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Post by Phalon on Aug 25, 2008 4:00:25 GMT -6
Ah....here I am sitting at my old workhorse computer with everything is back to normal. The brand new one had a blown harddrive amp - whether it was faulty when I bought it, or whether my weird magnetic aura thingy blew it is something only the computer demi-gods know. But I did learn a few things, and thought I'd share just in case some of it might help someone protect their own computer.
I thought I was doing everything I was supposed to, (except backing up my files, of course). My virus protection, (AVG), was the latest version, it did it's daily upgrades and scans. My computer installs automatic Windows upgrades. I never open e-mails from people I don't know, or ones that look weird in any way, and certainly would never open an attachment or click on a link contained in such an e-mail.
First thing is back-up, back-up, back-up. I remember Moonglum mentioning backing up all his files a while ago, and I thought 'damn, I need to do that'. Even bought a memory stick to do it with....which eventually got buried under the piles of stuff on my desk. I've been lazy/forgetful/oh-I'll-do-it-later/stupid about backing up my files. After we thought we had the old computer clean, Hubs downloaded all my stuff to that memory stick that I had to unbury to find. We "cleaned" it on the new computer with Norton, (the virus scanner that came with the computer). But once it was apparent the virus came over with the files, and then when the computer stopped working, (at one point I couldn't even turn it off; it showed only a black screen - I had to unplug it, and then it wouldn't turn on again), I was sure I'd lost it all for good. I'm talking years of family photos, and all my writing. I have only a small smidgen of that saved to floppy disk, (my old computer will not load anything onto CD).
And I'm not sure what came first; a Trojan or the Angelina Jolie thing that releases a Trojan. It was a coincidence that my computer guy neighbor just got back from a seminar on the latest viruses and such the day before I went over to his house with that pouty help me look on my face. He said it's very common for high-frequented sites like MySpace, Facebook.....and YouTube to have Trojan codes hidden in pages. All you have to do is visit and you're infected if your protection doesn't catch it.
Angelina Jolie is a shrew and stealthily sneaks in Laura Croft-like. Angelina Jolie thingy downloads malware onto your computer. It is fairly new; it started to appear in July. At first it got past a lot of virus software, spam blockers, and such - none of the biggies caught it. It was about July that I got an e-mail from myself. Huh? Yep, it was addressed to me and sent from me, (neighbor thinks I already had a Trojan at this point, and my e-mail address was recorded and used as a bot). Why would I open such a thing and let it loose on my computer? I didn't - but I unknowingly did.
I deleted the e-mail, deleted cookies, history, and temporary files. I ran a scan on my whole computer. But since it was so new, nothing caught it. The way it got in is due to the way I had my e-mail set up. I didn't do it intentionally, although I liked it - it just came that way when I signed up for the account, and I didn't know you could turn it off. A preview pane - it uses a split screen with my list of e-mails on the top screen, and a "preview" of what the e-mail my cursor is on contains on the bottom screen. I could view what was in the e-mail without ever opening it. So even though I deleted 'Angelina Jolie Nude' without opening it, because the preview pane was on, it might have been enough. Although after doing a two-minute drill on the Angelina Jolie thing, it seems you actually had to click on a link for your computer to be infected. shrugs. Who knows how I got all this crap on my computer, but the preview pane is now turned off.
Another thing that happened is although my virus protection icon was there, and my security center said everything was turned on, I had no user/AVG interface connection. It was just a shell with nothing behind it. When the warning pop-up came up that said a Trojan Threat had been detected, I clicked on the "delete threat" button, and it seemed to work. Then it came up again, and I hit "quarantine" - that seemed to work too. Then it came up again, and I clicked on the virus icon and discovered that once that "threat detected" pop up came up, my virus protection was disabled even though it appeared to be working. I ran a whole computer scan in safe mode, and thought that worked - it didn't.
After neighbor computer guy looked at the inner workings of my files and programs, we downloaded AVG again, ran all the scans, and it caught it this time - it actually said "3 threats detected" "3 threats deleted" this time. I hadn't seen that last part in anything I tried prior. Sigh of relief. I now make sure I click on the AVG icon when I turn on my computer, and before I turn it off, just to make sure it's still up and working.
I also learned something about Microsoft Word - this is kinda important, because talking with a few other people, no one else knew you had to do this either. When your Windows automatic updates occur, it does not include any updates to Word. You have to go to Microsoft's website, and download new Word updates from there. That was another back-door for the Trojans; because the Word program was never updated they stabled in there.
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Post by vox on Aug 25, 2008 16:24:23 GMT -6
Glad you are back with us Phalon, and that you have sorted it out!
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 25, 2008 17:09:57 GMT -6
Is there a link to the Word download page? If so, could you share it? Thanks.
