Although the virus threat is omnipresent, The Register is fortunate enough to have a sufficiently IT-savvy readership for it not to be much of a problem. Not.

The site's corporate deflector shields have recently identified a regrettable Melissa-style outbreak of 'thanks for your email, I'll attend it immediately, in the meantime please look at these files' among the subscribers to our daily update service.

Don't worry folks, you won't get it if you subscribe --it's just us who risk getting it from our subscribers. Thanks, people. The latest mail drop gleaned us a stack of viruses in zip files, suspicious first of all because the messages were addressed to our automated email account, which doesn't ordinarily have warm relationships with many real people, and second because these 'pals' of ours were addressing us as "Hi The!"

Nice to know The Register Daily Update is on first name terms with so many influential people. We've mailed the people at AMD, Compaq, 1stSilicon and a few lesser outfits alerting them to their viral state, and we were dead impressed to get a message straight back from one of them saying: "I'll get right on it... in the meantime, please look at these files."

If you're called Bob, you work for AMD, and you get The Register Daily Update, we think it would be a good idea for you to have a look at your system. ®