When The Solution Exacerbates

I first worked with computers back in the 80's, back in the DOS days (no Internet then, folks!), and felt completely at home with them from the very beginning, but i left the business and wound up (for my sins) in the hospitality industry, and didn't buy my first home computer until Windows 95 -- by which point my computer training was 100% out of date.

When i bought my PC, no one at the shop bothered to mention to me the importance of installing anti-virus software, and so i didn't install any. What did i know? Computer virus? Whassat?

So i gleefully started surfing the Internet -- the usual guy stuff, music and porn -- and sho 'nuff, my shiny new computer was infected within a month.  I had to take it back to the shop to have the virus removed, and that's when they told me about anti-virus software, grrr.

Ever since, i have been cautious to the point of paranoia about computer security.

Today, my anti-virus program, Avast, told me i needed to update, so of course i clicked "yes"automatically. But then i realised that the update would also install Google Chrome as my default browser and i neither need or want Chrome (i already have three browsers and don't like Google anything these days) and so tried to hit the "back" button. It didn't work. So i hit "cancel" instead, and that's when the problems began.

My computer went into a seemingly endless series of re-boots.

I eventually solved the problem by booting into Safe Mode and uninstalling Avast and tried to move on to a different AV program: AVG.

It took a long time: i spent most of this morning downloading, scanning, re-booting, uninstalling, having downloads fail, scanning some more, re-downloading and it was worth it -- i now have AVG installed. I've used them before, i forget why i dumped them, possibly because (as i remembered when i ran my first scan a couple of hours ago) an AVG scan slows my system down to a crawl. (System is clean, btw.) But i also remember my friend Troy (who runs OnSite Technology and who knows more about computers than anyone i've ever met) telling me that Avast was the best; i must ask him about this the next time i see him.

I'll be seeing him pretty soon, too -- i need a new computer. This old machine, which works extremely well (most of the time) is still running Windows XP, which is under its death sentence (scheduled to be executed just three months from now) and, for obvious reasons, i'll no longer be able to use it.





Here's the playlist, cos i know you care (sigh):

Van der Graaf Generator - Godbluff
The Sutherland Brothers And Quiver - Lifeboat
Renaissance - Scheherazade And Other Stories
Cozy Powell - The Best Of Cozy Powell
Vangelis - Chariots Of Fire (soundtrack)
The Byrds - Free Flyte
James Taylor - JT
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Return Of The Manticore
The Soft Machine - 3rd
Jimi Hendrix - Blues
Genesis - Abacab
Wishbone Ash - New Jersey 1974 (bootleg)
Original Soundtrack - "The Cowboy Way"
Incubus - A Crow Left Of The Murder
Steeleye Span - Wintersmith
Quintessence - In Blissful Company
The Albion Band - Rise Up Like The Sun
Bruce Springsteen - High Hopes
Jimi Hendrix - Live At The Fillmore East
Fish - A Feast Of Consequences