maybe I should consider that flu shot

So this is all actually from last night but, whatever, it carries over into today.

Today I learned the importance of anti-virus software.

Yeah, I basically caught a virus last night. Never fear, it’s dead and gone now (and I assure you, nothing you click on my blog will harm your computer, I don’t ever upload files, it’s all links to other internet sources). Now, normally, I’m smart enough to have anti-virus software: I previously had a program called aye, avast! (exclamation included). But my free trial ran out a while ago, and I was too lazy to fix that.

So I’d been running around on the interwebz with no protection. It was bound to happen. And yesterday at around 8:00pm it did. I was doing nothing more innocent than Stumbling when all of these pop up ads, from nowhere, began assaulting my screen. Thanks to my geek-tech-father’s training, I intuitively knew that something had gotten into the system. Code red, code red! I was also tech-savvy enough to know that when the little window came up asking if I wanted to download something called “VirusProtector2008″ or whatever, I should rise above the influence and just say NO. Good thing, too, since I later learned that right there would have been the death of my computer.

I knew my avast! was dead, but I figured I could always re-install another trial version. So I did, waiting for a skull and crossbones to randomly appear on the screen the whole time. After avast! had installed, it reccomended that I reboot, as do most new installations. So I did. Minor glitch — after that, I couldn’t log into my system. It would either stay on a loading sceen for 40 minutes, or get to the desktop devoid of icons and a toolbar. Useless.

Well, my computer is equipped with ThinkVantage override software, which was the only thing I could access at the time. So I did. And spent several hours running a general systems test (which ended up being useless and took forever) and a Norten Anti-Virus scan (also useless, since it claimed no infected files and I knew that was WRONG). Finally I decided to reset my Windows XP settings, and save the data. Computer rebooted itself yet again.

I then opted, on boyfriend’s advice, to access Windows using the last successful method, when it asked at the start-up prompt. And thank God, I finally got in. All my files were still there, everything I’d downloaded. It had just reverted to the old settings. Really not a big deal. And finally was able to download an anti-virus (I’m running Kaspersky, so I reccomend it) and scan the system. It promptly discovered a Trojan and slaughtered it. Hah, hah, hah.

Moral of the story: If you get a virus, for the love of God, don’t download anything it kindly asks if you want to. It’s your way or the highway — use an anti-virus you know and trust. If all else fails, you can restore factory settings or reconfigure your system. And run the anti-virus scan ASAP. Or better yet, have one to begin with. Dummy me did not and nearly suffered the consequences, were it not for my quick thinking intellect and great computer wit dumb luck.