urbandruid | Entries tagged with whee! virus!

State of the virus: Sorted. Little fucker's gone, good riddance. Now I'm paranoid about other stuff getting in, but hey, whatever, you know? Gone! /State of the virus

The ants are trying to make a comeback, in totally weird places as usual. We found 'em in the kitchen, which, okay, I can understand, but the other place was Mom's closet. Not even the dirty clothes hamper or anything, just meandering around some random boxes.

Our ants are on crack. But that's okay, 'cause they're also toast. We're going another round with the outdoor bug spray this weekend, and any hills we find get a bottle of ammonia dumped on them. Ants, it turns out, do not like ammonia. It's kinda like salting the earth, too, because we've never had them come back in the same spots.

Note to self: Need to go to the 99 cent store and get some more bottles of ammonia. (We have a little left, but we also use it to clean up the indoor bug spray so Sam doesn't get into it. She seems to leave the ammonia alone, but we worry about the bug spray.)

I have- eek! -two weeks left of vacation, and I'm not ready to go back to school. I was, or close to it, but I feel sort of gypped on the last two or so weeks, courtesy of the virus. Far as I'm concerned, the only good thing about school starting is that maybe in another month, month and a half, it'll start cooling down a bit.

Right now it couldn't be winter soon enough. It's not as bad as it's been- but understand when I say that, I mean "it's not as bad as the week it was 109 to 112 all fucking week." So it's all relative.

Speaking of which, my grandparents have been out of town for the last week and a half or so. They're back on Monday. We're kind of not 100% looking forward to this. I mean, I love my relatives, but sometimes they can be a little... smothering. I'm thinking the next time we end up over there, I'll offer to go check out their internet security. I think they have broadband now, and that kinda scares me. An ounce of prevention might save me from having to play "search & destroy the virus."

Somewhat randomly, to all the cat people out there, I could use some advice. Sam hates having her claws cut, to the point where if I try to get more than one (sometimes even one, if she's in a bad enough mood) she'll swipe at me or try to bite. We're pretty sure that someone used to cut her claws way too short, and it kind of traumatized her- but I've got to cut the damn things. She likes to knead things- blankets, pillows, her humans- and those things are damn sharp.

Naturally her front claws are the ones I'd really like to get, but with them being, you know, by her head, I don't like to push it too far. I don't like getting bitten. Oh yeah, and the paw with the really sharp claws, she's hiding from us. She'll lay down and curl that paw up under her so that you can't even see it.

Clever little shit. I swear if she wasn't so cute, she'd be dead by now, but so what else is new?

I had some other stuff I was going to mention, but I can't think what it is right now. Too tired.

edited to add: I remembered one thing- I'm, um, pretty sure I passed a little kidney stone last week. Kidneys had been bugging me a bit, to the point where about midweek last week I said if I wasn't better by Monday (this past Monday, this would be) I'd have to call my doctor. I've got a pretty high pain tolerance, and was fairly miserable for other reasons that week anyway. And I kept getting really nauseated even though I was making sure to eat before I took any Advil or any of my other pills.

...Yeah. I kind of did a facepalm last weekend and went, "...Oh. Yeah."

In my defense I have to say that I was pretty distracted by the virus... but I still feel like an idiot. Definitely need to keep a better eye on my kidneys than that, especally with it still being summer in the city.

It's hot. This is gonna sound stupid, considering I basically live in the desert and should be used to this crap by now, but I hate that it's hot.

I'm really tired, probably a combination of the heat, the fact that it's too hot to eat much of anything, and the hours I've stayed up waiting for scans to finish in the ongoing attempt to fix my computer. Which brings us to...

State of the Virus: Insidious little fucker. My tech guru at http://forums.spybot.info has had me run various malware scan and removal programs, and a couple things to log all the junk my system is running, and I swear every one of them finds bits and pieces of crap that shouldn't be there. Bit by bit I think we're getting rid of this thing. I've only been getting help for the past two days or so- there are a hell of a lot of people with this virus- and already Anna's running closer to normal. Before things were so slow that it was almost like having dialup again.

