Saying Bye to Virus & Island

Safe computing is easier at home.  On my last visit and last laptop I never encountered any computer viruses.  What a minute!  I never actually connected to anything on the last visit to Sri Lanka.  My old Gateway was just acting as an oversized notepad.  Even as I’m typing, I’m doing a virus re-scan.  Yesterday, my netbook starting acting a bit strange.  It took several attempts to load Windows.  There seemed to be a lot of unnecessary disc activity.  In the evening McAfee disappeared from my task bar and important executable programs were gone too.

I felt a bit sick to my stomach.  Had the virus jumped the machine human divide?  I have not encountered a virus problem since the days of my IBM XT clone.  That was twenty-five years ago.  I am more than willing to pay for a subscription to anti-virus software and I do.

I know exactly when I got infected.  At one Internet cafe on my trip McAfee needed to download a completely new version of its SecurityCenter.  I was attached to broadband by cable but I had finished my tasks and the download was taking too long.  I simply closed the lid and put the machine into hibernation.  I worked on tasks later offline but when rebooting there was no executable McAfee file on the machine.  In Galle, I attached again and began work while completing my download.  In that interim period, I apparently caught something.

I couldn’t even rid the computer of the virus as it was smart enough to ensure my virus scan software was the first to byte the dust, so to speak.  I wondered if I could limp along by trying to reload the program from the Net.  Then, I remembered about Windows Restore Point.  The ability to ‘roll back’ the system software had helped me on occasion with faulty drivers in Vista.  I wasn’t even sure if the newer incarnations of Windows XP, like on my netbook, included that wizard.  I was pleased to see it there.  I reset my computer to a point several days ago.  It rebooted without a hitch.  Doing a restore point doesn’t affect data so none of my blog entries or photos were modified.  Phew!

Upon running a full scan I found something called, sality.  It will be fun to look up that one when I’m online.

Today, I’m trying to take in as many of the sights and sounds as possible.  Late tomorrow night we leave Sri Lanka for Bangkok.  The actual flight time is Monday morning at 12:45, I guess.  Coming here is too far for an annual trip, so I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be sitting here again looking at the coconut trees.  It’s a little exciting to think of the upcoming two weeks in Bangkok and Cambodia though. 

This will be my last uploaded entry from the island.  Surely, I can connect in hotels further along on our journey.

Still, wishing you were here!