Newbie Reporting in..

Hello all,

I have alot of newbie questions to throw around and help (links to good sites, mentor advice, or just plain WTF were you thinking) is always needed. My first question is...

Dum dum dum...

I have a netgear router connected to a phone line DSL modem, I need any suggestions on how to configure a firewall that will protect my box from the outside nastys. Meaning I dont want my poor computer to be used as a spam bot, but i still wanna surf the net and have fun :P. Or point me in the right direction for strike harding my box aginst 15 year old kids... I run wix xp home. (yes i know it sucks)