Infection

So yesterday, actually while blogging yesterday's post, I was looking for a Dave Barry column to link to, about the differences between guys and women. I found it, it's called "She's driving for a relationship, he's lost in the transmission." Various people had it reproduced on various sites--no doubt in violation of copyright laws--and I was looking for one in easy-to-read type to link to. I clicked on a link that seemed to be about that and my Internet Explorer froze up. A window kept popping up wanting me to run an anti-virus scan, but I suspected that window was from whatever was invading my computer. I shut the computer down, then turned it back on and tried to open Malwarebytes but got a message it was infected, then tried to open my antivirus software--which I haven't run in a long time because it makes my computer even more glacially slow than its natural January-molasses speed--and got the same message. So I shut it down again and came up to my dad's computer to finish my blog post and check a few accounts and make sure they were okay.

This afternoon I took the computer to the shop, and the gal there said there is a virus that pretends to be an antivirus program and asks people to pay for it by credit card, to get that number. So I'm glad that didn't happen. She also asked did I only turn it on once since the invasion, because some viruses propagate.

She said they would run a clean-up on it but she couldn't promise they'd get my computer back to me before the end of the day tomorrow, and after that they're closed for the long holiday weekend. So it goes. If I get it back tomorrow, I'll be thankful. If not, I'll remind myself that it's better to spend some holy days without excessive internet activity and try to consider it a "fasting" from it. Although it's pretty easy to come up and use my dad's--except he uses it himself a lot.

I just hope I don't lose files such as family pictures and old sermons and stuff.