hail the spybot search and destroy prince charmings

I've been a Mac user for most of my life and have owned three macs and one iPod, not to mention working as a vendor for Apple for a year, taking care of their user group for a year, working the different Apple booths in NY, Chicago and San Francisco on multiple occasions. I'm a bonafide Apple lovah.

But about five months ago I took a switch and got my first PC. I have worked (begrudgingly) on them for forever. (I usually have both a PC and a Mac on my desktop). But this is the first one actually in my house.

And, you know, I've really liked it. Alot. The little iBook is still in daily (or atleast weekly) use and is great for when I need to be mobile. But I gotta say in the grand scheme of things, I've really enjoyed the little PC beaut I've been driving since December.

Until a couple of days ago when straight outta nowhere pop up ads began to beseech my computer. Every friggin' five minutes a new pop up. This didn't really surprise me as I've been the unwitting recipient of not one but two wormy-type-of-dealies in the last month and a half. And one of them set up shop, opened a port and started beaming home letters to Mama. Or that is what I think as the great Internet itself began to treat my sweet little PC-that-could like a regular circular file.

Popup popup popup.

And because I am my own admin department (and if you knew me you would know how truly pathetic that is), I tried my best and set up my security parameters to be higher and required all scripts to be approved and being on the computer just began to be a huge bummer. Prompts every 30 seconds and popups every five minutes and ohmigod how am i supposed to get anything done? How?

So I called Chester. Trusted Admin of Yore. And Chester said get spyware blocking software. Well duh, says I, but where and which and can I trust them and how much does it cost.

And so my dear friends I was introduced to SpyBot Search and Destroy, a very sweet shareware program that is dedicated to it's creator's girlfriend! He would love to have money, but if you have none he just asks that you say a prayer for him and for his Dream Girl. But I digress, I ran the SpyBot and over 140 bad files were found and burned upon capture. Not just burned. Tortured. Ridiculed. We (me and the SpyBot) sent them over to live with the Mean and Bad US GI's who've been treating the Iraqi POWs so poorly (not making fun of the Iraqis or the situation; that is just horrid). And then we burned them. And stuck our tongues out. Bye Bye Spy.

And now... only 30 minutes after a successful download, install, read the tutorial, run, torture and burn? The PC is lovely again. Sigh. Life is good.

(But am still glad I had the iBook to fall back on in the interim.)

» SpyBot Search and Destroy
» Check out Chester's Central Coast Mountain Bike Trail pics(lots of KB in there)

new meaning for chicken dance

And now for something a little light hearted. The Subservient Chicken. Go there now and state your command. I myself made him sit (I started out easy), pluck the ground, do an Irish dance, bow, fly like an eagle and strut like King Tut. I love that chicken, man. Despite the creepiness. (Sidenote: Macker? Is that you?)

» Dominate the Subservient Chicken