The only thing is, most of these scans they're having me run are full system ones, and since I have a lot of crap on my computer, it takes them an avarage of 2 hours to run. Longer if I do a bunch of other stuff. Upshot being, I'm mostly leaving the computer alone even though it's running a hell of a lot better. /State of the Virus

On a side note I have to say, if you've got virus-y computer problems and are in over your head in trying to get rid of them, the http://forums.spybot.info people are awesome. If I ever get nuked with anything else (let's hope not) I'll go back there in a heartbeat.

Moving on. Too much working at the computer and sleeping, not enough fluid intake- my kidneys are starting to get pissed at me again. I really really don't need this, you know? So now I'm drinking so much water and diet Sprite that I swear I'm drowning in it. Hope I'm drowning the kidneys, anyway.

Let's see, what else is going on? The grandparents are out of town, and they've got neighbors watching their place and watering plants, so we're cool there. Going to call my aunt & uncle and see if they want to go catch "The Dark Knight" with us. Otherwise Mom and I will probably go check it out on our own this weekend. With my aunt and uncle or not, we'll do our usual "we ain't paying your snack nazis a dime" thing, aka buying some candy at Target, stuffing the boxes with tissues so the candy doesn't rattle, and smuggling said candy into the theater in our purses. We usually buy bottled water, only because we haven't figured out a way to smuggle that in yet. :)

I've seen people smuggle potlucks in, though- usually during big premere weekends when the theater employees are more concerned with keeping people from blocking the fire doors and other crowd control stuff, 'cause if the fire marshall shuts them down they make no money.

I also saw some people bring McDonald's into a movie, including ice cream. How they got away with that I couldn't tell you- you could smell french fries ten rows away.

Anyway, I'm off for a nap. I think my computer's recovered enough that I could risk Trilly tonight- if, you know, I'm not Typhoid Mary, and anyone wants to risk talking to me. :)

Current Mood: tired

Okay, I know you're all tired of hearing about my virus. I'm tired of hearing about my virus. So until I get it sorted, it'll just have its own section in posts, which you can skip over, like so:

State of the Virus: It's Virtumonde, and I've thrown in the towel and called for backup. The nice people at the spybot.info forums are talking people through removing this and other fun virus-y things, so I added myself to the que there. For some reason they're a bit backed up right now. /State of the Virus

I've been trying to write, anything really, but I'm not getting much done, I've been too stressed out over the computer thing. Mostly I've been reading while I run scans. Or sleeping. I was up half the weekend trying to fix stuff, and it finally caught up with me. Stayed up till 3AM yesterday morning, woke up at 1:45PM today. Strangely I feel better now.

I start back to class in the middle of August, and it's looking like it's going to be another fun fall semester for freshman. By which I mean, the local State U reduced their enrollment again, and we're going to catch their overflow. The only good news there is that I shouldn't have any of them in my classes, I'll just have to run a bunch of 'em over on my way to and from. :)

I got an invite to a 'new and returning student orientation' with my disabled students councelor. Recycled that, but Mom made the comment that I could probably give the orientation if I wanted to. Which led to us starting a list of stuff the freshmen really need to know. I'll have to see if I can reconstruct it, because I have a feeling I'll be adding to it a lot next month.

I'm almost bored enough to want to go back to school, but I know the novelty will wear off sooner rather than later.

I'm back. Well, I'm sort of back. Internet Exploder is still fucked up, I'm just not using it anymore. :) I'd been meaning to download Firefox for ages anyway, and while I'm still trying to figure out exactly how all the bells and whistles work, I like the fact that I can use it without a zillion more infections hitting my system while I'm surfing around.

This is the worst virus I've had since the Mac one I picked up back in the 90's, that ate damn near everything it came into contact with, starting with my internet connection stuff. I was on AOL for a week while we called every office suppy and computer store in the Sacramento area, trying to find a copy of Norton for Mac. Finally had to order it from the company and have it shipped FedEx overnight. That was a fun virus... I could sit there and literally watch it eat stuff. On the plus side, Norton kicked it, and it's still not touching this damn thing.

