Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Computer Viruses and Malware go BOOM!

Man, I wish...

My laptop briefly went berserk today (hence this post is late). There were stretches of time when it seemed fine, then it would crash, then take forever to boot up. A couple of times the C: prompt screen came up and I was like "?????". When I tried to run an antivirus program, it froze.

Argh! I love technology...sometimes. I used to joke that there was a good reason why computer designers don't put legs on a computer. If you program it to walk off a cliff (like a lemming), it will. Yes, it makes our lives easier, it helps us stay connected with friends that we've never met in real life, and it enables us to get our thoughts across to a wide audience. When that technology goes down...that's when we panic.

Note to self: BACK EVERYTHING UP ON A SEPARATE HARD DRIVE!

Hubs took a look at it after the kids went to bed. He told me that if I could tell him when my computer began going nuts, he had a window in which to look for suspicious files in my laptop's hard drive. Malware won't install itself into a Windows Control Panel's Programs list, but one thing it can't hide is the date it was installed. Since my laptop went nuts today, it gave him a place to start looking.

Plus we ran the antivirus program to make sure there wasn't any bad virus lingering somewhere.

Now my laptop seems to have regained its sanity. I'm breathing a sigh of relief...but I'm still going to back up all my files, just in case my computer decides to go berserk again.


All original writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2011

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