Early this morning my computer was raped, sacked and plundered by a virus. And the worst of it was that it was i who opened the gates that allowed the filthy barbarians in. My JPGs and MP3s had been written over and destroyed. The virus was going into my Outlook address book and replicating itself and then spreading to the world with the innocent "Joke(fwd)" as a subject heading. I fell as prey because i fully trusted the person who gave it to me (name withheld to protect the innocent) so i was filled with fear that i would be the cause of a computer virus outbreak. Luckily, the virus was stupid and couldn't replicate itself with my address book so the only one fucked over was me.



After a few hours of reading about the dreaded "Love Bug" virus, i decided that i needed to try and retrieve my files. The stupid thing is that i have an anti-virus program but i had turned it off a few minutes before to conserve memory. Lucky me. I dropped $150 dollars on a program called OnTrack Easy Recovery and after hours of letting it diagnose my hard drive, i was informed that i couldn't recover files into my C: drive because it was contaminated. And because i only had one partition in my hard drive (no, i barely know what that means either) i had to hook up another hard drive or re-install Windows...neither of which i was willing to do. In the end, i decided to cut my losses and delete all my contaminated files. I then discover that my 1400 MP3s were all still there, albeit hidden. All i had to do was fiddle with some settings to make them show up. So, the whole reason for me buying the recovery program was moot.



$150 poorer but ultimately wiser i have these words of caution for the uneducated. (1) Get an anti-virus program and update it often (2) Never open an attachment unless you know what it is, especially if it's from someone who would normally not be e-mailing you (3) Use a Mac because they are less likely to get viruses (4) I'm an ass and i'm ranting and raving about a minor stumbling block while the world prepares to go to war.