OK, so it turns out that I don't have a virus on my computer, but I had a laughable amount of spyware and junk. Hard part's over, right? We just set up the router and download Norton's Antivirus and we're golden? Wrong. Oh so wrong.
The router won't work. We plugged it all in, unplugged it, over and over. Not working. And I don't want to go into opsec details (even though it's a good story), but I ended up with stuff on my computer that the Army wouldn't be happy I had, and it took us hours to try to get rid of it. All in all we spent four hours with a net gain of very little. Sigh. But I sure learned a lot, watching my friend mess around in DOS after trying to remove parts of the Army's business accidentally wrecked Windows.
It reminded me of the time my dad thought he could outsmart Bill Gates and install Windows 95 on top of Windows 3.0. Or, as he renamed it, Jindows 3.0. Ha, didn't work. It was good for a couple hours of entertainment though. Or at least it was better than watching soccer.
Posted by Sarah at August 3, 2004 08:09 AMYeah, something similar happened to me on my recent research trip. Everything but my folders on my brand-new tablet PC worked fine--if I tried to open one, my CPU's meter would go off the chart. This happened after I used one of those "free" (now you know how they pay for it) hotel Internet services. This was on the first night. Imagine--a research trip...and no computer! And then I was afraid and angry because I of all people couldn't fix it. Missed one night of sleep over it. Finally, after doing everything the hard way, I figured out that I, too, simply had a ton of spyware on it, surreptitiously loaded by the "free" Internet provider. Got it off with Ad-aware and everything was a-ok. So luckily mine was easy. I was certain that it was something simple--I just had to figure it out. Anyway, good luck with yours! Your post bought back some rather frightening memories.
Posted by: Jeremiah at August 3, 2004 10:20 AMHmmm. I think there's a computer conspiracy out there.
Posted by: Mike at August 3, 2004 12:39 PMI've got one too that messes up my homepage. I've decided to let it hang around, like a spider.
Posted by: fairest at August 3, 2004 03:17 PMThis is totally off subject, but I thought I'd throw it in.
Drudge has a map of where the two candidates are going to be tomorrow, Davenport IA.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash7.htm
Oddly enough this is 1 mile from where I work, and 2 miles from where I live. I won't be attending, however my GF and her mom both have tickets.
The Bush affair is open to the public, free tickets at the local congress critter's office, while the Kerry shindig is private.
Guess which is selling well around here? Local news had the line for Bush tickets out the door, down the street, around the corner, and nearly in the river.
Posted by: John at August 3, 2004 06:16 PMTwo programs can make your life easier:
Ad-aware from Lavasoft which finds and eliminates spyware
ZoneAlarm - firewall software from Zone labs
which pops up everytime a program tries to call home. If you don't recognize the program you tell ZoneAlarm not to let it communicate with th world.
Both have freeware versions.
Posted by: James at August 3, 2004 07:09 PM