Ask questions. Ask as many questions as may be needed to fully understand what part you are trying to overcome.

I would not bother with a Linux CD just to open eCards! Personal opinion of course, not necessarily a fact. But why would you waste time when a simple email from the same person can say so much more than an eCard that possibly piggybacks a phone home spy.

Emails are scanned as they are downloaded to your computer. However someone who is nervous may well want to scan again. I have never opened a downloaded email only to be presented with a virus, that is taken care of during the downloading.

Someone else on your computer? If you genuinely feel that is happening then take action. If however you simply searched because of the lady who had good cause to suspect something was amiss then just move on keeping the fact that the possibility does exist if you are not careful. The lady in question downloaded a file knowingly from the other person assuming it was genuine, instead it piggybacked another program along with it.

whew lots of questions LOL lets see if I can answer some of them.
As to the linux live cd you can get them free from a site online or order them from some sites that charged just a couple dollars for them to pay their cost. Linux itself is free. You can also download it and burn the iso file to a cd your self for free but that is not something a novice will want to do.
Once you have a linux live cd you can put it in the cd drawer of our pc, then reboot the pc, the pc will then be running from the linux cd instead of from your windows operating system. So anything you do while online will not touch your windows at all so you can not get infections if you happen to go to an infected website. Linux is very secure there are not many infections for linux. The cd contains the firefox browser so you can open that and surf to where ever it is you want to go, game sites, etc.
Then when you want to go back to using your windows you just reboot the pc and pull out the cd before it restarts so that it boots back to Windows.
Another place to get linux cds is at bookstores that sell magazines most linux magazines have free linux cd in the magazine. Usually it is Ubuntu.
here is where you can order a free kubuntu cd
Requesting CDs from ShipIt
here is where you can order a free ubuntu cd
Requesting an Ubuntu CD
I would get both.

Ok as to scanning email, that would depend on what email client you use for email. do you Outlook Express, or some type of webmail like yahoo or hotmail? Most webmail clients have their on virus scanner that scans the email before it gets to your inbox. If you use Outlook or Outlook express you should have your Antivirus program on your pc set up so that it scans all of your email. If you get something in email that you want to download and save to your computer, go ahead and download it but before you open it right click on it and from the menu select scan with your antivirus program that will scan that individual file to see if it is clean before you open it.

About the event viewer, that is in Control Panel, administrative tools, event viewer. In there you have several options to view, System, Applications, Security. To see when your pc has been logged onto and by whom you can look at the security section then on any line in there you can double click on it and it will open up an info box giving you details and codes about that event. If your pc was not turned on there should be no log on event for that time period. If the pc was not connected to the internet at that time there could not have been any type of breech it has to be connected for any log on events to happen other than your personal log ons. When you turn on the pc it begins recording that step by step in those various logs you can see where each thing starts up and does it's check procedure. So each time you turn on the pc and log in there will be an event for that. Now for someone other than you that does not have the pc in their possession and they manage to log into your pc(hack) that would happen when there is an active internet connection. That can happen if somehow they have been able to get a program on your pc that allows them access, if you do not have a firewall on and protecting you and are not behind a router it can also happen by what is called brute force where they use a password cracker software to break your admin password then gain access to your pc.

I can not tell you anything about the event you may have seen since I have no idea what it said but if you had the pc locked in your car there really is no way anyone could have logged on to it that I know of.

I think that is all of them. Anyone else feel free to jump in and add on.

I wasn't thinking about the ecards, but when using TexTwist game, would that be of use? Do many viruses come through when games are played? Because I had such a mess with my computer and Acer, I am a bit paranoid about it crashing again. A big bit. Also, this is a bit off, but will ask- to avoid a virus, is there a way to download some games- the ones that are free. That way, I wouldn't have to be connected, or use the disk.??

some do offer free download of the game some charge for them if you want to download them. If you choose to ever download one Check the site out first with Dr Web or one of the good link scanners like WOT or mcafee site advisor. That will let you know if the site has nefarious connections.
When you do download a game as soon as it has completed downloading but before you open it right click on it and select scan with your antivirus program. You should always choose to downlaod it to your pc rather than simply run because if you select run you have no chance to scan it.

Some of the game sites are very dangerous sites, they are set up just to lure people in hoping they play the games and download them so they can get their malware on your pc.
Installing Web of Trust and McAfee site advisor to your browsers will warn you with red if the site is to be avoided. You can install Dr Web virus scanner to your browser also.

SiteAdvisor
you can get this for IE and firefox just be sure you get the one for the browser that you are using when you go there.

WOT
Dr.Web Link Checker for MS Internet Explorer
Dr.Web LinkChecker for Firefox