On Being an Idiot Still...

Drowsiness filled my head this morning.  Struggling out of the grimy ex-army blankets I made my way through to the trough for breakfast.  Considering it too difficult to negotiate cooking anything when my mind was absent I fed myself some form of cereal that was lying about the kitchen, some of it remaining in the bag. 
Bleary eyed I switched on my life the laptop and sought the football pages of the online papers.  There was none to be found as the season is over - eventually!  I checked my friends blogs to entice the intellect to warm up then checked the hundreds of replies to my latest blog. 
Both were erudite and interesting as always and were placed onto the site.
I then spilled cereal over the desk checked my blog where something was not right.  It was apparent to me there was a problem and this problem was solved accidentally - I accidentally deleted the last post!
Stupid boy!
All those letters look the same when the mind is not there. 
Alas two sensible replies are lost (actually I still have them but the post has gone), thank you young ladies for the comment.

The brute was also running slowly today and after trying a quick scan, Malawares and hitting it knowingly with a hammer I ran a lengthy 'Boot scan' once again and as last time the nasty downloader was found hidden in the 'Recovered items' section of Windows Live Mail.  Quite what this section is for I know not but the four relevant dates have been deleted.  The downloader comes through a junk email and hides there for a while and opens out whenever it chooses.  
That's the second time he has done this.  His judgement will come.
Thankfully I fixed that I hope and luckily I had nothing else to do bar fall asleep.  This is just as well as after clearing up yesterday I was knackered, and fitness is not my strong point just now.  However the sun will shine tomorrow for a change and I will possibly but probably not get the bike out.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today...

It was twenty years ago today that I entered this domicile, as I remember at the Easter weekend that year.  Twenty years, almost as long as the time I spent in London, longer than most murderers serve these days in this country, longer than many folks marriages last.  
That Easter weekend I turned up to discover there are many differences from living in a bustling city, as I always had done, and existing in a small market town out in the sticks!  One such was the electric meter, this was at that time paid weekly by a card system to stop folks running away and leaving the lights on for the landlord to pay.  I had no card.  My limited memory tells me I had two £1 cards which didn't get much electric in an all electric house and somehow I discovered the Post Office was the place to go.  The long weekend was on us and electric was useful at this time so cheerfully I waited for ever in the queue to be told things had changed and none could be given out till Tuesday next week, I forget the reason why.  That somewhat chilly Easter Weekend, it is usually chilly at Easter, I spent an enormous amount of time trying to conserve the limited power I had.  
For reasons which I forget I discovered and emergency button which allowed me a free  £5 of power to be paid later, I grabbed this with both hands, the same hands I wrapped around a candle in a vain effort to keep warm in the dark at night. 
A long weekend that was, eventually Tuesday arrived and I managed to obtain the new cards for the meter.  How lovely to switch the wall heaters on!  How lovely to eat hot food without watching the clock!  Ah well things settled down and twenty years on the meter is paid monthly, the gas fired central heating while expensive works well, life is settled in some ways and this boring little town which at first I thought had closed down has become home.  The day I walked down 'The Avenue' listening to the birds singing and watching the blue sky above I realised it was not such a bad place after all.  Getting old and no longer interested in the false flashiness of city life, the bright lights here I admire are the ones that stop the traffic so I can cross, may have had something to do with it but in the end this town had all I wished for.  Local doctors, supermarkets, rail & bus, all that was missing was a church and a woman to do the laundry.  The last two have still not arrived.  

