Huh? This isn't your virgin post SWop, right? (Are you refering to the Filemaker thread?)
Anyway, the little thing in the bottom left corner indicates your connection status, ranging from 'Connecting' (obviously the "worst" status) to 'Turbo-charged'. This changes depending on how many connections to Ultrapeers you have. To attain Turbo-charged, I think that you must be conncted to at least 3 or 4 Ultrapeers, which in turn will also make you an Ultrapeer (unless you've disabled Ultrapeer capabilities in the Options/Preferences).
You can see how many connections you have if you go to Tools.

About the messages, I don't really get what you're talking about: chatting? Messages to the Gnutella network?

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iMac G4 OSX 10.3.9
RAM 256MB
LW 4.10.5 Basic
ADSL anything from 3 to 8Mbps/around 1024kbps

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And seal your fate forever
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The Golden Age Of Leather"
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