***Update 2*** 9:45pm Facebook sends me an email announcing they have uncovered some activity on my account that might indicate I could be spreading a virus. Thank you Facebook and your crackerjack team of experts for informing me of that a mear 12HOURS after it began and I deactivated my account with a note TO YOU saying a virus was being spread without my knowledge through my account. You are truly on top of things and keeping your users safe! With admins like you, who needs antiviral software.
***Update*** A friend has let me know that her computer crashed due to the same virus and that Microsoft was actually quite helpful (and free) in getting her computer back up and running. The number she called was 866-727-2338. Thanks, Emily!
If anyone is looking for a last minute stocking stuffer for yours truly, I hear Scarlet Letters are one size fits all and very reasonably priced.
Oh, this is so embarrassing. I got a virus. And not even a cool, I’ve been rubbing elbows with big important people kind of a virus. It was more of standing on the corner in the shady part of town kind of a virus.
You see, a friend’s facebook page got hacked. He in turn began sending messages he didn’t realize he was sending to all of his friends. I got it, thought, well, it could be a real video of his- maybe of his baby girl. I attempted to open the link. I should have stopped there, but when it said, “you need to update your version of the player” did I question it? Nope, I went right along with it. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! I KNOW BETTER! I’m the wife of a computer engineer, I know what goes around (heck, he probably makes up half the stuff- just kidding), I know not to click on links that haven’t been stamped with the proper authority’s approval. I can’t believe I fell for something that travels around dirty little internet cafes- if I get hacked I want it to be from the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and the rest of the alphabet gang! Fortunately, I have good virus protection software that caught it quickly before any damage was done. It’s now “in the vault”. I don’t know where the vault is (perhaps next to Al Gore’s “lock box”?). If you see the vault, let the keeper know not to unlock the door- there’s some nasty stuff inside.
What have I learned from this? Nothing that wasn’t preached to me as entered the peer pressure stage of life. “Be careful who you choose as friends”, “Being the girl with lots of ‘friends’ is really not who you want to be”, “You don’t have to (you SHOULDN’T) accept every invitation offered”, yadda, yadda, yadda. The person that I got it from is actually a friend- not just a facebook, okay I won’t be rude and ignore your request, kind of a friend. But it does make me think about how many people are let into your life by this “networking tool”. Not that any of your actual friends would want to harm you- but acquaintances of theirs might. I actually got one more email in regard to the uncouth message that is now coming from my account and saw the list of people it was sent to out of my “friends”. I am so embarrassed- because a lot of them were the “oh haven’t seen you in years, yeah, lets reconnect over some facebook” kind of friends, most of whom I won’t talk to until the next high school reunion and their last contact with me will be “check out my video on the internet“. I have no way of personally contacting these people to warn them. Maybe I should have been a little more judicious about who I accepted as a friend- for my sake and for their’s. Who of us REALLY has 647 friends? The one thing I did right in this whole thing was to be leery of the “let’s link all our relatives together” widget. I’m sorry if any of you have been surly that I didn’t accept your request to link the far twigs of our family trees together, but aren’t you glad now that the nuts on mine can’t get to the nuts on yours?!
So, I’m scanning the hard drive before backing up the rest of the year’s pictures just in case there was some viral seepage out of the vault. I’ll then clean out the disk drive and coat the keyboard in Purell– it kills 99.9% of all viruses, you know!
Note to all my Facebook friends:
I’m discontinuing my Facebook usage. I have to say I’m not all that disappointed. I haven’t been checking it that regularly and when I do it turns into a huge time suck. If you’re also a Blog friend- yea!! We can keep in touch here. If you happen to know anyone that was an FB “friend” of mine that doesn’t check the blog- PLEASE warn them for me- you’ll be a REAL friend if you do (not the kind that gets put in “quotes”)
To everyone else:
If you need to network with me here’s how-
Update on the family or our squirrels? Click here
Need a painting? Click here
Wanna call me? Don’t have my phone number? Search for me here (incidentally- our last name is Ethridge- only 2 “E’s” and the address that comes up with our listing is our old address- if you’re a stalker, please leave the new owners alone- it’s not us!)
I’m also an avid email checker- so if you have that, use it, if you want my address, use one of the above means to get in touch!