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Post by vox on Aug 26, 2008 11:52:26 GMT -6
Hi Mini Mia, with regards to your above post, spoke to MG (who is a wiz at computers, having built so many from scratch) and he said you would be better off visiting the Microsoft website, as they would have up to date downloads for word! Hope this helps?
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 26, 2008 18:47:00 GMT -6
Thanks, Vox. I thought my Word did its own update. I'm fairly certain it does. But I thought I should do a manual one just to make sure. I know other software I have does their own updates from time to time.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 27, 2008 4:31:04 GMT -6
I dunno, Joxie. I'll check with my neighbor to clarify - he said exactly the same thing that Vox wrote Moonglum suggested. It may be the way this old thing is set up - I have Windows XP with Word 2002. I know there are much newer versions of Word; while I was playing around on the new computer while it was still living its all too short life, the Word program looked completely different than the one I have always used. Maybe the automatic updates only take place for the newest version of Word?
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 27, 2008 20:46:54 GMT -6
Well, I have XP, and I just checked and found I have Word 2002. I think I've seen a window pop up once or twice stating it was updating Word ... but perhaps I glanced at it wrong before I quickly zapped it out of my way.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 29, 2008 4:24:34 GMT -6
Probably not, Joxie. Here's the deal, straight outta computer guy's mouth and off my fingertips.....twelve hours later, so I hope there's nothing lost in the translation. Word updates are sometimes automatic; sometimes they're not. How's that for a definitive answer?
Best advice he has, is to periodically go to Microsoft's website; the updates to Word are found in the Microsoft Office section, and download from there. Your computer will tell which updates have been automatically loaded and which have not. The importance of this is in the way trojans and malware attach themselves to your computer; they look for a backdoor and if a program such as Word have not been updated, they've found one.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 29, 2008 16:26:29 GMT -6
I went to MS's site and searched for 'Word' Updates and _finally_ figured out I'd have to search for 'Office' Updates. It stated I had all of them, so I guess mine does automatically do updates. I guess I wasn't seeing things.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 29, 2008 0:46:11 GMT -6
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Post by Phalon on Sept 29, 2008 4:26:25 GMT -6
That's really cool, Joxie. And very cute. Sheesh, it's smaller than my kitchen. I don't know if I could live in a house that small, even if I did live alone. Actually, I'm postive I couldn't - more power to that woman!
Now, if it was in my backyard.....and I could go there to escape the chaos of cats and daughters just every once in a while, you'd have to drag me out!
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 29, 2008 15:15:27 GMT -6
We'd all probably be better off if we lived with as little as possible, but I don't think I could do it.
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Post by Siren on Sept 29, 2008 22:43:21 GMT -6
I love that house! Of course, I'd need a barn with it to put all my books, music, and movies in. So much for downsizing! But I do find the concept very appealing. Reality might be very different, however. The Wall Street financial crisis has many people thinking about downsizing. Here's an interesting article with comments from Average Joes and Janes about why they do or don't support the Bank Bailout Bill. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26903309
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Post by Phalon on Feb 11, 2009 22:02:25 GMT -6
I had kind of a weird thing happen today, and I thought I'd post it to serve as a kind of warning; sometimes you don't realize that common, everyday items can turn dangerous if the circumstances are right.
When I returned from the grocery store, I opened the door to a house full of smoke, and the scent of something burning. The smoke wasn't thick - it was just a haze, like a light fog. The scent was horrible; it smelled to me like an electrical fire.
I did a quick check of the house - upstairs, the main level, and the basement - I couldn't find any fire, or where the smoke was coming from; it seemed to be contained in the main level of the house. Our house is old, and a lot of the wiring hasn't been updated, so I thought maybe something was burning between the walls. I called the fire department, explained what was happening, and they said they'd send someone right over.
I wasn't expecting the four fire trucks with sirens blaring that pulled up in front of my house, just as LX came home from school.
The first thing one of the firemen said when he walked in the door was that it smelled like an electrical fire. The firemen walked through the house with cool hand held devices. Technology is great. The devices beep at the sign of heat, or something, (I'm not sure how they work, exactly). They passed them over electrical outlets in each room, checked the electrical box in the basement and such, finding nothing.
The head guy asked what appliances and electrical items I'd used. The computer, television, and iron was about it....and none of them had been on since that morning. "What about the dishwasher?" he asked. Oh, yeah....I had turned it on to wash the dishes before I left for the grocery. Beep, beep, beep... The alarm on the device went off as soon as he opened the dish washer door.
He asked if anything small and plastic might have fallen through the washer racks onto the coils. Nope - the only thing plastic in there was a couple of cups; the rest were dishes, bowls, and cups all made of ceramic or glass. Turns out it was one of the cups - LX has a sports drink bottle that has a lid attached by a plastic tab thingy. The cup was too tall for the top shelf, so she'd put it on the bottom. The lid, still attached to the cup, fell through the bottom rack, next to the heating coils on bottom of the dishwasher, and melted.