So today I arose feeling considerably better than I have done for weeks, I slept until nine, I arose and coughed my way through to the east wing to contemplate cleaning up some of the mess I have left behind me.  It was time to celebrate the twenty years, time to remind the Landlords lassie how long I had been here, time to remind his workmen how many cups of tea they had drunk!  Twenty long years, I wondered how I could commemorate this event?  What would be suitable, what would ease my pain and give me a day to remember...?
The electric was off!
What?  The kettle would not start.  It was one of Tesco's best (£5) and it was bust.  Then I noticed the laptop, always the first thing switched on, was not going online.  After fussing for a bit I realised the WI-FI was dead, so was the phone, so was everything else bar the lights.  After about three hours it struck me the laptop has a battery that is why it came on but this fooled me into thinking that was one plug that worked.  I fussed but the deadened mind was thinking slowly, oh so slowly, and I called the Landlord to speak to my friend Lisa.
"Hello, this is Lorna."
Lisa has followed Chris, the one who ran the place for around 15 years, out the door in an attempt to make some money.  Lorna was the new lass and she sounded about 19!  I explained the situation and she called John the workman and later he called to say he would be round.  
No tea in a dead all electric house.  No hot food with a dead oven, dead microwave and dead head.  
Having eaten only rarely in the past week and living on my abundance of fat I was not too keen to do without something warming.  Add to my desire to return to bed, eat something hot and stay far from the world came the noise of men repairing the road outside while others hammered away at one of the other flats somewhere round the back.  My joy was complete.
John arrived claiming to be unwell and looking sickeningly well while he said so.  Quickly we traced the various fuses, I had tried earlier, and we soon knew it was the kettle itself that had blown.  It probably blew as I switched it one but no spark, noise or explosion occurred at that time, not that I noticed anyway, and having proved the point John left grinning.
Still this meant I could heat things and later would obtain a new kettle.

Having managed to rise, decided life could be good and then had it smashed in my face I returned to the real world and switched on the laptop which connected with the real world of the Internet!  At last I could get on with the important work of reading email, facebook, Twitter, and the various gutter press editions that lay about.
What's this?  "You connect via WI-FI.  Log on here BT Fon?"  There follows a list of things to select
What?
A bloody virus!
The whole morning wasted already and now a virus! 
There was in the end nothing to do but run a Boot Time Scan which takes hours!  This I did and while I pretended to eat, my insides were not fooled, the scan ran and ran.  Later, much later, I was able to make use of the laptop thankful the brute had gone.
It had not gone!  
Oh no he was still hanging around and the thing had to be done again.  
It was not till near five o'clock that I finally satisfied myself he was beaten, I hope I am right!

There were times today I wondered where my guardian angels had disappeared to.  I realise this is not an easy option, they could on the other hand have Donald Trump,  I understand the difficulties involved but all I wanted was to rise feeling considerably better than I have done for the past ten days, I wished to make and eat a nourishing breakfast, clean the mess of the last week and hopefully return to work tomorrow.
Instead the electric goes, my friends go and some sort of JS virus arrives.  To my mind this is not what I wished for this morning.  Luckily the other day I discovered just how many people are suffering this bug in similar fashion to myself.  Thousands are being beaten down by the latest flu,cold, man flu bug.  An item in the paper drew many to comment on their long lasting problem, three months in some cases and mine goes back to February yet nothing can be done about it but suffering.  
Onwards and upwards, 'per adva ad astra' as they say in the RAF, in Edinburgh we say "Haul awa lads, I'm no deid yet."

Bugged by Yahoo with a Beard?

As I headed for the land of Nod late last night I realised I had been bugged! One last item required checking so I highlighted the words and right clicked and was presented with a 'dialogue box'  which amongst other things offered me the chance to 'Search Yahoo for .....'  I stopped.  This was Google, why was I being asked about 'Yahoo?'  A baddie had infiltrated the Laptop.
I ran the Malawares, Spybot and Windows Defender this morning yet they claimed I was clean (and I have not yet had my Sunday bath). Something was still amiss.  However the query intrigued more as I discovered later.
You need to know, quite why I am not sure, that I use three Browsers.  Firefox, Chrome and a Commodo Chrome browser.  On each I place differing things as there are so many links they slow the brute down otherwise, or so I think anyway.  This bug did not affect Firefox of Commodo and only lay on Chrome. Nothing would reveal it yet when I clicked it led to what appeared to be a normal list of Yahoo listings.  I took it no further as I was not sure what was going on.
What to do?  I removed any links on the bad Chrome to the Commodo quite easily, uninstalled Chrome, and downloaded a new Chrome.  This worked and the baddie has gone away, not reappearing on Chrome.  

