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Plenty of shareware to spare

Further to your article regarding virus scanners (Network, 11 November), can I point out that in addition to the commercial packages you discussed, there are two excellent shareware products available?

The first, F-Prot Antivirus, is very effective and has the great advantage of being free to personal users. It is regularly updated and scans in both heuristic and conventional modes. It also handles the new macro-viruses. It is available from the ftp site ftp.coast.net in the simtel/msdos/virus directory, or on Demon's UK ftp site: ftp.demon.co.uk

The second, Thunderbyte Antivirus (T-BAV), is shareware but available on trial. It comes in Win95, Win3.x and DOS versions. Again, it is an effective protection, using data files to protect against changes to programs.

This one has to be paid for (about pounds 40, I believe) but it's a one-off fee, and remains good for all the future updates. Again, this is updated regularly. It is available on their Web site (www.thunderbyte.com).

Andy Sayers

storm@globalnet.co.uk

Where are all these courses?

Over the past few years, having become one of Britain's increasing number of downsized public-sector managers, I have had plenty of time on my hands to follow your progressive and expanding coverage of new technology and its present and future impact.

The 4 November issue of Network, "Learning becomes electric", continues the projected trend, as does Education+ (7 November).

All very exciting stuff, but none of the articles gives clear information about where those of us already "connected" in computer terms, but unemployed in conventional terms, can be linked to universities on distance learning courses.

It's all very well citing courses for employees run by large corporations, hard-wired schools or individuals already engaged in courses at a distance using their computers, but where are these courses? What are they? Which universities run them? What do they cost? Snail mail, fax and e-mail addresses are vital, too.

Please! More down to earth information that is practically useful and would enable the growing army of "used to be useful" to learn to be useful again.

Garry Stafford

100607.2431@CompuServe.com

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