Patent ID: 7231434

Claim:
A computing system comprising: a processor; memory; a display; a network adapter for connecting the computing system to a network; and a basic input/output system (BIOS) stored in the memory and operable for booting the computing system, wherein the BIOS includes: a BIOS network adapter driver for communicating with the network adapter; a BIOS communication module for driving the network adapter via the network adapter driver to communicate with a remote e-mail server on the network, wherein the communication with the remote e-mail server includes downloading to the computing system memory, during the booting of the computing system, e-mail headers from the remote e-mail server on the network; a BIOS e-mail header parser for identifying a predetermined user address in receiver address portions of the e-mail headers; accumulating in the computing system memory, during the booting of the computing system, a count of instances of the identified user address; and a BIOS display routine for displaying the accumulated count in a defined format on the display during the booting of the computing system.