10-year consultant, instructor, trainer of digital divide solutions for home and business.

Helps African American and minority homeschools alongside small business enterprises bridge the digital divide by becoming computer homeschools. Free article on "Computer Homeschooling" and other related articles http://feeds.feedburner.com/HomeschoolWirelessNewscloud-Rss