Earlier this week I received an email form a man claiming to be in Manilla airport, trapped there as his plane was leaving yet he had many problems.  For one his wallet, passport and money had been stolen. He had lost all but the Embassy had given him a replacement passport to allow him to travel he just needed cash to pay his bills so he could leave.
For a moment I was surprised and a wee bit worried.  Was this true?  
Some logic had to be used here.  For one thing I hardly know this man, I only met him through researching his invisible dad and it is unlikely he would contact me in such a situation.  He has a family somewhere who he surely would approach first, and on top of this he is well old, trapped in a wheelchair, and unlikely to be running around the Philippines as he can hardly get around this town! 
Clearly a scam using my address book.  Such a shame they used the wrong name eh?

What is it with footballers and beards?  All over the place there are beards everywhere, why?  Is it something to do with 'Movember?'  This being a charitable activity where men grow moustaches for the month in support of testicular Cancer.  These are beards, not moustaches, do they not know the difference?   Once upon a time a player with a beard was highly unusual, I doubt there were any in Scotland in the sixties.  Today however they are seen everywhere, possibly as a fashion statement from groovy young men puling the birds, surely not with the faces behind the beard I hear you say? What is worse are the guys who shave their heads and grow beards Taliban style.  Could they be terrorists, or just daft?  How daft is it to shave off the hair on the head and cover you chin with it instead, I ask you?  

It will end in tears, mark my words.

Now I'm not one to complain, but....

So for a while the laptop has been doing strange things, one of which concerns Google.  Normally on Chrome I have the Google UK picture, and on the right hand side a link takes me to the next page where the 'Add-Ons' are found.  Now when I click a tab the Google page that appears is different, and the next page link on Google UK has gone.  The new page is not 'Google UK' but a Google page with no Google mail, images, +You link or indeed the email address as usual.  There is nothing aIong the base either, instead under the sign there are links to places I have been, none of which I use as I don;t trust this, and attempting to use the type an address in the address bar takes over.  What is this? Is there a way of fixing this?  I have run the anti bad guys stuff but none have worked so far.  This irritates me, and I am not one to complain.....

There is the usual fuss in the media concerning this appalling event.  It appears this took place last night when I was busy having a life.  As usual banal, trite melodies offered by perverts and weirdos won the day.  It is long since this vapid bilge ceased to be an opportunity for struggling singers and became a replacement for the psychiatric hospitals Thatcher killed off, but why do people watch it?  This freak show 'entertains two thirds of the European public, yet there is nothing there!  I am more and more convinced the end is nigh, when you see what won can I be wrong?

"You'll never get out of here alive!"

Once again I spent Saturday morning at the museum as nobody was available to work it.  Next week l, off my own free will and kindness, will be there on Saturday again.  You see I am so kind and caring gentle and sweet.  I was also knackered!  I did manage to persuade the boss to make up a short advert looking for volunteers for the museum to fill in the empty spaces, far too many are sick, dying or finding jobs, and sweet as she is this happened.  So I shoved them into three churches letterboxes as there are people there who will be available I am convinced.  As one of the churches has many older "cough" peoples there will be historical knowledge also.  We will see!

Hours I have spent looking for my family.  So far none have been in prison but several have disappeared, if only one or two others would join them?   This has helped with finding dead soldiers but there is so much to do and I have hours of work to do to get through it all.  This and watching the football takes up so much time!  Of course dithering, falling asleep and wandering to the shops to obtain reduced price goods has also been required, the falling asleep bit being most popular.  However uncomplaining I battle on, my day ahead is planned out, nothing will deter my study, rise at six and plod on till midnight!  But I ask, what happened to my man George....?

A Boring Picture...

That, says you, is a boring picture.  Aye, agrees me, but I like it.  I like it because the sky in the background looked good, the autumnal trees show their colours and it shows that I was once again wandering across the park.  It has been almost three weeks since I done this.  Three weeks since what some women call a 'wee chill,' and all men agree is a serious bout of 'Man-Flu,'  laid me low and ruined my life.  It's ridiculous that something that used to come and go in three days takes almost three weeks now.  Can it be the virus is changing, or is it my health failing?  The muck that fills the skies unseen cannot be doing us any good, it also may well be changing the way virii adapt.  What a great difference a day makes.  Yesterday I attended the museum but was far from awake.  I sat there staring into space rather than doing anything, disturbed only when a few stragglers entered.   I was glad it was quiet, but the museum needs visitors.  Today however I was almost alive and raced out slowly to peruse the market and keep my cash in my pocket.  I did however notice a lass drop a bit paper.  As I arrived on the spot it turned into a £5 note, this meant running at least seven steps to catch up with her. I still have not recovered!  

