I had this tip recenly and think it is brilliant, so I thought I would pass it on to everyboby

It has been estimated that 1 in 300 emails contains a virus. Most of these viruses spread by automatically sending themselves to each of the contacts in the MS Outlook Address Book - the worst sort of chain letter. These viruses infect systems, clog up mail boxes and slow down servers and internet connections. Who among us doesn't know someone who has experienced the embarrassment of unknowingly spreading a computer virus via their email address book?

It's time to STOP this from happening by TAKING CONTROL of your email program! For those who are unaware, many computer viruses spread themselves by sending themselves to everyone in your address book. Imagine how you would feel if you were unknowingly infected with a computer virus, and worse still, your friends, family, and business contacts were being targeted by your computer!

Well, if you want to avoid this sort of thing, here's a great tip: to avoid spreading computer viruses, create a contact in your email address book with the name 000 (zeros) with no email address in the details. This contact will then show up as your first contact. If a virus attempts to do a "send all" on your contact list, your PC will put up an error message saying that:

"The Message could not be sent. One or more recipients do not have an e-mail address. Please check your Address Book and make sure all the recipients have a valid e-mail address."

You click on OK and the offending (virus) message would not have been sent to anyone. Of course no changes have been made to your original contacts list. The offending (virus) message may then be automatically stored in your "Drafts" or "Outbox" folder. Go in there and delete the offending message. The problem is solved and the virus is not spread.

This tip won't prevent YOU from getting any viruses (you have to scan those attachments yourself before opening them to do that), but it will stop those viruses from latching onto your address book and sending itself out to others.
Note: this only applies to MS Outlook (Express) users.