I've said for years there are healthful benefits to eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate, once being cancer and the flu. Just don't over do it with the chocolate and make sure it is dark chocolate. Milk chocolate has no health benefits!

Dark Chocolate May Protect DNA From Damage
Consumption of polyphenol-rich dark chocolate may protect DNA from oxidative damage, preventing artery hardening and heart disease, says a new study. Writing in the British Journal of Nutrition, Italian researcher report that consumption of dark chocolate containing 860 milligrams of polyphenols, and 58 milligrams of epicatechin, led to a 20 per cent reduction in DNA damage two hours after consumption.

The full study...Read the full study

Now...I am going to lead you through the nightmare I experienced, step by step of what I went through over two days so you won't have to go through it.

On December 16, 2009, while on the internet answering emails, I noticed my computer was bogging down likeI had never experienced before. I have Process Explorer which shows you what programs are running and how much of the CPU they are using. This is a Windows Utility program which you can download from Microsoft and it is very, very useful. You can down it at Microsoft HERE

In running this after I also checked system processes through Windows Task Manager window, ( you can display this by holding down your control, alt and delete keys - a menu pops up and shows you what is running when you click on processes ), this is is where I saw a total of (8) Norton/Symantec downloads, (2) ccSvchs.exe host files and (1) svhost.exe running like crazy that the Norton Live Update had started. Shortlty after I took these screen shots, another program started downloading called NUA.EXE a (78) meg file.

Below is information you can see running the Windows Process Explorer I mentioned above. Here you can see how many programs Norton starts up when doing updates and downloads. They hog your system! This is (8) programs started up here, plus the (2) ccSvchs.exe host files and (1) svhost.exe it creates to run these programs!

Needless to say, I was rather upset that Norton had basically hijacked my computer and was bogging it down. What is so irritating is the fact that it just started doing this. No Popup menu to ask you and tell you what it was going to do. And yes, you supposedly can set it in Norton to simply notify you of updates, but I never have done that. It wasn't that much of a problem in the past until now. Yes, Norton's Live Update would strat on is' own and if I was doing emails or something, I usually had to quit doing them until it finished. And it is not because I don't have enough RAM memory. When you have 7-8 files hogging your system, this is what happens. And what was this (78) meg NUA.EXE file update? They are updating all versions of Norton Anit-Virus through 2009 so that they supposedly will have less bogging down of your system with downloads. If you are on dial-up like I am, ( I live in a rural country area and that is all available, do you realize how many hours it took to download this monster? Over 6 1/2 hours !

So, what did I do? I emailed a Senior Tech that I dealt with at Symantec in May 2008 concerning the massive screwup between Microsoft updates, Norton Update and Zone Alarm Pro updates that literally froze up my computer and I had to do a complete re-install of my XP operating system because of it. Finally, all three had a fix for their problems and it had to due with True Vector sectoring. That was a nightmare back then.

Instead of hearing back from that Senior Tech, because he was on "vacation" with an auto-reply, I emailed another Senior Analyst at Norton, a Reese Anschultz at Symantec. Instead of hearing back from Anschultz, I received an email from a Product Support Analyst from the President of Norton's Executive Consumer Relations Team.

We exchanged emails and I complained how this massive download etc. This Analyst offered to send me Norton Anti-Virus 2010 and it would supposedly eliminate this problem because they re-designed their LIVE UPDATES in 2010 for smaller packets. I told him in emails that I had Zone Alarm installed, the one word I left off was PRO. So, I accepted, Norton Anti-Virus arrived and I removed my Norton Anti-Virus 2008 as instructed bt this Analyst I would have to do before installing NAV 2010. Now keep in mind in emails to him, I stated I had Zone Alarm, I just left off the word PRO.

So, after removing NAV 2008, I tried to installed the 2010 version and guess what, I got the screen above - NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ZONE ALARM PRO.

At this point, I became livid. I emailed this Analayst at Norton in the President's Executives Offices. I called him (3) times, left message.

I sat for nearly two hours with no reply from this person, so I knew what I had to do. Re-install my Norton Anti-Virus 2008.

Finally, two hours later he calls back and says, "You didn't tell me you had Zone Alarm Pro, only Zone Alarm in your emails - maybe now is the time to migrate to our complete Internet Security Suite."

