Woke Up By Audio Ads & Computer Woes So I Went Swimming

I was up way before the sun this morning. I did not get around to taking a picture of the morning view from my patio til well after the sun lit up the place.

The past 3 days I've been plagued by a bizarre computer invasion where random audio ads interrupt what I am doing. Ironically, I have only recently been running anti-virus software and now that I am, this is the first seriously annoying thing I've had to deal with.

Last night the audio ad woke me up at 1 in the morning. I shut the laptop lid to kill it. When I woke up the computer this morning it went into non-stop ad mode. Researching the woe, yesterday, I knew to look at what processes were using up the CPU. I saw explore.exe was the culprit. Killed it. Killed the ad.

I then ran two scans, one of Malaware Bytes and one of Microsoft Security Essentials. MSE found something called FakeYak. Malaware Bytes found two other bad things. Just yesterday neither found anything.

So far, all is working well. But, I don't trust it.

I just heard from my incoming Washingtonians. They have made it through Houston's morning traffic and are heading north on I-45. Expected arrival a bit before noon. We'll see how that works out.

While my computer was being scanned I went swimming. The water temperature has dropped significantly in the past couple days. I'm finding it hard to believe I get in that water all through the winter. But, I have photo evidence indicating I have done so.

A Thunderous Night In Texas With A Gloomy Morning Of Computer Doom

It is a wet second day of September in Texas. The damp gloom is matching my mood. Thunder rumbling for hours, every time I woke up Thunder was rumbling. I assume it must have rumbled all night.

I was up well before dawn, but did not get around to taking a picture of my morning view, due to the fact that, at the time, I would have been unable to get the picture off my camera.

Two days ago I started having computer woes. I thought all was well. I only had one easily fixed computer problem yesterday.

And then this morning, something took over my computer as soon as I woke it up. Re-starting did not fix the problem. All would be fine on start-up, and then the PF Usage would start to rise, to the point where the computer would slow to a crawl, if moving at all.

I had nothing running. Except the Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus program I installed 2 days ago. There was no option to turn of MSE to see if it was the problem.

After an hour or two of trying various solutions I decided to un-install the Microsoft virus checker. It took about 15 minutes for the slogged down computer to populate the program list. I clicked to remove. After about 5 minutes the very program I was trying to remove told me it was doing me the favor of stopping the operation because it could harm my computer.

I decided to look in the program files to see if I could find the MSE problem. I found it, saw the name of the executable, went back to Task Manager and stopped that process.

Instantly my computer was back working correctly.

Now I have to figure out how to remove this Microsoft virus off my computer totally.

I always end up bailing on anti-virus programs for the same reason. They seem to be a worse problem than anything they are stopping from happening.

I thought Microsoft's Window Defender was supposed to stop bad stuff like Malware. It updates its definitions daily. But, during this recent debacle I learned that Windows Defender had not run its check of the system for 2 weeks.

Anyway, it's been a very frustrating morning, so far.

I Am Hoping Microsoft Security Essentials Keeps More Bad Stuff Away From Me

I started having computer problems early this morning. Before the sun came up. Everything was slow.

Then, I was writing a blogging on my TV Blog when the computer went into nuts mode. I hit the off button.

Upon restart I started up the browser so I could finish with the blogging. It took a long long time for the browser to open up. Eventually I hit the publish button on the blogging.

Then I started up Outlook Express. Usually this is pretty much instant. This morning nothing seemed to be happening.

I decided to walk away from the computer and go swimming.

But, I was unable to enjoy swimming due to worrying I was facing a major computer problem.

I returned to the computer to see that Outlook Express had finally started up.

I ate breakfast while playing Facebook Scrabble.

After that I started working on my website. That was going fine until Windows Defender did an update. When that was done Windows Defender told me it had found something bad. When I told Windows Defender to take the proper defensive action, all hell broke loose.

Something popped up telling me I had some horrible problem. I could not open things like Control Panel. Trying to open some things would generate a message telling me the problem contained an infected file "click here to run an anti-virus scan."

I'd been to a lot of webpages this morning, finding links. I figured I'd picked up something bad. I looked to see what processes were running. I saw one I knew should not be there. Stopped it. That stopped the bogus virus/infection warnings.

I found the same thing in the MSCONFIG start-up file. Disabled it there. Went to eliminate it from the Registry. Was told the Administrator (Me) was denying access.

I ran a Malware detector. It was blocked from getting the latest update. I ran it anyway. It found some bad stuff.

Then I was told Microsoft's new anti-virus program, called Microsoft Security Essentials, worked well, was fast, and did not bog down the system

But, when I tried to install MSE I had the same blocking an update problem.

I tried a couple other things, did a re-start. This time Microsoft Security Essentials was able to do the needed update. And then it quickly found several bad things. Those were removed.

Another restart and suddenly my computer is working better than it has in a long long time.

With everything seeming to be fine, I was back being a happy boy. So, I took off out of there to go on a bike ride.

Cleaning Viruses from this House

Well. I've had me a day. It started off with an alarming alarm bringing all sorts of mayhem.

My penance for setting off the security alarm was a large load of very hard tasks. I had to vacuum all 3 floors of this place. A daunting task. I've no idea when the last time this place was vacuumed before today.

The vacuum has a red light/green light thing that lets you know when you've sufficiently vacuumed an area. Sometimes it seemed like it took 10 minutes to get the green light in especially vacuum-needy areas.

After about 4 hours of heavy duty vacuuming I thought I was done. But then I was told I also had to vacuum the stairs. This involved a 20 foot vacuuming extension thing.

After the vacuuming I was given something called a Swiffer, or something like that, to mop the wood floors with. It was a daunting task.

And then I was given wet paper towels and told to dust all surfaces. This took another couple hours. I believe I cleaned areas that had not been cleaned before.

And then I was given a toothbrush and cleaning solution to scrub all the light switch fixtures. That was really too much.

After all that cleaning I went to my Tropical Zone to eat a couple potato chips with catsup. And then I was ordered to mow the lawn. I did not get to use the power mower. I had to use the old-fashioned push mower that I think they got from a garage sale.

Finally I had paid my debt to the local society and was allowed to go up to my computer to do something constructive. A few minutes later I did something totally destructive. I clicked on an MSNBC Breaking News Alert. This was a spam thing. This quickly spun out of control. By the time I realized I'd been attacked it was too late. I hit the power down button, but not quick enough.

When I re-started the computer all was well, for about a minute. Then the screen went blue with a message at the center telling me that a virus had been detected and I needed to run a virus scan.

This was a scam to get me to buy some Russian/Ukrainian's bogus anti-virus program. Basically it's a hold a gun to your head and pay up or you ain't gonna have control of your computer again type thing.

Six hours later, I think I have things back working. I think.

While I was trying to get this working again I was summoned downstairs again by my taskmaster sister. This time to have the tastiest cedar plank BBQed salmon I've ever had, along with a very very good salad and a dessert from heaven in the form of grilled peaches with toasted coconut and vanilla bean ice cream.

I came back up here about a half hour later and a half hour after that I think I have this back working right again. I hope.

I hate computers and all they put us through. And the evil people who do evil deeds with their computers. Bad boys.