Bally (bally) wrote, @ 2009-07-22 15:53:00

Current mood:	violently angry
Current music:	Air - Mike Mills

Heartbeat City
About a month ago my computer developed a security leak. Since that time it's become ever more twitchy and jittery; iTunes still has problems simply playing songs, f'r example, and some websites cause IE to crash.

DIGRESSION ALERT: Yes, IE. Sorry, Firefox fans.

This morning, though, the fecal matter connected with the primary air circulation system. There's now a worm inside the computer, which means I can't fire up any of the programs on my user area (I'm logged onto my own machine as a guest at the moment). I've got to the point where I'm very fed up with the whole thing. The way I sees it (bit of Popeye for you there), there are a brace of options once the computer's fixed.

1) Ramp up the firewall and protection stuff to the maximum.

2) Unplug the Internet cable.

I don't like the sound of either option, but something must be done. I am fed up with this choppy, randomised access to the Internet. Maybe the third way is to be a guest on my own computer forever... doesn't sound too appealing, I have to admit.

Be well and leading good lives, my friends.

	drummergirl 2009-07-22 15:06 (link)
	Well, shit. That doesn't sound good at all! Can't you just get Dave to fix it? I wish your computer the best of health, and I hope you can mend it! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	cosmicavatar 2009-07-22 16:13 (link)
	I agree - where is The Dave to fix things? Hope you get it sorted, dude. H hates McAfee (my chosen anti-virus system) with a fiery burning passion but I would rather have some things run a little slower and be protected than end up with loads of crud on the computer. (Crud I didn't actually put there myself, of course.) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	eileen 2009-07-22 17:47 (link)
	I'm with H on this one, I hate Mcafee. I prefer Norton, although I'm using something different at the moment, Symentec something or other? I don't particularly like that either, but hey it was free (I got it through work)! I hope you get things sorted out PC-wise, Simon. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cosmicavatar 2009-07-23 03:31 (link)
	H hates Norton EVEN MORE. Don't ask. He will at least tolerate some McAfee, but he got so angry with Norton's invasiveness that he deleted it off his laptop and had no protection at all bar our personal router firewall. Which I wasn't having, hence his reluctant acceptance of McAfee. ;) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cyril 2009-07-23 06:29 (link)
	I get the protection hatred (I used Norton right up until I discovered that it point-blank refuses to work under XP64, and now I'm half-arsedly using AVG) - I've tried firewalls and shit like ZoneAlarm before, and always found them to impede me getting out more than anything else getting in. Now I don't use a firewall at all. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	callie_demeter 2009-07-22 17:44 (link)
	Option 3 - buy a Mac. What do you mean, not helpful? (hope you do get it sorted!) (Reply to this) (Thread)

cyril 2009-07-22 21:20 (link)

See, I was going to suggest "reformat the PC" as option 3, but neither of these are mechanisms for after it's fixed - they're there for when it can't be salvaged. :-p (We reformatted the thing and started again. Everything is now back up and co-operating, with the possible exception of iTunes - all the tracks that Simon copied off CDs onto his iTunes (and iPod) on his old PC, he now can't recover back off the iPod onto the PC again. Reason #4291471 why I hate iTunes.) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	eileen 2009-07-23 03:06 (link)
	Try something called PodUtil, if it's still around. A few years ago, I lost my entire harddrive and had to get it replaced. I lost all of my music on my pc but it was still on my iPod. After a bit of searching, I downloaded PodUtil and was able to recover everything back onto my pc. So relieved!!! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cosmicavatar 2009-07-23 03:33 (link)
	Ooo, thanks for the tip. I haven't got all my iTunes purchases backed up as I've run out of disk space, so that would be an excellent alternative. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bally 2009-07-23 05:52 (link)

PodUtil does still exist, but you have to pay for it. The fix I've found is to copy the files over from the iPod - which took about fifteen minutes - and then play each song for about a second so that iTunes will recognise it. It will be exhausting, not least because I'll come across songs I like and want to listen to... like right now. Yann Tiersen - La Valse d'Amélie (Piano Version) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nkl 2009-07-23 12:09 (link)
	What a nightmare, dude. This is just the sort of thing I dread happening, esp. given that my computer know-how is rather lacking (I rely on Mary-Jane for IT, sometimes to her annoyance). At least you didn't lose everything. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)