An Easy way to Deal with Email Viruses and Worms

If you feel intimidated when someone tries to teach you something new on the computer, this article is for you!

In the course of my career, I’ve worked with many people who I knew were smart but were convinced that they couldn’t learn how to do new things on a computer. At some point, they’d convinced themselves that they weren’t one of those “computer people”. I have a degree in psychology. I’m not a math and science type of person, and if it weren’t for the patience of my tech-minded husband and friends, I never would have learned how to do these things.

The fact is, computers are such a part of our lives, that you can’t afford to think of yourself as not a “computer person”. The reason I think that a lot of people are intimidated when learning about computers is that so much of the instructions and directions are full of jargon and assume that people have as much technological knowledge as people who work with computers for a living.

All it takes is an open mind, confidence, and someone to explain things to you step by step in plain English.
Aside from using anti-virus software, there is another way to keep some email viruses or worms from driving you crazy and clogging up your inbox. If you would like to prevent these bogus Emails from reaching your inbox, you can set up rules in Outlook or Outlook Express to send them directly to the delete folder.
Although the Sobig virus seems to be under control, it might be good practice to do this now. That way when the next big virus comes around, you'll be able to filter it out right away. If you're smart enough to do your taxes and balance your checkbook, you can do this, trust me.

If you're using Outlook Express, go to Tools, then select "message rules" and then "mail". A box will pop up with buttons on the right side of the window. Hit the "new" button. Another box pops up with three windows. In the first box, click the box next to "Where the subject line contains specific words".
In the second box, click "delete it". Now in the third box it should say, "Apply this rule after the message arrives/Where the Subject line contains specific words/Delete it." Click on the words "contains specific words".
It’s very important to remember that this is case sensitive, meaning that if you put "abc" in, it will only delete emails with "abc" in the subject, and not "ABC" or "Abc". For the Sobig virus, there were seven subject lines that were commonly used. If you would like to read more about this, go to