Next week sees the annual day set aside to help smokers give up the evil weed.

And smoking surfers are not left out, with plenty of useful advice, help and information provided online.

The official No Smoking Day site at www.nosmokingday.org.uk was still being put together as we went to press but promises to offer help, not only for smokers but also to their long-suffering friends.

So, until the organisers get their site launched in time for the day on Wednesday, March 14, smokers can check out the advice at the Health Education Authority site www.givingupsmoking.co.uk

This website provides some useful information on smoking and tobacco, together with tables and documents about the 4,000 different chemicals carried in the smoke, 43 of which are known cancer-causing chemicals.

Help is also at hand at the UK charity Quit (www.quit.org.uk) where smokers looking to kick the habit are offered charts, plans and diaries, as well as information and access to a helpline.

If learning from the experiences of others is more likely to motivate you to give up, then why not see how Dale Winton packed in his 40-a-day habit at the BBC health website www.bbc.co.uk/health/kth/index.shtml

And the rich and famous give their endorsements to the Easyway to Stop Smoking at www.allencarrseasyway.com.

Apparently Sir Richard Branson and Ruby Wax have successfully given up with Allen Carr but the incredibly slow website will mean only the determined continue here.

Ruby signs off by saying: "If it can work for me it can work for anyone", and, as Carr turned The Cyber Space into a smoke-free zone, I can vouch for that.

As previously mentioned in this column, the foot-and-mouth virus isn't the only bug affecting people's lives and this week saw the launch of the latest one - the "naked wife".

The "naked wife" virus deletes almost all a computer's vital system files and sends itself to everyone in the recipient's address book. And, at the time of going to press, it had already hit 30 organisations in Europe, Canada and the US.

Published: Thursday, March 8, 2001