The fireman said I was lucky it hadn't caught on fire. The only reason he thought to ask about the dishwasher because this was the second run they'd made that day involving one. The first was for a plastic cooking spoon that had fallen down by the coils and actually caught fire. I honestly never thought a dishwasher could get hot enough to catch something in it on fire - it just never occurred to me that putting something like a plastic cup in there could ever be a problem.
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Post by Siren on Feb 12, 2009 9:16:35 GMT -6
Golly, Gams - what a close call! I'm glad you caught it in time.
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Post by quettalee on Feb 12, 2009 10:55:06 GMT -6
Glad all is safe for you, my friend.
That's one thing I don't have to worry about and one thing I've never had in my entire life--almost 50 years--a dishwasher.
I'm bad about the dryer, however. And they say you shouldn't even go to bed with it running.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 13, 2009 7:02:32 GMT -6
I can't imagine a fire inside the dishwasher would do much damage except to the inside of the dishwasher.....? I'm not sure, but it seems like it would be contained. I'm thankful we didn't have to find out, though.
I do that all the time, TG I never run the dryer when I leave the house, but don't think twice about letting it run after I've gone to bed....until now, that is.
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Post by Mini Mia on Feb 13, 2009 22:55:38 GMT -6
That's very scary. I don't run the dryer when I'm not home, but I have run the dishwasher while out. And I've run both and gone to bed without giving it a second thought. I don't think I'll do that from now on though.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 24, 2009 7:15:43 GMT -6
I'm not quite sure which thread this fits in, but this place is as good as any, and I think it's kinda neat. The kid in the video is one of LX's friends; apparently he's quite famous in the kite-boarding world, appearing in all kinds of magazines, and traveling the country in competition, (and the reason we now have an "indo-board" in the house).
Actually, kite-boarding is something I might like to try. In the summer, they have kite-boarding demonstrations and lessons down at the lake during the evenings. I've gotten fairly okay on the indo-board, which is kind of like a free-rolling teeter-totter type thingie; at least I haven't wiped out the furniture, caught the dog's nose underneath because she feels the need to stick her nose into everything, or injured myself and any innocent bystanders yet. Kite-boarding is unlike para-sailing or hang-gliding, which I'd love to try, but I'm afraid my fear of heights would paralyze me. When kite-boarding, you control the height you fly over the water by how hard you pull on the bar controlling the kite. I have a feeling I wouldn't be pulling all that hard.....and doing it when the lake is much calmer than in the video.
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Post by Siren on Feb 26, 2009 7:01:03 GMT -6
That looks like great fun. And I bet Erik's upper body is super-strong! I can so see you trying that, Gams.
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Post by stepper on Oct 31, 2009 1:39:54 GMT -6
I’ve had an interesting couple of days which I would have allowed to quietly pass into history, but for some reason that escapes me at the moment, I’m feeling chatty. Since I have no one else to blame for this, I’ll simply say I ran into a post by Phalon where she mentioned getting old and now I can’t get the thought out of my head so I’m trying to do it this way. It begins with the necessary comment that I am in fact getting older. This was driven home by a recent visit to the optometrist, a very necessary visit I might add. I’ve always worn glasses. Okay, not immediately out of the womb, but there are very few childhood pictures of me and only the preschool pictures have me sans optic assistance. The last time I went for glasses the doctor simply gave me the prescription and I went on my way. He left it to the poor people at EyeMasters to tell me that I was getting bi-focals. Bi-focals? Me? That’s not a moment I recall with unequaled levels of fondness. As I said I’ve worn glasses for many years now so it must have been vanity that caused me to resist, cringe, whimper and whine about it. I don’t know where it came from though. I’m not especially prone to worrying about my age and if you saw me in person, you’d include appearance in that too. None the less, it bothered me that I needed bi-focals. Fortunately, they had a solution that covered my myopic malfunction and eliminated my unreasonable displeasure with the concept. Progressives. Not progressive thoughts which I wasn’t having, but a way to grind the lens so that it filled the bi-focal requirement and literally progressed in magnification so that with a slight nod of the head I could see clearly at various distances too. And they didn’t look at all like a bi-focal. That was however, several years ago. Life moves on, and so does technology. They gave me an International Blackberry at work. One of those little slightly larger than a pocket calculator things that does the internet, email, has a phone in it, an alarm, weather reports, and it works no matter what part of the world I’m in. Except it has itty bitty keys with even smaller letters and numbers that, unfortunately, I can’t see well enough. Sigh. It’s time to visit the optometrist again. Since I retired from the Air Force I can get prescriptions from the military. They’ll give me glasses too but the “styles” are intended to discourage association with people of the opposite sex – meaning if she wore them, even a sex starved sailor would think they