thanks everybody for your input. i installed super anti-spyware, updated it, and did a whole computer scan that resulted in no malware. thus, i disabled link scanner, resident shield, automatic update manager, and the e-mail scanner in AVG 8.0 and noticed a marked difference in the speed of the computer. i tried letting resident shield be active, but that still caused my computer to run rather slowly. it seems that the new AVG is quite a bit of trouble with its functions are inferring with spybot s&d and spyware blaster. as of now, only the anti-virus; anti-spyware, and the license components of AVG are 'active' on my computer; therefore, my questions become: is it necessary to have AVG running from start-up? since i've disabled the resident shield, will having AVG running in the background provide me with some automatic, subtle protection? i currently have win patrol, zone alarm (and AVG) running in the background. should i have super anti-spyware running in the background as well? thanks for all your input.

I agree that burglaries can happen in any neighborhood. I'd be more concerned about the crime on the streets. What city are you talking about? If it's West Phila., I could tell you a lot because my daughter and her husband bought a house there last summer to be near the university for her graduate school and his commute to DE. It's the same thing there, nice neighborhoods surrounded by poverty and its problems which unfortunately know no boundaries. The 3 local universities have their own security patrolling the streets in addition to the local police department. The elementary school in her neighborhood is one of the best in the city because although it's a public school,it receives funding and remains affiliated with U of P's school of education. For high school most of the kids either go to private schools or one of the charter schools in the city. It sounds like you'd have that to consider too. You need to investigate the stability of the neighborhood you're interested in. A friend of mine lives in another part of the city which in the past 10 years has seen a bit of a turnover. Absentee landlords have bought up real estate and rented the houses or converted some of them into apartments. My friend complains that the tenants, not having a vested interest in the property or the neighborhood, have let appearances slide, and she's worried about property values. Living in the city has its pros and cons like anyplace else. My daughter's enjoying being close to so many things you don't get in our rural area. There are forums you can find on line to inquire about specific towns and you can ask about the safety issue there.

I find it ironic, and somewhat insulting, to hear SMs referred to as the "third party". The "third party" theory may be the case when it comes to the SM who only has her SC EOW and a few weeks during the summer. But there are so many of us here who do what these BM should be doing for their own children, and choose not to. They push the responsibilty of the children on the BF, and if he is married, on the SM as well. You can sit there and say that SM should have no say and are nothing more than a "third party", but in what seems most cases on this site, it is the BM who is the "third party". It just burns me that I do everything for my SC, as I do for my DD, everyday of their lives, and I still have to hear from BM that I have no say, a "third party". Thank goodness DH has my back! So before you claim that we SM are "third parties", please consider our roles in these childrens lives. You'll find in alot of cases, we are the only REAL mothers these kids have. I agree that there are many SM who are detrimental to their SC, just as many BM are detrimental to their own kids. But I think a SM has to be given a chance to be a SM before judgement can be passed upon them. I did not have that chance before I was judged by BM. However, BM is the only one who thinks I am a worse "mother" than she is! And please don't think I have anything against BM who care for their children the way a mom should. I too am a BM who has found that it is better for my DD to work with her SM than to try to work against her. She is a part of my DD life whether I like it or not. I don't agree with alot of what she does, but by giving her respect for the role she plays in DD life, we manage to make things smoother for my child. And in the end, it is the happiness of the child that matters most.

I've reconnected all the plugs and run a Malwarebytes scan, run a Ccleaner and am now running a full scan with Comodo. When that's finished I'll run the Superantispyware too. So far nothing serious has shown up. I could only get the spam page before and I've now been on the Internet home page but I don't want to do anything on there until I'm sure it's safe. So far, so good. If everything's OK I'll change all the passwords I can think about and I'll definitely know how lucky I've been. In future I'll not click on any news or anything like that again. I gather you don't agree with candy crush ha ha, I suppose I should agree with you on that, it does waste a lot of time. What about jigsaws are they as bad? I do those in Jigsaw planet and they seem to be trouble free to me.