VIRUSES!!!@#$!$% - and First Friday (cont.)

Hey there! So last night my computer caught a virus AGAIN! This new virus was very similar to the one that infected my computer last month. The same one that forced me to stop blogging for several days. Thankfully, since my friend Bill fixed my computer last month, I already had an anti-malware program installed on my computer, so I was able to fix the problem myself this time.

Anyway, since I have been hit twice by this type of virus and even last week my friend Mary got the same virus on her computer, I feel I should talk about these extremely annoying viruses so that if you happen to catch one, you can recognize it right away and know what to do.

The two programs that have attacked my computer are the spyware programs known as Sysinternals Antivirus and Antivir 2010. Both of these programs sneak their way onto your computer and masquerade as Anti-virus software. They pretty much hi-jack your web browser, not allowing you to access the internet at all. They are designed to disable any legitimate anti-virus software that is already on your computer so that, it almost seems impossible to remove these pesky programs that just show up out of nowhere. These types of spyware will torment you with pop-ups saying that viruses have been found on your computer and they wont allow you to do anything until you "buy" the full version of their program. DO NOT BUY IT!!! It is just a scam. You will lose your money and the problem will just get worse.

You do not need a fancy expensive anti-virus program to remove these viruses from your computer. There is a free program you can download from www.malwarebytes.org that will successfully and safely remove these programs from your computer. The tricky thing is that you can't download this program once you already have the virus, unless you really know a lot about the way computers work, because the viruses hi-jack your web-browser, so you can't go looking for a solution.

I know that when Bill fixed my computer for me, he disabled everything that starts up automatically when my computer turns on, which in effect, "turned off" the virus. That allowed him to access the internet in order to download the anit-malware program that would actually remove the virus. Honestly though, I couldn't tell you exactly how he did it. I would suggest downloading the anti-malware program 'just in case'. That way, if you get one of these viruses, you can simply turn off your computer, restart it in "safe mode" and then run the anti-malware program. Your computer will be fixed in less than an hour.

Anyway, that is my advice. The last thing I have to say about that, is that I got the Sysinternals Antivirus 'bug' from a MySpace page, and my friend Mary got it too. So I suggest staying away from MySpace. I am not actually sure where I picked up the Antivir 2010 virus. The only website I was logged into when it actually took over my computer was this one! (I was working on my blog!) I doubt that I got the virus through Blogger. I think it is more likely that I picked it up somewhere else and it just didn't 'manifest' right away. Okay... enough about that.

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It seems a bit odd to completely change topics in the middle of a blog, but the way the internet works now, if I wait till tomorrow to tell you about my experience at First Friday last night, well... then it will already be 'old' news. So, I did make it out to First Friday last night. I brought my Flip camera with me and made this video:




My friend Adam Michaels (from the band Searchlight) is an artist (notice "Adams Art Box" in the video above), and I bought some Alice In Wonderland prints from him.





I *WISH* that I could have the actual paintings of these two prints, but I could not afford them. He also had paintings of the Cheshire Cat and an interpretation of the Mad Tea Party that I would have loved to have, but still,... I can only afford to buy art on the cheap.

I did also buy some pins last night.



There was a booth that was selling products made entirely from recycled materials. These pins were made from aluminum taken from soda cans and recycled paper. I spent a good while looking through the thousands of pins they had on display there, I chose these six as little gifts for some friends of mine. I meant to buy more for more of my friends, but there were SO MANY pins to look through, eventually I gave up looking.

Anyway, I think this blog is really long enough, so I'll say goodbye now, until tomorrow. :-)