Thursday, June 10, 2004

Me, to the Rescue!


Last night I rode with my buddy Doug, to his parents house down in Arlington. They were having a computer disaster. Unable to connect to the internet and no fix in sight. They called the Dell "technical support", where they were told the system was unfixable and to wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall everything! BUZZZZZZZ!! Wrong answer! Then they called their local ISP's support line. They were completely stumped and told his parents it was probably the network interface card and that they need to go buy another one. So they did. DOH! Wrong answer.

So I went to work, examining their system. After a quick run of Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy, it was found their system was infected with almost 200 spyware, adware and other baddies. Using Adaware and Spybot, I cleaned off all the garbage and hey, the internet began to work again! There were 2 real nasties on there called TCP Blocker and UDP blocker. These were most likely the cluprit responsible for killing the internet connection. I patched up Windows XP to the lastest and greatest and had them on their way. I was horrified to find they use their computer with NO antivirus software and NO firewall. Great googly moogly!! I advised they purchase both, soon.

A big thanks to DMAC for the huge seafood dinner as payment for services rendered!

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