Sorry I've taken so long to reply. I started to post again several days ago, but got side tracked with my daughter, and had to just give it up until now.

Thank you all for the various information you've given me about port scans. I understand much better now.

powertoad5000 What firewall are you using?
I'm using McAfee now.

I've had a rather interesting morning with them. On two occassions I've been alerted to a Newtear attack, one came from out of Japan, and the other I think was out of Florida. I'm thinking neither of those are right because that's quite a big jump between different parts of the world. And since the attacks were done so close together in time frame, surely it had to be the same person, wouldn't you think?

I've been trying to find out exactly what newtear is now. I've read it has something to do with attacking DOS, which I think is the basics for any computer isn't it? And something else about if successful you'd get the "blue death" screen, but the link that explained what that is, was dead.

My curiosity just continues to grow. Thanks again.