Is there anything worse than having to work on the Friday that (most) other people have off?

Yes, Virginia, there is. It is having to work on a Friday that most other people have off, arriving at your office, sitting in your nice chair only to find that your brand spanking new work computer is dead in the water and that you have a backlog of work that you can’t do because the applications that you need to run to complete your tasks are only PC applications…(egads I love thee- iBook! Please don’t ever ever break- you are my little workhorse).

Our campus has been hit hard with virii, worms and problems with critical windows updates and blah blah blah…and now? Now- I can’t get either web browser to launch on that machine- my outlook is seemingly fubared- my campus email- will not open. Basically- all I can do is sit here and look at the pretty pretty wallpaper and wish that I was still snuggled all warm in my bed with a snoring beagle at my feet. Except not because my iBook is working - obviously - so I can at least return email and pester technicians about coming to fix my brand spanking new computer that isn’t so spanking after all.

May I take this moment to express to you how vitally important it is for you windows users- ESPECIALLY you windows XP users who use high speed internet- to:
1. Have active virus removal software that you update at least once a week if not more often.
2. Have active spyware removal software (I recommend Webroot Spyweeper) that you update at least once a week if not more…
3. RUN YOUR FREAKING WINDOWS UPDATES!!!!! Egads is this one important because these updates (especially the critical ones) FIX the holes in your Windows operating systems that allow worms into your computers.
4. Back up your important files to alternate media (back up hard drives, servers that are regularly backed up, cds that are kept in a safe place) just incase you need to reformat.

Now you may be wondering- well if she has all this wonderful advise for us- why doesn’t she practice what she preaches? I DO. My virus definitions were updated yesterday. Same with my spyware. Both of these programs are set to scan and sweep my computer EVERY DAY at 1:00am. My windows updates here at work are delivered through our patch management system…so I don’t have to worry about those- they should be updating by themselves. Technically- my computer should be fine. But it isn’t. This is my second virus this week and this one is much more malicious than the first one.

So for those of you with the day off…have a good one- and practice safe computing and have a happy holiday and all that stuff! For those who don’t have the day off- have a good weekend.

Update 10:22 am: I am no longer down- thanks to the hard work of a technician that I hunted down and tied to my chair - I am now up and running.