Okay
To see what ports you have open at the time that you're on the web, go to a DOS prompt and type the following
netstat -a
this will then bring up a list. Just tried it here at work and was a bit worried then. You won't have many, hopefully, on a dialup.
Can't show you fully, but here is what you'll get:
TCP wt-05236-gbbr:1389 localhost:2301 TIME_WAIT
Now, the first is your connection, TCP. You can have others, FTP is port 21 and so on.
The next is your IP address. It can be as a number, 255.255.255.0 or as this address wt-05236-gbbr. That is mine at work
The next is the port number. 1389. I have quite a lot open, but I'm on a server.
The next two are who you're connecting to and their port. Mines on a server, so thats this bit.
The last, TIME_WAIT or LISTENING, is what the PC is doing.
What I would do, is get ZA, go to GRC, scan and that should be all you need to do.
I'm on a cable modem at home, have ZA and thats it, and so far, I'm okay.
You shouldn't need to manually close ports, as you're not on a server or network of your own yet.
btw, the bondage stuff is pretty easy. I think there's a step by step somewhere in this Security forum that someone posted.
Regards
eddie