The consensus of our staff seems to be that Virex is the better bet. More than one staff member has reported problems with Norton, especially the most recent version under later operating systems such as 9.2.

My own personal belief is that virus protection software on the Mac is more trouble than it is worth and creates more problems than it solves. I have not run any for years, and have not suffered any problems or viruses on my Mac for ages. But this is only my opinion and reflects only my own experiences… a couple other members of our staff might agree based on their remarks concerning complications arising from Norton and even Virex, but you may find the prospect of running your Mac free of any virus protection software too risky. —Evan Trent

No your computer is not too old to access the Net. Your LC 575 can connect to a cable modem or DSL modem, however you will need to purchase and install an Ethernet card for your Comm Slot. This may mean that you will lose your internal modem, depending on whether or not you are currently using the Comm Slot for a modem. Of course, DSL or a cable modem would probably mean you won’t need an old fashioned dial-up modem, but if you use your computer to send or receive faxes, for example, we would need to discuss the possibility of finding you an external serial modem to replace your internal modem.

The card you need to purchase is a Comm Slot Ethernet card, such as this. There may be other, possibly cheaper, sources for the card but a quick search on the Net yielded that link and Sun Remarketing is a good reliable source for such parts. Other good places to look would be Shreve Systems or Small Dog Electronics or PowerMax

In any event—the installation of the card is fairly straightforward, but if you are not comfortable opening up your computer and performing such an installation I encourage you to contact a local service center or a tech who could do it for you. The cable/DSL technician will probably not be able to…as most of them are PC people anyway.

Once you install that card you will have the hardware side of things taken care of. Your 575 doesn’t have a lot of RAM, even when maxed out, so that is going to limit the speed at which Web pages display and how recent a version of a Web browser you can use, etc. But certainly you can get started and acquainted with the Net on this machine, and e-mail will work perfectly well. —Evan Trent

I would suggest that you contact a company like Black Box. They can build any cable you want—all they need is a pinout diagram. What you might want to consider is talking to somebody there about sending them your cable and having them either make a new one, or ideally simply terminate the cable with a new connector that has all the pins intact. That would be cheaper than building a new cable probably. They ought to be able to help out—but if not let me know and I will refer you elsewhere. —Evan Trent