Blogging has been sort of light lately because, God help me, I got a virus in my computer and it is driving me crazy. I can see graphics on only half the pages I go to, and everything I do now - reading and typing - is so slooooooow.
Natch, I had let the virus protection software that came with the computer expire after the free 60-day (or whatever it was) trial, and when I realized a few days ago I had gotten infected with something really bad, I downloaded a free protection/scanning program which told me I had - and I do not exaggerate - 1,600 viruses. Most of them were standard cookie-reading adware that everyone gets and that don't really screw your computer up, but some of them were named "malicious" - and appropriately so. Some fucking computer geek in the Philippines or India writes these things just for fun to screw us up. The fuckers.
Anyway, the software deleted most of them but couldn't get the really bad ones that insinuate themselves into your C drive, so now I have to basically reload my Windows XP operating system to get my computer back to how it was when I got it.
And of course I have no clue where the original discs are, so I had to order them from a computer company for $27.
And when I do this, I will lose all my settings, all my documents, programs, bookmarks, music, etc., that I've downloaded over the last few years, so I spent most of Wednesday backing everything up on blank CDs and DVDs that I had to buy from Circuit City for 20 fucking dollars.
Ugh!
Fucking ugh, in fact.
But on a positive note, I had happy hour Wednesday with my friend Jan Brady - and she actually paid for the food! I had a Cuban panina. Delish. Granted, it only cost six bucks, so she still owes me about 8 drinks, but it was at least a small break from my day of computer hell.
The point is - people: get a good virus protector and always back up your hard drive.
Blah.
7 comments:
I had the same problem...it turned out to be my hard drive that was failing. I took it to a computer store and they back up everything on a new drive and installed the new hard drive with all my dcos, settings, favs etc. It cost about $150 but worth every penny.
That's a pretty good price Eric. I had to get work done on my computer and they charged $125 an HOUR!! And of course it took a couple of hours. I feel for your pain jbk - good luck!!!
Wow, we went through that last summer. Andy is a photojournalist, and always just downloads pics to the computer. We're lazy and never print them out. Then our harddrive was fried. I bawled. All of our wedding pictures, honeymoon pictures, Christmas, niece's birthday party, school papers, etc. Everything was gone, and we were quoted $200 an hour to try and retrieve everything.
We got lucky, one of my mom's friends does this, so he offered to do it for free for us, we just had to buy a new harddrive.
Now everything is backed up. You should see the amount of CDs we have all over the house.
I got hit with a virus a few years ago and of course had backed up nothing. I couldn't afford to pay to get anything recovered so it was all gone:( But for your pictures, I suggest just putting everything up on Flickr or one of those type of sites. They're free and that way even if your computer blows up you still have them!! For music, put them on your itunes or burn a CD as soon as you download.
psalms 32: 1-3
computer viruses shall strike the godless flagburners.
Watch out for those free downloaded virus detectors because they usually give you a free trial and then want you to buy it, so they have an interest in saying you had 1600 viruses!
ps - if you're even able to read this! :)
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