Scary night

[Michael Blakely]

Last night my 16 year old son says, "hey dad, I've been getting warnings on the laptop for a while that Norton Anti-Virus is going to expire in a few more days".

I'm thinking, why didn't it auto renew? Better check it out. I log in, and first thing I get is a big red and black screen with giant font that says, "your subscription to Norton expired yesterday"

AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! No anti-virus protection? It's like being naked in public!

I quickly re-subscribe and get Norton operational again. While doing this, I want to confirm how much time I have left on my other computer. I go to click on the Norton icon in the task bar to check the license number, BUT WAIT, THERE'S NO NORTON ICON.

AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! What's going on here?

I kick off Norton, and bring up the history. The last entry is from 2 WEEKS AGO!

AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! No anti-virus protection FOR 2 weeks? It's like I was naked in public and don't remember, but someone has pictures.

OK, need to re-boot in safe mode, do a scan, figure out what's up. I go to re-boot and get the dreaded, "Installing update 1 of 747, do not power down your computer"

I have angered the Gods of IT. I must make a sacrifice. I will burn CD-ROMs in the fireplace until goodness again shines on my computers.

Now that it's all over, and lucky for me it seems all the machines are OK (knock on wood), I'm thinking that:
a) Norton probably has a grace period when your subscription expires, so my laptop probably wasn't exposed after all.
b) I never power cycled my other PC. I wonder if the core elements of Norton were running, and just the task bar icon application bombed out.

This is why my boss has an Apple.

[Michael Natale]

Always wear a condom! Latex for your hard drive!