That spam e-mail is obnoxious. Junk like that makes me happy that I never read spam.

But hey at least they aren't trying to sell you Viagra!!

Well you are technically opening the e-mail if you use the preview pane. If a virus is contained in the letter, using the preview pane can potentially infect you. Not to mention that it can send a return receipt to the spammer verifying that you are using an active e-mail addy.

The best method is simply to delete any e-mails from people you do not know and not to open any unsolicited attachments.

A few years ago there was a mailed spam letter thing doing the rounds here in Great Britain. It was a brochure about a weight loss product and stuck to the top was a hand written sticky/post-it note signed with a woman's name and a x kiss saying something like 'S told me to send you this she thought you'd find it useful - it really works!' Loads of people assumed that the sender was a friend of a friend and parted with some hard earned money until it got featured on several consumer TV programs and they realised they'd been duped.

I can recommend a freebie program from New Zealand called Mailwasher - can't remember the link, you'll need to Google it. It lets you see the email before you 'officially' open it and the previews also shows the real websites any links go to - useful for things like eBay scams which don't link to eBay but to a fake website. You then get a choice of opening the email in your normal way or bouncing it back which looks to the sender as if your account either doesn't exist or has been closed. It also glows red if the email has a virus attached to it. I've been using it for years and it doesn't cost a penny.

It's http://www.mailwasher.net/