In an attempt to find a prettier picture I ventured out this afternoon, eyes peeled for enticing sights.  Sadly few appeared under this ever darkening gray sky.  However the falling leaves can produce interesting pictures, however whether this is one is debatable.  

As luck would have it the foto opportunities enlarged as a poor soul required aid from the first response unit.  This has parked in the bay as he ought but the following ambulance just stopped in the centre of the road.  Probably a woman driver I would conclude myself.  The traffic behind may grumble as it is impossible to pass, but most will accept this.  Hopefully the patient will survive, the trip to the nearest hospital is fifteen miles away!  However in spite of the Tories desperate attempts to sell the NHS to their friends it exists still and the cut down ambulance service still manages to save lives in spite of them. Sometimes we forget just how lucky we are to have an ambulance at the other end of a phone.  We take such benefits for granted, benefits not always available, nor so efficient, elsewhere. 

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The Silly Season is Well Under Way

With the politicians on holiday, most likely claiming expenses for the trip, the newsworthy items that dominate the papers drops away.  The media desperately fill their pages with dross, sometimes interesting, mostly dross. Today we read of the contents of a footballers suitcase, the charges Amazon is adding, expensive houses or boats and as many sex stories and deaths as they can find.  Holiday reading indeed!  

This of course limits the excuses to rant about unfairness, bad government and other nasty goings on that would not occur if people made me the nations favourite tyrant.  Sadly that position has not yet been offered to me, but I live in hope.

So I am digging out the old photos, that one above taken along the coast near Mallaig in 1985 I reckon, and reading some of the booklets I brought back from the museum today.  I had them on the desk in front of me to read but people kept coming in!  I had no chance to read, if it wasn't kids doing the Medieval week it was folks phoning to book for a future workshop.  Tsk!  Some folks don't care do they?  The kids however love what they do, and that's really good.  

I have also spent much of the last few days attempting to remove an unwelcome visitor, 'webcake.'  This, and several others, came in when I downloaded a supposedly virus free item from 'CNET.'  I failed to read the 'terms and conditions,' who does read them, and there CNET insist you accept webcake.  This horrid brute offers you pop-up ads, blocks the connection on browsers to the proxy connection and takes ages to remove.  In the end, having run malwares, Avast, Spybot, I used this advice and by using 'ADW' and 'JRT,' i managed to remove most.  It may well be I have lost other things also but so far not much has gone wrong.  Oh yes, a bit remained even so and I left the machine on overnight as 'Windows Defender' ran through everything, taking ELEVEN HOURS to complete the job, but the last nasty left.  Or at least I hope so.  It is not a Virus, but Adware, Malware possibly, and it slows the machine, annoys you if 'ADBlockPlus' is not used and should be banned I say.  That's the last time I use CNET.  On one of my email accounts I have suddenly began to receive 60-100 spam a day offering me 'enlargement!' Tsk! With that account it is difficult to hinder spam, but I am getting rid of that slowly.  

Always wise to run checks on the PC weekly, especially after adding software.

Royal Wedding Build Up Post No 4

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Daily Mail

Kate goes shopping!  Every day there is one more picture as the excitement builds for the wedding. Are you as excited as I? No, I thought not. The tabloids are having a fit with excitement!  There is a whole lot of desperation regarding who will make her dress. I have no idea who will do that, but I suppose it will be costing more than the benefits given to soldiers who lose their legs in Afghanistan. Although it may be that I am a touch cynical in my dotage. Why are people so involved with this wedding? I understand women getting fixations for such things but when royals are involved the media go into a world unknown elsewhere. There is also the DVD's to follow that will sell the 'Daily Mail' and 'Daily Express' for years to come.

 

 Virus

I clicked on a picture, of Alf Garnet of all things, and immediately a rogue antivirus opened up!  It started to run as if checking the system So I pressed the restart button to stop it. I ran my Avast! antivirus, Malwarebytes the anti malware programme and Spybot, all claim the PC is clean.
However, Google Chrome lost it's preferences, my NetMeter reset itself, and my Wallpaper Changer was wiped, although previous lists there remain it no longer lets me save new ones. A very strange result and I am left wondering what would have happened if I had not stopped this brute when I did or if anything is still hidden in there! 

