Oy!

[stonebender]

In case you didn't already know, there are times that I am not the brightest person on the planet. Especially when I'm being rushed or at least feel rushed. What follows is

I spent most of my day yesterday repairing the effects of SpySheriff that was installed by yours truly. In a supremely stupid attempt to "fix" gobs and gobs of pop-ups, virus warnings, homepage changes, blinking lights etc.

After visiting a webpage I started getting all kinds of warnings and pop-ups and junk happening to my computer. I couldn't get any of it to stop. My computer's response time seemed on the verge of freezing up entirely. Then I got a message that appeared to be from Microsoft stating that I needed to download SpySheriff to remove some spyware that was interfering with my computer system. I wasn't aware of downloading anything but a SpySheriff button appeared at the bottom of my screen near my Norton Utilities button. Norton Utilities was also warning me about unauthorized access to my computer. Why I clicked the SpySheriff button to scan for malware I'll never know. I did. It found stuff to delete or correct. It then informed me that I needed to purchase a validation code in order to use the repair portion of the software. Which I also did.

The software supposedly repaired all the damage and when I restarted my computer it automatically rescaned my computer and (surprise, surprise) found more stuff to repair. It seemed like every time I scanned my computer. The number of files needing repair got smaller but never got to 0. Which made me try scanning with Norton. Norton Utilities informed me that SpySheriff itself was spyaware. *sheesh* I believe I fixed the problem. No lasting damage so far.

Please don't make comments about how I should have done this or that. I know I did everything wrong. I've been computing for over 25 years. How I could have been this stupid is a mystery to me.

Comments

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

When I worked in the computer programming department of a law firm, we used to have a standing joke that every new person that was hired managed to crash the mainframe (ah, the memories...) within the first few weeks of starting work. Well, David set a new record, because he managed to crash the mainframe twice in one day. it was simply an initiation rite.

of course we are all sitting here feeling very proud of the fact that we do regular backups of our own computers, aren't we? uh... well... uh... backup? sheesh, it's been months since I sync'd my palm.