I became even more livid and told this person, "Why didn't a light bulb come on when you read in my emmails that I stated I had Zone Alarm in my emails, knowing that Zone Alarm Pro is NOT compatible with your 2010 version." There was dead silence on the other end, then the person said, "Well, you should have been more specific." If this is the most incompenent answer I have ever received from some of these mindless people that are suppose to being helping you. I then said, "THANK YOU" and hung up on the person.

I also emailed this person and told them what I thought and that I was already re-installing my NAV 2008.

Now this is where the nightmare gets even worse.

After re-installing my NAV 2008, it proceeded to to download updates that it needed since the CD was from late 2008. In addition, it downloaded that NUA.EXE file and all those downloads. A total of over 84 megs and 7 hours and 20 minutes downloading this crap. Go to Google and type in NUA.EXE, you'll read all the complaints about this!

Here are the files which total 78 meg plus another 6 megs that you will have to download if you ever have to re-install your Norton Anti-Virus using your original CD of the program.

Oh... it gets even more of a nightmare...

After spending all day and it is now 8 PM, I get a red "X" in Norton saying my Firewall is not on. I did not have this problem before all of this. I cannot encourage everyone enough that before you do any removing or installing ot re-installing of programs that you backup your system registry and system files before doing so. If you don't know how, PCTUNEUP makes a marvelous program that cleans up the gargage on your computer, and cleans up your system registry, but also defrags it which can make a world of difference. It also has a utility where you can backup your system files of Windows needed for startup, etc., but your System Registry file.

Thanks to me backing up my System Registry and System Files before starting all of this, I was able to restore that and the red "x" has gone away. The Microsoft Windows Management Console is what controls your firewall and works with Zone Alarm Pro and any versions of NAV before 2010. I also had a utility program that goes back and checks to see if a re-install or update downloads changes any Windows files. I found that the Norton massive updates changed or corrupted (2) Windows files it should not have and I used the SFC/SCANNOW command with my orginal XP Operating System Disk and corrected those back.

One last thing you will have to do if you have un-installed any Norton Anti-Virus and have either Zone Alarm or Zone Alarm Pro, you will have to remove Zone Alarm, reboot, then re-installed the Zone Alarm. Before you do this, go in on your program panel on Zone Alarm and either copy your product license ley number down or do a print screen. Simply hit your print screen, start a program like WORD or any program that has publishing capabilities or graphics, select paste from your file menu and it will paste the screen image into the screen so you can save it. You will need your license key to input after you have re-installed your Zone Alarm.

You will just love this post below in a Norton Tech Support Message Boards. Norton's tech's don't even know what they are talking about. Zone Alarm Pro works fine with Norton Anti-Virus 2008. I know because I've been using it for two years. Here is this post he states that Norton Anti-Viru 2008 and 2009 will not work with Zone Alarm Pro. There was a problem in May 2008 because of screwups of Microsoft, Norton Anti-Virus and Zone Alarm Updates as I described above that resulted in me having to completely re-install my operating system and eveything else on my hard drive. All three of them eventually created emergency fixes to fix their screwups. I have that fiasco well documented also. You will notice quickly in the additional links to posts and on the page where Norton does have posted on their website about Zone Alarm Pro, how quickly they tell people to remove/un-install Zone Alarm Pro. I wonder why?

Here is the URL for this post along with other incorrect information about issues:
http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=89854

And here Norton does posts a page where they state:
"For this reason, we alert that you have an incompatible product on your computer when you attempt the installation of Norton AntiVirus 2009 over ZoneAlarm Pro 7." This is so incorrect. All you had to do was turn off the anti-virus features in Zone Alarm Pro Version 7 at the time. http://www.symantec.com/norton/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&ssfromlink=true&sprt_cid=844bdb85-34de-4375-8cca-610ad8e7ce25&seg=hho&ct=us&lg=en&docurl=20080916142729EN

And if you downloaded Zone Alarm Pro Version 9.0, where Zone Alarm removed their anti-virus module completely, you had no problems.

ZONE ALARM - Checkpoint Technologies has a problem also !

