[Shrek] Out With The Old...

After years of great service, my computer finally needed to be replaced. It caught some sort of trojan/virus/badthing that I couldn't get rid of. Now I freely admit to not putting up much of a fight at the end, and even though Fiona and I were looking at new computers for a while now I was really wanting to buy one "on my terms" and not because I was forced to.

My trouble started when I caught one of those fake anti-virus trojans a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't the first time that happened, and I knew how to take care of it so excepting for the couple of hours it took to vanquish the beast it wasn't a real big deal. Or so I thought.

Turns out this latest version isn't as easy as clicking a few boxes and running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware in safe mode because it makes changes MAM can't find. So soon after, despite thinking I was safe, odd things like my Google searches were redirected to other sites and getting pop-ups for fake news sites was happening. Plus my already very slow machine was running at a snail's pace.

After reading about what was wrong on my machine I attempted to ask for assistance on a couple of computer help forums because the fix was beyond what I thought my capabilities are, but because of the infection I was unable to connect to either of the two help sites I use. Suggestions from posters on some other forums unfortunately didn't work either. When reformatting my "as close to obsolete as you can be without actually being obsolete" computer became the best option, I pretty much decided enough was enough and killed the computer myself.

So we have a brand new Windows 7 computer--which I absolutely love. Of course, my ten year old printer/scanner/copier doesn't work with my new computer, so I had to buy a new one of those too. And since Fiona and I decided on a wireless printer, our six year old router also needed to be replaced. To go another step, I gave Fiona the wireless mouse from my old computer only to find the mouse that came with my new computer wasn't very comfortable to use, so I had to buy Fiona a new wireless mouse so I could take back the one I gave her.

Oh, yeah...and my favorite game (Diablo 2) doesn't run well on Windows 7 because it was designed for much earlier operating systems. So I've gone out and bought a new game that I can play to death (Dragon Age). And I needed to replace all my old Hoyles card/board/casino games because those didn't run either.

All in all, a pretty expensive week.

BTW, you can find Malwarebytes Anti-Malware right here, and if you don't have the program on your computer you most certainly should. It's free, and very easy to install and use.