Thursday, April 13, 2006
Creeping through it
Holy Thursday, washing feet and pots of money.
Easter is happening. Passing over, the Angel of Death allows me to live once again. I find no blood on my lintel.
However, there was blood all over my computer. Back in the day when I had Randy as a housemate, he took care of the hardware and most software needs of my PC. A shortcut that he made for me was to get a copy of Windows XP pro from his friend Brian who had a sort of unlimited license version from his employer. This allowed for a one-time installation but no CD for restoral or re-installation was possible.
Overtime, the registry degraded from the many attacks from viruses I encountered as I cruised around the internet. If I had to reboot the PC for any reason, it was a lottory to see if Dr Watson (debugging software) was going to say "not this time babe. Press that restart button and try again." On the 10th, 15th or even 30th time of restarting, it may get all the way through the start up procedures, connect to the cable internet and let me do most functions I wanted.
Well, yesterday I was be-bopping around, read my daily news and saw that Microsoft had issued a couple of security patches. I knew I was behind on these because I had turned off automatic updating because I don't like programs running in the background doing 'unknown' things while I am busy playing a cpu-intensive video game like Everquest II.
Anyway, I popped on to Google, searched for the url for Microsoft and pressed the go-to button. As the window started to paint for the Microsoft Home site, I was bombarded with a browser capture-attacking virus. It immediately updated my browser, changed my home url, patched in executible code everywhere, including my registry, and automatically restarted my computer in a vain hope of permanently planting itself.
Little did the virus designer know that he was going to push my tittering machine over the edge to oblivion. It was broken so badly that it was unable to get a connection to the internet.
Michael came down stairs during his lunch break to try to isolate what was happening, perhaps to do a Safe Mode restoral. This was not to be. Dead as a doorstop.
Between us, we determined that it was time for me to bite the bullet, buy my own copy of Windows XP Pro, McAufee Virus Scan and to scrub my hard drive clean and start all over.
I dressed, headed out to Comp USA and drove around Atlanta in a pollen dust storm. I managed to toddle into the store, gasp my needs to a sales clerk, spend $350 on my Visa, creep out of the store and back to my red neon car sugar coated with a layer of yellow pine pollen. I had messed up pretty badly.
I had come out of the house without any chemical inhalers to easy my asthmatic reaction (constricted bronchial tubes) to the pine pollen. I had to sit in the car for about 15 minutes just gasping and thinking non-panic-y thoughts to calm myself as I saw electric stars in my eyes from the lack of oxygen.
For the last year or so, I have been taking vitamin B12 injections to help with my mobility. Without them, my joints turn so very stiff and painful that I become rock-like unable to overcome the pain to actually move. My knees are the hardest hit. The asthma contributes by not allowing oxygenation of my muscles, so that cramping pain in my lower back and legs becomes severely intense as I move more than about 200 feet.
When the computer was attacked, it was about 3 hours before I was due to get my B12 injection. I knew the 'fix' for the computer was going to take about 6 to 8 hours of effort, so I cancelled my appointment for the shot. Sitting in the parking lot in front of Comp USA, I regretted that decision.
Was this a precursing event? Did I see how I was eventually going to die -- gasping for oxygen, immoble in an unattended parking lot? Perhaps. However, this time the Angel flew past, ignoring me. I got things under control and drove home.
These sort of incidents push me more and more toward agoraphobia. I just want to stay inside in my narrow and protected environment, not facing life-threatening strolls across the parking lot.
And yes, about 8 hours later, the virgin-like computer is up, running and being kept immaculate (thanks to the vigilance of the virus scanner). But I lost three years of stored mail, all my browser-favorite web sites, and my email address/telephone book.
Thank you Michael for your help in the recuperation. Thank you Angel for letting me creep though another day.
Easter is happening. Passing over, the Angel of Death allows me to live once again. I find no blood on my lintel.
However, there was blood all over my computer. Back in the day when I had Randy as a housemate, he took care of the hardware and most software needs of my PC. A shortcut that he made for me was to get a copy of Windows XP pro from his friend Brian who had a sort of unlimited license version from his employer. This allowed for a one-time installation but no CD for restoral or re-installation was possible.
Overtime, the registry degraded from the many attacks from viruses I encountered as I cruised around the internet. If I had to reboot the PC for any reason, it was a lottory to see if Dr Watson (debugging software) was going to say "not this time babe. Press that restart button and try again." On the 10th, 15th or even 30th time of restarting, it may get all the way through the start up procedures, connect to the cable internet and let me do most functions I wanted.
Well, yesterday I was be-bopping around, read my daily news and saw that Microsoft had issued a couple of security patches. I knew I was behind on these because I had turned off automatic updating because I don't like programs running in the background doing 'unknown' things while I am busy playing a cpu-intensive video game like Everquest II.
Anyway, I popped on to Google, searched for the url for Microsoft and pressed the go-to button. As the window started to paint for the Microsoft Home site, I was bombarded with a browser capture-attacking virus. It immediately updated my browser, changed my home url, patched in executible code everywhere, including my registry, and automatically restarted my computer in a vain hope of permanently planting itself.
Little did the virus designer know that he was going to push my tittering machine over the edge to oblivion. It was broken so badly that it was unable to get a connection to the internet.
Michael came down stairs during his lunch break to try to isolate what was happening, perhaps to do a Safe Mode restoral. This was not to be. Dead as a doorstop.
Between us, we determined that it was time for me to bite the bullet, buy my own copy of Windows XP Pro, McAufee Virus Scan and to scrub my hard drive clean and start all over.
I dressed, headed out to Comp USA and drove around Atlanta in a pollen dust storm. I managed to toddle into the store, gasp my needs to a sales clerk, spend $350 on my Visa, creep out of the store and back to my red neon car sugar coated with a layer of yellow pine pollen. I had messed up pretty badly.
I had come out of the house without any chemical inhalers to easy my asthmatic reaction (constricted bronchial tubes) to the pine pollen. I had to sit in the car for about 15 minutes just gasping and thinking non-panic-y thoughts to calm myself as I saw electric stars in my eyes from the lack of oxygen.
For the last year or so, I have been taking vitamin B12 injections to help with my mobility. Without them, my joints turn so very stiff and painful that I become rock-like unable to overcome the pain to actually move. My knees are the hardest hit. The asthma contributes by not allowing oxygenation of my muscles, so that cramping pain in my lower back and legs becomes severely intense as I move more than about 200 feet.
When the computer was attacked, it was about 3 hours before I was due to get my B12 injection. I knew the 'fix' for the computer was going to take about 6 to 8 hours of effort, so I cancelled my appointment for the shot. Sitting in the parking lot in front of Comp USA, I regretted that decision.
Was this a precursing event? Did I see how I was eventually going to die -- gasping for oxygen, immoble in an unattended parking lot? Perhaps. However, this time the Angel flew past, ignoring me. I got things under control and drove home.
These sort of incidents push me more and more toward agoraphobia. I just want to stay inside in my narrow and protected environment, not facing life-threatening strolls across the parking lot.
And yes, about 8 hours later, the virgin-like computer is up, running and being kept immaculate (thanks to the vigilance of the virus scanner). But I lost three years of stored mail, all my browser-favorite web sites, and my email address/telephone book.
Thank you Michael for your help in the recuperation. Thank you Angel for letting me creep though another day.
# posted by Dornar @ 5:07 PM 
