Margaret is correct. This is scarey, bad stuff. The possiblities of how you can get this are mind boggleing. I have an unofficial 'fix' here... I will copy ALL the info, and where it was obtained into this post. There's no official patch from Microsoft. There is an unofficial patch, which has been very carefully examined by the SANS team, and they say the patch is safe. They also say it is reversible \-\- that is, you can run the unauthorized patch now to temporarily protect your system, and it won't change anything that can't be changed back later. The SANS people are well\-respected security pros, to the best of my knowledge. This is what they say \-\- and the bold italics are in their original: This is a bad situation that will only get worse. The very best response that our collective wisdom can create is contained in this advice \- unregister shimgvw.dll and use the unofficial patch. You need to trust us. (for the full SANS warning, see http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?rss&storyid=996 ) The most basic form of protection is to run the following command line on any Windows machine, at a command prompt. This should be done as Administrator, on Windows systems which have admin functionality: regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll This command disables thumbnail previews of graphics in Internet Explorer. It can be reversed later, if the hurricane passes by. Turning off thumbnail previews in MS email clients and MS Messenger would also be a good idea, if you use them. Don't click to view graphics from unknown or untrusted sources. For more information, see the SANS site above, and the CERT\-USA warning: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/181038#solution MS also has their own page on this exploit: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...ory/912840.mspx This being said, I'm off to move my pix, and I wouldn't look at any here, for awhile either. Makes sense to close down your preview pane in your email, too, just incase. I don't know enough about what's going on to know if I just said the stupidest thing in the world, or not. But lots of folks are worried... My friend who posted the above is comparing this Virus Alert to Hurricane Katrina. It might hit and devestate, or it might just sail on by, leaving little damage in its wake, right now we can't know. Another friend inserted the following info. Turn off your Fax Viewer too, from what I read. I sure hope no one is still allowing HTML in their emails. This thing (and I may have some terminology wrong) can come at you in an email as a microscopic 1x1 pixel transparent graphic, that is you can't even see it. So set your email client to accept text only, turn your spam filters up high and watch the news. This has been compared to going nuclear from standard warfare. Good luck everyone.

I'm late to the game, but wanted to share an idea we're doing this year. We're starting some local, neighborhood-run produce markets. They're technically grey-market - someone will turn a garage or shed into a produce stand. Anyone can drop produce by, and they list inventory on a whiteboard. Payments are handled through Venmo, so shoppers pay growers directly through a mobile app. It's a grassroots thing meant for neighborhoods, but I think if you had a handful of these going in town, a professional growers could drop off a steady supply of produce to each one. The folks who host it get to keep any produce unsold after a couple of days, so there are definite benefits for them. We wrote down the business model, if anyone wants to steal it :) http://www.hackyourhometown.com/the-grassroots-produce-stand-that-runs-itself/

Thanks for all the suggestions. At the moment I am wavering between pyracantha and rambling rose. I already have one rambling rose which does very well in this soil, but it isn't a very thorny variety so I will see what else is on sale around here, and bear the suggestions in mind. The only reason I have been undecided about the pyracantha was that it was very widely planted by the estate management around here - next to walls, unsurprisingly - almost too much of a good thing. I have really sensitive skin and am a bit concerned rhus toxicodendron would end up being a problem for me if I inadvertently brushed on it (I didn't even know it was available in this country).

I started getting a weird new kind of spam -- on my iphone calendar! I would get an "invitation" for some product or service and it would populate every day for a month or two. I could Decline, but there was no way to Block. I finally realized that it was coming from my Outlook account. I just disconected that calendar on my phone. The invitations still show up when I go to Hotmail, in a little box on the top right that was never there before. But I just trash those. I'm used to email spam (especially on that account) but it really bugged me seeing it on my calendar.