Rogue antivirus programmes just begin running claiming there are many virus (virii) on your PC. Some will demand a high price to remove them, others just misuse your credit card. Once it began it cannot be stopped and often it will not allow you to download new progs to deal with it. I just press the restart button to stop it, and that appears to have limited the trouble it caused, or so I hope.  That's two in a week. Lucky me.

 

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Dave

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Guardian

I wonder if Dave is all right in the head? Not only has he constantly put his foot in it, the other day he claimed Oxford University only contained one black man while in fact there were many, but he continues with the Libyan escapade. Bombing Gaddafi when you think he is about to fall sounds a great idea. However when the man remains in place and the dubious opposition groups continue to look rudderless and incompetent things are beginning to go wrong for you. I reckon you jumped on a bandwagon and have landed yourself with another Iraq! Maybe spending less time on PR and more time on professional politics, like employing senior MPs in your cabinet instead of thrusting young self seeking gormless millionaires, would help? In fact I correct myself, some of them are older gormless self seeking millionaires! You are sinking my boy! 


With US know how removed the French and British fighter bombers are insufficient for the job. With much of the struggle now in town there is limited openings for the aiming of bombs. If you drop one n town you injure the civilians you entered this folly to protect, or at least that is the reason given. Obama made a wise decision, will you Dave? Talk now centres on supplying material to the rebels, although I thought we would not do this? Talk is also mentioning 'men on the ground,' possibly those men you sent redundancy notices to while on the front line in Afghanistan Dave. No ships, no planes, pilots running out, and the remainder overstretched. Sounds right for 3 Para and the rest to invade Dave. 


By the way, how many black Caribbean types from UK areas went to Eton?

AmitBhawani

I received an e-mail from a chap I have not heard off for three years. I was a bit surprised by his phrase, "Here is the link I told you about" as we have not spoken for a while, and thought I had accidentally deleted a previous e-mail, my mouse double clicks often. I clicked the link (subject was 'Ryanair' a notorious cheap airline) and have been struggling for three days to clear the brutes. thousands of files were infected. I knew there was a doubt but, but....but....  
Still most of it is fixed now, as far as I can see.  However as I run the various software to fight it each one takes well over an hour to run! Much time wasted. It was so bad that at one point I thought I might have to leave here and actually speak to real people! Phew, that was close. 


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St Andrews Day

One day in the distant past it is said that a chap arrived in a small craft off the coast of Fife. he was greeted by the locals and educated them regarding Christianity. It is possible they were already influenced by this as he then persuaded them he had the bones of St Andrew (Peters brother) in a bag! At this place the town of St Andrews, now more famous for its golf course than anything else, including the University and the strange need of the students to wear that red cloak.

Whatever, Andrew became Scotland's patron saint until the reformation thankfully removed the idea of praying to dead people from the church. Since that time few in the UK have bothered about saints, although the Irish made a big thing of it, although mostly for the party I guess. Some now suggest St Andrews day in Scotland, and St Georges in England and St David's in Wales, ought to become a holiday. I doubt it ever will, who wants a holiday in November?


Still no reply from blogcatalog. I suspect that folk often have virus of some sort hanging around and have not realised this. It may well get a connection when they log on. Also there are always wee geeks sitting in their back bedrooms attempting to break into large organisations websites and leave 'Trojans' just for fun. Criminals also throw them out. Still, this annoys me as I now avoid logging in. Even if the bug is not really dangerous I still don't like it.

However I have been grateful that so many others have noticed this and have replied to the comments.

Sportingo

I came across this site recently and there are one or two very well written articles in here. Real fans writing intelligently about the game they love. Unlike the miserable, badly spelt stuff that is found in most newspapers these days. This is a particularly good one that is worth a read and possibly a comment from the intelligent reader. (No I didn't write it, it makes sense!)