I paid for the full version of SpyHunter, and another program, Registry Medic. SpyHunter cleaned a bunch of crap out, but the code I got to activate the full version of Registry Medic didn't work. The freebie version gets rid of 5 things, and that's it. I sent a message to the software company about that one, still waiting to hear back.

Meantime I'm just running my spyware removers over and over and over. Once in a while if I'm really desperate to get things running smoother I'll go in and delete a bunch of crap like 'freeporn4u.com' and (fake)'spyware.com' junk from the registry. The problem with the registry is that there are two or three different sections I have to clear the crap from, and if I miss one damn piece, as soon as I reboot it starts replicating itself like mad.

I was up till 5AM cleaning the registry Tuesday night, thought I'd gotten it all, collapsed into bed... woke up the next morning, booted the computer, saw Norton zap a couple trojans, and started swearing. Ran the freebie version of SpyHunter, and all that registry crap was coming back. Which was when I decided to throw in the towel and buy the software.

I'm really, really tired of this now, as if that weren't obvious.

Also? Never using Internet Exploder again unless there's no other choice.

Anna crashed while I was writing this post, and when I rebooted, Firefox offered to bring back all the tabs I had open. This program rocks!

Still playing delete the virus bits, and anything else I'm not sure of, from the registry. At this point I'm pretty much dumping anything I think looks suspicious. This is less dangerous than it sounds, because most of the stuff is 'somethingorother.com', half of that's obscene, and I figure if it's something I really need from, you know, a legit website, it'll come back eventually. Plus I have Norton GoBack, so if I really screw up I can restore things to before I did that. :) Much more of this, though, and I'm gonna have to use the wrist brace. Again. Wouldn't be so bad if I could delete more than one thing at a time, but noo...

On the plus side, now I have a real browser again, on my own computer, instead of having to use Mom's whenever I wanted to, you know, make an LJ post, or look up something else about my virusy friends.

It's just... I like things to work, and it totally pisses me off when they don't. Especally this level of 'not working.'

Ah well. Off to start another scan or three and watch some Battlestar Galactica.

Current Mood: bored now

This just in- thanks to

vayshti for IDing my virus. Now I know what it is, and it's one of the 31(!) things Spybot Search & Destroy got rid of. In theory we should be good now, but I'm running the scan again just to be sure. 'Cause, really? I don't wanna play anymore.

Edited to add:
Oh, for fuck's sake...
For those of you not following my chat with

vayshti in the comments to the first post about this !@#$ing virus.... Um, I'm gonna be here a while. There are some 250+ registry values that have to go, containing as they do a nice Trojan, and for some asinine but unknown reason I have to delete them one at a fucking time. Whose freaking idea was THAT?
Anyone wants me, I'll be over in the corner beating my head against the wall.

Current Mood: argh, damnit!

Okay, so here's the short version of the story. I'm surfing along the other day, Saturday morning I think it was, and all of a sudden IE is going NUTS (yeah, more then usual) and I'm getting crazy popups everywhere, half of which are for porn sites and viagra, the other half for 'virus' scans, or messages warning me that my system is infected and I'll get in trouble with my boss & my spouse (no lie, one of them told me this.)

Turns out, I have the latest virus sensation that's sweeping the internet, some IE malware bug. Which I've now been trying to get rid of for three days. Most of yesterday was spent trying to get Anna to boot at all- she took this opportunity to have one of her little "haha, I'm trying to make like a Gateway and blow up" moments. I refer to these as Anna's little nervous breakdowns.

Anyway. Went out Sunday and bought the biggest, baddest new version of Norton I could find, which I'd been meaning to do anyway. Took it home, took a long nap, got up and started trying to install it. Turned out my older Norton stuff was SO old I had to uninstall it all before installing the new software.

I could have been smart and uninstalled things a piece at a time, replacing them with the new software before moving onto the next one. I wasn't smart. I downlodaded a huge Norton uninstaller, proceeded to run it, and let it reboot my system.

Cue crashes, fatal system errors, and lots of swearing. I went to bed Sunday night with things still screwed up.

Somehow yesterday I got it from fatal system errors to Anna's usual nervous breakdown crap, which I kind of know how to fix- you leave it alone for a few hours, come back, and keep trying to boot from a disk until it takes instead of crashing.

