It has been a busy time since I last updated this blog. I have actually spoken with a few of the loyal followers and explained why I have not provided any updates. To be honest, The Discourser's life has not been so exciting. However, I have a couple of things to update folks on today.
First off, it is the end of the month/ beginning of the month. That means a gaseous emissions update. This past month of November was a particularly gassy month seeing it was the beginning of the holiday season. The tally by the end of the month was 375. The high number was in part to my having the Monkey Flu for a week and all the cold medicine, cough drops, and elixirs. That stuff plays havoc on the digestive system. Anyway, the average for the month was 12.5 poots per day. The Girl and I did a little calculation and thus far I have been averaging 12.96 air biscuits per day for the entire year. I am looking forward to finishing off this endeavor in December. The Discourser is kind of disgusted with himself.
Second, over this weekend the GoG came over to hang out and shoot the breeze. While we were hanging out a couple of us were surfing the Net on the trusty HP laptop. The trusty HP acquired an Internet STD. A virus attacked the computer in the disguise of a virus protection software called Antivirus System Pro. The hackers have this worm infect your computer signaling that your computer is infected. It then creates a phony scan of your computer and prompts you to disinfect after paying $40 on your credit card. The best part is that it does nothing except for installing a key tracker on a phony toolbar for IE.
I researched the virus and found a solution. Download something called rkill and another Spybot/ Malware killer. The trick is not in the downloading but in the deployment of the solution. You have to restart your computer and launch the rkill application before the virus kicks in. Rkill worked well and halted the malware from launching. The Spybot/ Malware killer identified the infected registry entries and proceeded to annihilate them. All was good until I restarted. The trusty HP blue screened. I attempted to restart more than 10 times before it actually was able to launch Windows.
The next day was Monday and I talked to my IT support tech at work. He looked at the trusty HP and determined the solution had truncated some of the OS files. In other words a clean install using the original recovery discs was in order. Luckily I was able to pull off the most pertinent data to my external drive. Everything else was fluff. I took the infected laptop back to my office and started the reformat. That was at 12:30. By five that evening the reinstall was not yet finished. I left it running over night.
Today I returned to the office to find that the reinstall was complete. It was like having a brand new computer. The downside was it loaded all the bloatware from the original install. I took the time between appointments, phone conversations, report review and writing, and talking with students to remove the bloatware and reinstall Firefox, MS Office, iTunes, and replace the saved data pulled off before the reinstall.
Side Note: I am glad I have adopted a Web 2.0 stance for most of my things. Truly nothing of consequence was lost and made the revival of the trusty HP relatively easy. iTunes re-synced with the iPhone with no problems. MobileMe restored all my calendar and contacts to Outlook. Google Calendar Sync restored the connection to my work computer.
I downloaded an antivirus program called Avast! on the recommendation of The Boy. It too is free and works like a charm. Google Earth and Google Talk were an easy install and all I have left to install is Picasa, my old Spybot and defrag programs (all free). Yeah, I lost some stupid Mahjong game but who cares. Everything else is fine. Bookmarks in Firefox? No problem with Google Bookmarks.
The intermittent work on the computer was finished by the time I walked out the door to come home this evening. I am very happy that the trusty HP is back. I do like this computer.
Off to read my current book, "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne. Hasta.
First off, it is the end of the month/ beginning of the month. That means a gaseous emissions update. This past month of November was a particularly gassy month seeing it was the beginning of the holiday season. The tally by the end of the month was 375. The high number was in part to my having the Monkey Flu for a week and all the cold medicine, cough drops, and elixirs. That stuff plays havoc on the digestive system. Anyway, the average for the month was 12.5 poots per day. The Girl and I did a little calculation and thus far I have been averaging 12.96 air biscuits per day for the entire year. I am looking forward to finishing off this endeavor in December. The Discourser is kind of disgusted with himself.
Second, over this weekend the GoG came over to hang out and shoot the breeze. While we were hanging out a couple of us were surfing the Net on the trusty HP laptop. The trusty HP acquired an Internet STD. A virus attacked the computer in the disguise of a virus protection software called Antivirus System Pro. The hackers have this worm infect your computer signaling that your computer is infected. It then creates a phony scan of your computer and prompts you to disinfect after paying $40 on your credit card. The best part is that it does nothing except for installing a key tracker on a phony toolbar for IE.
I researched the virus and found a solution. Download something called rkill and another Spybot/ Malware killer. The trick is not in the downloading but in the deployment of the solution. You have to restart your computer and launch the rkill application before the virus kicks in. Rkill worked well and halted the malware from launching. The Spybot/ Malware killer identified the infected registry entries and proceeded to annihilate them. All was good until I restarted. The trusty HP blue screened. I attempted to restart more than 10 times before it actually was able to launch Windows.
The next day was Monday and I talked to my IT support tech at work. He looked at the trusty HP and determined the solution had truncated some of the OS files. In other words a clean install using the original recovery discs was in order. Luckily I was able to pull off the most pertinent data to my external drive. Everything else was fluff. I took the infected laptop back to my office and started the reformat. That was at 12:30. By five that evening the reinstall was not yet finished. I left it running over night.
Today I returned to the office to find that the reinstall was complete. It was like having a brand new computer. The downside was it loaded all the bloatware from the original install. I took the time between appointments, phone conversations, report review and writing, and talking with students to remove the bloatware and reinstall Firefox, MS Office, iTunes, and replace the saved data pulled off before the reinstall.
Side Note: I am glad I have adopted a Web 2.0 stance for most of my things. Truly nothing of consequence was lost and made the revival of the trusty HP relatively easy. iTunes re-synced with the iPhone with no problems. MobileMe restored all my calendar and contacts to Outlook. Google Calendar Sync restored the connection to my work computer.
I downloaded an antivirus program called Avast! on the recommendation of The Boy. It too is free and works like a charm. Google Earth and Google Talk were an easy install and all I have left to install is Picasa, my old Spybot and defrag programs (all free). Yeah, I lost some stupid Mahjong game but who cares. Everything else is fine. Bookmarks in Firefox? No problem with Google Bookmarks.
The intermittent work on the computer was finished by the time I walked out the door to come home this evening. I am very happy that the trusty HP is back. I do like this computer.
Off to read my current book, "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne. Hasta.