Checkpoint Technologies who makes Zone Alarm is not going to get off easy either. I have had a complaint with them since I have been using Zone Alarm Pro. When you have an update from them, you have to download the entire program which has now grown to over 29 megs. They just don't create packets of the sections of their program they updated to download, you have to download the whole thing over and over again. If you have Zone Alarm and want to complain about this also, here is the President's name, address and fax number where you can write him.

Checkpoint Technologies - ( company that provides Zone Alarm )
800 Bridge Parkway
Redwood City, CA USA 94065
Phone: 800-429-4391
Phone:(866)488-6691
Allison Taylor - Director of Corporate Communications
email: ataylor@checkpoint.com
info@checkpoint.com
press@us.checkpoint.com
FAX 650-654-4233 - California Offices
Fax: 972 624-1100 - Texas Offices

President - CEO
Gil Shwed
Sorry, no email address for Shwed.
http://www.checkpoint.com
Customer Account Services
1-972-444-6600

And here is Symantec's information if you want to contact them by mail, fax or email them a complaint:

Symantec Corporation
20330 Stevens Creek Blvd.
Cupertino, CA 95014

Phone: 408-517-8000
Fax: 408-517-8186

John Thompson - Chairman of the Board
email: John_Thompson@symantec.com Enrique Salem - President and CEO
email: Enrique_Salem@symantec.com

SUPPORT EMAIL: support@symantec.com
WEBSITE: http://www.symantec.com

What none these software companies understand concerning these automatic updates and downloads is this.

If you have 5 or 6 software programs that are doing automatic updates and downloads and if you have your Windows updates set to automatically download updates, ( which advise you NOT TO - set it to notify you of updates and you chose when to download them), if they all start up at the same time, which many of them can and have done, regardless of the amount of memory you have, it will bog your system down and in some cases actually FREEZE UP your computer. The engineers and software programmers that program these software programs are out in na-na land and do not think of you, the end-user, the consumer that has to deal with their mindless thinking of not thinking foreward and thinking of the consumer and what will happen on their computer if many software programs start updating and downloading at the same time.

This is why I have written many of these companies and complained about this. They all need to have a pop-up menu that comes up to notify you that updates are available and you chose when to download them, not the other way around. It is your computer and basically they do what they want when they want and literally hijack your computer when it comes to this sort of thing. Enough is enough! Start writing letters and complaining to these companies about this!

I hope this information has been useful to you. Help spread the word that Norton Anti-Virus IS NOT compatible with Zone Alarm Pro so that others won't have to go through an ten hour fiasco of what I went through. Send your family and friends a link to this column, http://www.dldewey.com/norton.htm, it also has several useful suggestions in it.

I have these questions for Symantec and Checkpoint TechnologiesZone Alarm. Why is it that on neither of your websites you have NOTHING posted that Norton Anti-Virus and Zone Alarm Pro are not compatible and will not work together. Symantec won't even let you try to install Norton Anti-Virus 2010 if you have Zone Alarm Pro installed. Why is it Symantec and Checkpoint Zone Alarm that people have to find out the hard way that they are not compatible. There are no disclosures anywhere in on your CD package or read me files!

What is the difference between Norton Anti-Virus 2010 and Zone Alarm Anti-Virus 2010.

Here is a chart that compares Norton Anti-Virus 2010 to Zone Alarm's 2010 Anti-Virus.

After you read and compare the features yourself, do I need to say anything more?

One last comment to both the President's of Symantec and Checkpoint, makers of Norton Anit-Virus and Zone Alarm. Take your turf war over who is going to come out on top in the marketplace someplace else. Your end-user consumers are paying for these games you are playing and you better watch it, you could wind up both losing it all because of it! I will also be letting both President's of Symantec and Checkpoint know of this article.

On another note:

Global Warming has been an issue of mine since 1997 when I wrote my first columns, alerting my readers to metling ice caps due to carbon dioxide levels increasing in the in the ice. If you have not read my columns over the years, I urge you to and support measures to end man made global warming.

My columns:

Global Warming - Fact or Fiction - August, 1997
Rain forests diminishing by 10% a year. Worldwide oxygen production decreasing.
Global Warming August 1997

Global Warming: Is It Too Late? - March 2006, Updated April, 2007, August 2008
Ice Shelf Falls Off Into Artic - Is Global Warming Real Enough Now?
Global Warming March 2006, Updated April 2007, August 2008