So now we're back in business, kind of, except that I can't use IE for anything without getting popups and freaking Norton the hell out. Add to this the fact that my connection's making like I'm back on dialup instead of DSL. Put it to you this way- I'm writing this on Mom's laptop, which IS on dialup, and it now seems to be running pretty fast to me.

So. I've run Norton, couple times. Run Adaware, couple times. Downloaded Spybot Search & Destroy today and am now running that. When that's done I figure on upgrading downloading Windows updates, upgrading IE... and downloading Firefox. It's not like I LIKE IE, just that it's all I've got, unless you count the anciet (4.7) version of Netscape I use mostly for my email. ...Yeah. I don't like change sometimes, what can I say?

Anyway. In case anybody's been wondering where I've been- well, there you go.

Oh, and if anybody's got any suggestions- been there, had this and got rid of it?- HELP! Email's about the only thing I can still get to without risking more crap trying to download itself, so I should be okay for reading comments.

And can I just mention how much this is sucking? I don't have that much vacation time left, and this isn't how I planned on using it.

...and sorry, I guess that was the 'not so short' version, but this has kind of been annoying me and I wanted to vent a little.

Current Mood: frustrated

Just when I thought things were going alright, when I'd started to be able to see again...I thought I'd gotten almost back to normal just in time to enjoy what's left of my vacation.

No such luck.

My laptop has developed a very strange and frustrating internet-related error. If I'm online for more than five minutes (and sometimes a lot less) a Windows NT error restarts my computer. I don't run Windows NT; Gateway installed it on the laptop, but I've been cheerfully ignoring it for most of a year. Now for whatever reason it's decided it wants to come out and play, so I've got to spend my last week of vacation fighting with my computer.

Windows is such a nightmare, I swear. I could almost be seriously nostalgic for Windows 98- but it had issues, too. Damn Bill Gates! It's all his fault anyway. No human has a right to that much money. Unless it's me, or someone who'll share with me. :)

Bought a very crappy pair of reading glasses at Wal-Mart in the power my doc prescribed- word of advice. Don't buy reading glasses at Wal-Mart. I thought it was just me having eye issues at first, but Mom tried them and got a headache, so we've decided that they just suck. So I'm back to using the high-powered readers I had made back when I was trying contacts. I'm starting to think the doc is right, and they're too strong, but at least they work and I can live with them- which means, in theory, I should be able to muddle through school if my new glasses aren't in by then.

School. August 18. It seemed so much farther away a week ago. Now it's almost here, I don't feel like I'm ready, and I'm a bit scared. New classes, buildings I've never been to before- and vision I'm still getting adjusted to.

I'm writing this from the desktop computer in Mom's room, which is the only other computer we own I can work with right now. Her laptop would be easier to use, and I could use that whenever I wanted, but I can't get it at an angle where I can see the screen right now. So that's out.

Have been checking the Urbandruid pages for lack of anything better to do. I've discovered that a couple of my sites, namely the Star Wars fic and the Stark pages, have overlarge graphics; you have to scroll sideways to see the whole thing. Not that anyone cares; I'm still the only member of the Stark fanlisting, and no one's submitted anything to the fic archive, either. As for the Star Wars fic, well, there's absolutly no decent content on that site that can't be read at the main fic site.

Still, I'm feeling like I ought to do something about those sites. Maybe I'll just give them both splash pages with disclaimers stating they were designed on a laptop.

I'd forgotten how much I dislike using other people's computers; how much I'm used to having everything just so, those little quirks I've developed.

Trying to catch up on my friends list, but it's slow going, between the eyes, overpowered reading glasses, the HP fic drabbles that seem to be taking over said friends list- oh yes, and the fact that this not being my computer, I could get thrown off just about any time now. Though she'll probably let me finish what I'm typing first.

Anyway, it's not that I'm ignoring you guys, just that I'm having issues. Life issues, eye issues, and computer issues.

Damn you, Anna! Why must you pick this week to be such a bitch? *glares at laptop*

In slightly more cheerful news, I seem to be able to come up with titles again- now if only I could write!

Hmm. Maybe if I do something funky with the colors in Word...