Blog Catalog Problems

On Saturday morn I attempted to log in to Blog Catalog. As I did so my 'Avast' anti virus indicated there was a 'JS Downloader' virus associated with the page linked to:-
http://triplopak.com/documents/?s=576.
I attempted to log in this morning and found another similar warning, this time linked to :-
http://maranack.com/documents/?s=576

On both occasions I e-mailed Blogcatalog and warned them of this.
I just wonder if any other have found this warning?
Avast is quite good and indicates a lot more virii than other anti virus I have found, but I wonder if others have come across this?

Antivirus XP 2008

Just what I needed! This thing arrived on my PC on Saturday as I linked to the Edinburgh Evening News. Now I do not think the News was complicit here, I reckon it got in somehow or other and I was suddenly confronted with several screens. There was 'AVG' informing me of a virus. So I followed the recommendation and hit the 'Heal' button. Then a screen for the 'Antivirus XP 2008' appeared and pretended it was scanning and discovering several thousand bugs! All false of course. At around this time (I am confused as to what came in what order, it was fast and furious) the 'Windows Firewall' appeared telling me it was switched off. I switched it on, and now think this was a false screen from the enemy opening the real Firewall! The PC was running very slowly by now.

I attempted to run AVG but this would not work, the brute had turned it off.
Not knowing what to do I looked on the web for advice. But everything relevant to anti virus took me only to their false screens selling me their offerings. When attempting to get the Microsoft site it gave me the screen associated with not being logged on to the web! I could not get out of this. I also noticed that when I clicked on this blog it came up but with their ads and not the normal 'Google' ones along the top. I was getting nowhere and somewhat peeved.

However, as IE and Firefox were infected I remembered I had downloaded Google Chrome but not installed it as yet. This I found was not affected by the baddies (and does not appear to have been so since.) Through this I could search for help.

I first used Windows One care which scrubbed much, but not all, of this virus. This was useful, but takes over an hour to scan (don't they all). Later I brought down the 'Avast' anti virus which I ran as I restarted the PC. The first time I used it there was one baddy captured, so I 'healed' this. This did not help much. I realised I needed to put the bug into 'The Chest.' So I ran it again as I logged in and this time I put in 'The Chest' all that came up. This worked!

I then used 'Windows One care' plus 'AVG' once more. Time flies when having fun!

Now after all this things are much better but when I log in 'AVG' tells me off a virus, (C:\WINDOWS\syst32\pphc75?0e57v.exe) which I attempt to put it in the vault, but it says 'Access denied.' So I 'heal' it. I find 'Windows One Care' claims the same thing. This happens whenever I start the PC. I do not believe it is healed, and do not know if it is causing problems or looking to pinch details of anything on the PC.

As I write this Windows One Care is running, and suddenly 'AVG' has just told me of three infections. It could not remove them it says, however 'One Care' has also brought two to my attention and so they are 'cleaned' (maybe)! I wonder!

This is a right little blighter (not a word you hear often) and beginning to annoy me. Until I can remove it I am wary as to what it is doing there! How did I let it in? I am sure the firewall was on. From what I read this is difficult to remove, and I write this for your warning. I think it is time I kept a 'Geek' in the spare cupboard. This could go on for ever!

(Later) Fixed the brute!
A good guy suggested the Bleeping Computer and from there I obtained Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware which removed the beast and other things also! I am so happy now!

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However this morning I went driving again. Each week he has a surprise for me, roundabouts, Colchester, and this week - Dual Carriageways! After wandering north and venturing through Sudbury, a town built entirely out of one way systems, we took the twisting road towards Ipswich. That slowed the average speed down I can tell you! Each week there is always one who wants to pass, cannot find an opportunity, and is going all they way with us! When I turn off he follows, glaring and grimacing and gnashing teeth. I do feel for them, but at least only one or two have taken chances and passed us when it was unwise! None today I am glad to say. However, we ended up on the edge of Ipswich and came back home, overtaking lorries and slow drivers at nearly 80 at times! I have overtaken the occasional dustcart and milk float before now, but trying to look several ways at high speed is a novelty! I confess I am still shaking! Done it though.

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I would mention Scotland's performance in Macedonia, but our friend Redfinger might log on just to laugh! Typical Scotland, the sight of hot sunshine causes them to lie about on the grass and the fact that their opponents don't lie down always fools us! Still, there is hope a plenty, isn't there? Come on, this is Scotland, do you expect success? Tsk!