I just recently used my laptop at a public wireless hotspot, and I have Zone Alarm which blocked several people from trying to connect to my computer. However, when I went back home, the same people were trying to connect to my computer. I never had a problem with people trying to connect to my laptop before using it at the public wireless hotspot. I was wondering if there was any way to stop them from connecting to my laptop. Also, I wanted to know if they were connecting to me using my IP address and if there was any way to change that. Thank you

You answered your own question. "I have Zone Alarm which blocked several people from trying to connect to my computer." Your firewall is doing it for you.

I am assuming you have a static IP from you ISP, correct? you must if you are wanting to change it. just contact your ISP and request (for a fee no doubt) for a new static IP. if it is always the same IP's trying to hit your machine setup zonealarm to block those specific addy's. But why was anybody allowed to access your machine at all in the first place??? don't you run windows/Internet connection firewall - and don't allow any sharing (explorer>tool>view>scroll to the bottom, uncheck simple file sharing & if installed then remove file and printer sharing in your IP props dialog). Also remember to take a little time out to run keylogger/spyware/etc. search and removal s/w just in case one of those ever-so-friendly and curious other users installed something on your machine that you haven't discovered yet. hope any of this is a help. Chuck p.s. d/l a decent port scanner/monitor to show you any and all activity on all open ports on your machine to ID the IP's hitting you. don't waste any of your time trying to return the favor to them.