palsgraf_polka

I got hit with a massive computer virus this morning on reboot of my computer, and my computer is fuxored.

And you know, I'm so safe and I'm so good about not going to any websites that are questionable and I don't do anything weird on my computer at all. I am so pissed that this happened, and apparently, after doing research, this is a nasty trojan that slips in under ALL the antivirus/antispyware programs and hits you. You can pay a $70 ransom to get it to go away, or you can do battle like a true IT Warlord.

Well, I'm not fucking paying. And the worst part is that I was going to back up my hard drive tonight and burn my Windows XP disc tonight in preparation for my reformat on Friday, but now I have 45 pages of instructions on how to get rid of this thing and everything on my computer could be infected with this shit. I don't even know if I want to use the Windows XP file I got that I needed to burn to disc.

For you out there that are more tech savvy then I am, if I go through all the manual removal rigmarole to get rid of this piece of shit trojan, can I go back to using my files as I did? Would you trust the Windows XP ISO I have on my hard drive or should I go out and buy one to have a fresh disc for the reformat on Friday? Also, I have pretty much everything backed up from a month or so ago on my external drive, which has not been connected to the computer. Should I just say FUCK IT to everything and just reformat my drives without removing this thing, or should I remove it first, then reformat my drives? I don't think I'll lose anything major - any pictures I've posted since I did my big backup a month ago can be recovered from photobucket.

Advice please? I've not really dealt with something like this on my own computer. Travis had a similar virus on his computer but I just reformatted it and it was gone. But I'd kind of like to do one final backup of my documents folder before I reformat. Also, without that Windows XP ISO that's on my hard drive burned to a disc, I can't reformat without going and buying Windows XP again because my disc disappeared.

So, please let me know. Hopefully some of you tech peeps are reading this.

scares the shit out of me. She really does. She's like Reagan and GW Bush...vacant but pretty and folksy. A perfect puppet to run as a figurehead.

Did you see all the e-mails released yesterday that showed how much Todd was really governing Alaska? And how he was negotiating for state contracts with the oil company that employed him at the time of the negotiations?

Sarah Palin can't be allowed to run for President in 2012. I'm afraid she'll win.

"We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law lecturing us."

2012 is going to be really ugly. The ultra conservatives are going to encourage the anti-intellectual bias of the under-educated in the red states, and it will really work to the Democrats' detriment.

ETA: Speech just finished. Holy fuck was it good. She had the audience - HOLY SHIT Q & A oh this will be interesting. They are going to give her the most perfect hand picked questions.