Re: Computer woes

>On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 12:07:16 -0500 Roger Mills <romilly@...> wrote.
>Since returning Sun. night from my long weekend, during which the computer
>was ABSOLUTELY OFF, all sorts of weird things have been happening.
>Presumably, something got into the box when I logged back on Sun nite--
odd,
>because egl.net's filter catches most viruses.
Don't count on it.

>1. After dialing-up, my "my yahoo" home page no longer appears
>automatically.  Instead, I get some kind of search thing called
>"C:\Windows\hp.htm" or another similar one with a msn URL.  Then I have to
>type in the my-yahoo URL, whihc slooooowly loads. Yes, I have gone to
>Tools>Internet options and made my-yahoo the default (many times), but it
>doesn't help.
Get SpyBot from www.download.com  It gives you a list of all the URLs which
have installed themselves invisibly as start pages and search pages and all
that bumf. You do have to use "advanced" mode to do that, I think, but it's
well worth it and not so advanced that it takes a genius.

>2.Most annoying-- when reading/scrolling emails, at random times text gets
>selected and won't un-select, text size changes, scrolling stops
>periodically; for no reason at all today, up popped the "do you really want
>to delete these messages" box.
Don't know. Sounds like maybe a keylogger gone wrong. Get SpyBot, install
it, run it, and set it to run on the next reboot, then reboot. Or, you might
have been hacked. Get the latest everything from Microsoft, and your
anti-virus and firewall people.

Alternatively, it might be an unwell mouse. My mouse at home sometimes has
scroll-fits, where it thinks you're madly mashing the scroll wheel up and
down randomly at high speed. Only lasts a second or two, but it's annoying
and was at first disconcerting.

>3. Then, I'm getting a ton more pop-ups than previously (yes, I know, what
>else is new?)...My ISP is offering a free popup eliminator (Popup Stopper,
>from Panicware inc!), but I'm not sure........
Three things:

Google Toolbar is free, easy and anonymous http://toolbar.google.com

Other browsers offer better pop-up control built in.

You might have downloaded a pop-up helper app -- SpyBot will find and kill
it for you.

>Obviously, nothing crucial but very very annoying.  Any suggestions? To
>which gods/spirits ought I to pray or make sacrifices? Stick pins in a wax
>image? Would incense help, or a small daily food offering, as the Balinese
>do? (Of course, I use a Windows system, so perhaps there's simply no
>recourse.....)
A small offering of lightly grilled geek brains often does the trick. Set
your security preferences higher, too. And, of course, make sure your
firewall and anti-virus are up to date.




Paul

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