hi again,
as far as alerts and sygate, i didnt have any alerts after i set it up. what i did see was a red arrow on the fw icon showing incoming traffic was blocked. so being curious i would bring up the traffic log and then Karens Who Is and trace it. otherwise i never got any popups/alerts.
as for Sam Spade, ill stick with karens who is for now. sorry but i am used to karens and with the new fw to configure its one step at a time here

after i become used to kero and feel comfortable with it, then ill jump into sam spade and maybe tweak more fw settings. its going quite well w/ kero and im getting a good grasp on it. actually its not as complicated as i had thought. its simple and straight forward but the pics you supplied were a GREAT help

as the lod saying goes: "a picture is worth a thousand words" and in my case it couldnt have been more true.
again thanks for the tutoring and pics and if i run into any trouble or have anymore questions ill be sure to swoop into this section and ask for help:thumbsup:
E
