Ya Gotta’ Learn Something New Every Day

Last evening I finished reading Mark Dunn’s book, Ella Minnow Pea. It’s short and worth reading if for no other reason than the way it raises questions about any slide towards an authoritarian state or religious group. I found it scary for several reasons.

Read it and share your thoughts.

Governing councils, presidents, governors, etc., should not be “for life”. Popes, cardinals, pastors, religious elders should not be “for life”. Tools and procedures for removal of people from governing positions should be in place before anyone is elected or appointed.

Separation of religion and government must be in place. Freedom of conscience, freedom to worship in ways that do not threaten physical harm to others, freedom to protest must be in place.

Read this book, Ella Minnow Pea and tell us what you think.

I have changed computers many times over the course of my “computing life”. From my first used Atari 800 through the Kaypro CP/M workhorse to my currentSony Vaio laptop and iMac – many, many times. I have purchased software even more often. Sometimes I have to repurchase software because the was in a hurry and downloaded the program rather than get it on CD. Then a hard disk has died.

Died dead. It could probably have been restored, but . . . pay a thousand dollars to recover a $29 game? Come on!

Yes, I forgot to save the downloaded game to a CD or DVD, along with the license information. That’s why I like to get it on CD, with the license information on a sticker on the CD cover. It’s because for some programs I get impatient and don’t do my due diligence.

This Christmas I was given the game of Scrabble for the Mac. (I have a copy for my PC.) The giver sent me the email with the license information and a link to the download site. I downloaded it and installed it. The license information would not work. I uninstalled it and used the same downloaded .dmg file. Still no joy. Obviously no one was at work at the store where she purchased it. Today I uninstalled, erased, got rid of, etc., everything related to Scrabble. I re-downloaded it, installed it and it took the license key and user name. I’m happy. Now to make a CD of the download and a text file with the license information. It will have been a Merry Christmas. I hope yours was as well.

I spent part of Thanksgiving afternoon and evening, and all the next day, ridding a laptop of Antivirus System Pro — a rogue anti-spyware program.  What a nasy, piece of work!  It PRETENDS to be an anti-virus program, but actually installs itself as a trojan and open the way of other virii to infect, and possibly damage, your computer.  One way it infects your computer is when you get a Pop-Up telling you you have an infection.  If you click the red X in the upper corner to close it, that triggers the infection.  DON’T.  Instead, right click the item on the Task Bar and select “Close”.

I found several sites and tools that helped.  I will list them below.  Since this had been on the laptop for a week or more I still had to do most of the manual work using Safe Mode, as the Administrator.  I keep wondering when someone will sue or cap the people who put this out, but that’s another story.

Links I found helpful:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-antivirus-system-pro

http://www.ehow.com/how_5146071_manually-remove-antivirus-system-pro.html

http://remove-malware.net/how-to-remove-antivirus-system-pro-rogue-anti-spyware/

http://www.spywarevoid.com/remove-antivirus-system-pro-antivirus-system-pro-removal.html

There may be others, but the tools I downloaded and the instructions for manual work in the files, Task Manager, and registry were helpful and worked, as far as I can tell.

I Google searched on “remove antivirus system pro” (without the quotes).

If you run across this, it helps to

a)  have a Mac handy to get tools and put them on a CD for use on the Windows computer

b)  boot immediately into Safe Mode, or if you need to download, Safe Mode with Networking.  (Press the F8 key repeatedly 5-6 times when you first get an image on the screen/monitor and use the arrow key to choose one of the above).  I could not even get into Task Manager to stop the processes it was running without that.

Watch for disguised variants of the names of the files or processes you are looking for.

Read the comments people have made — there were some VERY HELPFUL ones.

Woody Leonard writes in his Windows Secrets newsletter that you can purchase and use the upgrade disk to do a full install no matter which version of Windows you are running.  BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST!

Not getting Windows Secrets?  Go to WindwsSecrets.com and get on their mailing list.  I’m not going to quote him here — the money you can save using JUST THIS ONE TIP would be worth a paid subscription.  However, they have a free version as well.