Thanks GP for your long but helpful suggestions.. man, I loved your lil humor inserts.. well, I have figured out what the problem is, the IT dept had disconnected my computer. Now, I got another problem.. I just finished scanning my computer using online antivirus programs and it showed that I have no viruses. But I can still not run the antivirus program in my computer, I again downloaded a new version given by my school and it still says some kind of .dll file is missing. Any of you guys know what's going on with this virus and all.. and one more thing, I get this message from time to time that the antivirus just detected Trojan virus and was able to delete it but not block it. So maybe it's because of that... any insights on that guys.. yeah, indisguise, better tell me those things promptly from next time or else you'll be blamed for ruining our friendship :) Nakkali