made Sandra Bullock ugly – but that’s another story. I went to Fort Sam Houston for the check up and prescription. They have really neat computerized stuff to do eye exams now days, but ultimately it came down to time with the optometrist and the prescription. Regrettably the computer wasn’t working properly the day I went in. I know this because it kept spewing out lies about tri-focals. I smiled, and squirmed, and listened. What I walked away with was three prescriptions. Three. One so I can purchase a new pair of progressives and will look sort of normal, one for a pair of glasses focused specifically for the usual working distance between me and a computer screen, and one for the rest of the time. It’s a solution I can live with, have to live with since I need to be able to see well enough to do my job. I know, this all seems a bit whiney. And it is. Then came today. You’ve probably never heard of Airman 1st Class Lauren Lagudi. She was a young girl from the local area who was all of 20 years old. She was following her dream and became a radio broadcaster stationed in Italy. And she died. No one really knows what happened yet. All we know is that she was found underneath a trestle in Italy. Her body was returned to the US, and her funeral was today. The final service was held on Randolph AFB at the main chapel. You may have seen this before, but when an active duty person dies and the funeral service is done on a military installation, they ask for volunteers to form a cordon lining both sides of the road from the chapel to the gate where the funeral procession exits the base. Today I volunteered for the cordon. The police motorcycle escort goes by first, then comes the hearse, then the vehicles with immediate family, and then mourners. Being in the cordon leaves you standing in the street with nothing to do for quite a while, nothing to do but think. Then a vehicle goes by with the body of a young girl who wasn’t half your age. She’s followed by parents, brothers, sisters, and in this case numerous grieving young people who also just graduated from high school, most of whom have tissues and are dabbing their eyes as they are driven by. Car after car of people who knew this young girl and feel what it means to say a loved one and friend had died. Finally the trailing escort cycle drives by. Silently the cordon breaks. No one speaks, we just walk off back to our own lives. What is there to say? We all know what the family feels because we’ve all felt it. Most of us lived it. And standing there, part of the honor guard for this young ladies’ motorcade, I am reminded that getting older isn’t such a bad thing. Neither are tri-focals.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 31, 2009 3:24:00 GMT -6
Very heartwarming, Stepper. And I've had my moments when I realized that getting older is okay, as long as you're still breathing.
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Post by Phalon on Oct 31, 2009 7:47:03 GMT -6
I'm glad you were feeling chatty last night, and decided to share this story with us. It's a lovely post, Stepper - and at the same time a stark reminder that we should enjoy what we have while we're still around to enjoy it.
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Post by Siren on Oct 31, 2009 8:26:38 GMT -6
Thank you for sharing that, Stepper. Another benefit of glasses is that, unlike contact lenses, they don't cloud up after you cry.
What a tragedy for the parents of that young woman. If she had died in action in Afghanistan or Iraq, it might be easier to understand, somehow. But for her to die outside of a war zone, working in a relatively non-threatening environment, must be beyond her parents' grasp. I wish them peace, and hope the truth about her death comes out.
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Post by stepper on Oct 31, 2009 21:43:56 GMT -6
My mother always told me that nothing was worse than losing a child. The short version of this is that one of my brothers lived only 23 days, and mom said picking a casket for him was the most difficult thing she ever experienced. I'm sure it's extremely difficult coping with the loss.
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Post by vox on Nov 1, 2009 3:31:04 GMT -6
Oh Stepper, what a lovely story! sad but true! There is a lot to be said for 'getting older'. You and your partner tend to 'agree not to disagree' more, therefore life is more peaceful (or boring) whichever way you want to see it! Yes we all have the 'bug bear' of glasses, but I've heard of so many people being 'knocked down' by motorists all for the sake of vanity and not wearing their glasses. I am a prime example of it myself, I have 2 pairs of glasses, one for reading and one pair for distance. We even have a 46" TV on the wall and I have to wear distance glasses to watch it" LOL.
As for losing a child, it's something I cannot even comprehend, but it must have been extremely hard losing a sibling at such an early age!
I'm afraid the 'age' thing is with us all!
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Post by stepper on Nov 1, 2009 17:49:57 GMT -6
LOL! Yes there is, but you have to be older to realize just how true that statement is vox.
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Post by vox on Nov 7, 2009 2:30:03 GMT -6
Sshhhhhh Stepper! you're giving away your age! Lol
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Post by stepper on Nov 8, 2009 22:50:08 GMT -6
LOL! I'm at the point where daily exercise begins with the joy of waking up and - as Phalon noted not so long ago - enjoying Snap, Crackle, and Pop! Then after you get moving you look for cereal.
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Post by vox on Nov 9, 2009 14:07:11 GMT -6
He he! Love it!
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