Question : No Sharepoint alerts!

I have sharepoint services 3.0.  Im trying to get my alerts to work. When I subscribe to a alert I receive an email stating that I have setup an alert.  But no alerts ever come out.  There seems to be a problem with my sharepoint services timer.  As I can not perform a backup either.  I have changed the log on from default to domain\administrator for the time service.  I read this "In my experience the symptoms were identical - I did get immediate notification that the alert was set up (and it was), but no alerts actually processed as expected.  As soon as I granted access in the content database to the account that the sptimer service was running under I was flooded with about 250 alerts".  How do I grant access in the content database?  If you do not think that is my answer please do tell.

Answer : No Sharepoint alerts!

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Computer101
EE Admin