[Blog]

Permanent link to: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.chrisboylan.com/blog/archives/000186.php">Blackout et al.</a>

<p>Lots of things have occured in the last week. There was that whole blackout thing that reached all the way out here to Detroit, knocking out power from Thursday afternoon until late Friday night/Saturday morning. Then, to top it off - there was some sewage problems that forced us to boil our drinking water until Monday. So everything you use water for - cooking, brushing your teeth - needed bottled water. What about boiling you say? I don't know about you, but in my mind there is no amount of boiling that makes water laced with turd remnants drinkable.</p>

<p>In addition, my Ben Folds concert got postponed until Monday. Ben was great as usual - the only problem was that I attended the concert with people who were there to see the second act, TORI AMOS! So, after Folds moved along, I contemplated suicide for the next two hours as thousands of lesbians (its possible that some were heterosexual, but simply a little "butch") rocked back and forth to music of the rainforest. It was like my very own Lillith fair, with the added bonus of having carpooled - depriving me of my exit.</p>

<p>In computer news - the "SoBig" virus unleashed itself today. If you have received any email with attachments that end in ".pif" DO NOT OPEN THEM!!! In addition, a quirk of the virus is that if your friend gets infected, their computer will begin sending out infected emails to every email address on their computer (including you) <i>as well as send emails that appear to be from you</i> , even though they are not actually from you. This helps the virus by making it hard to track where the virus is coming from.</p>

<p>The practical result? If your friend is infected, you may get messages from various mail servers saying that you are infected with a virus, and you sent an infected email to an address you've never seen before. By sending emails <i>from</i> other email addresses, the virus makes it look like you are infected when you are not.</p>

<p>Have you been infected? Run and anti-virus program. They are an absolute necessity on any Windows computer. Want a good, free program? Visit <a href="http://www.grisoft.com">grisoft.com</a> and download a copy. If you have been infected - DO NOT just reformat your computer or system restore. Go to a virus site - like <a href"http://www.symantec.com">www.symantec.com</a>, (the creators of Norton Anti-Virus) and read the instructions on how to rid yourself of the worm.</p>

<p>Wow that's a lot of stuff. </p>

<p>P.S. It looks like we're pretty close to picking up some stations at work. Cool.</p>