Update, otherwise known as From Behind the Dorm Desk

[LadyMage]

I know, I've not posted in a while and really have to get back into the groove of updating, because life is starting to get...curious.

Update number one: The Renovation.
One of the desks got renovated and frankly, the old one was more functional. But that aside; the renov actually separated us from the all-in-one office that doubled with several other campus services. The drawback is, the delivery people still think we're room service and therefore every single delivery comes to us.

Update Number Two: The Night Shift.
Hoo boy! Night shift...

I'm fairly sure I posted about the crazies in there sometime this millennium; if I didn't, then I will say that it's something entirely different. The drunk/high crowd is tame. This semester, they aren't easing up any. Not gonna miss it when i graduate.

Update Number Three: Freelancing.
I started doing some things on my own, from massage to tech support. Will be getting the A+ and N+ certs this summer and actually do the tech thing legibly instead of "for whoever doesn't want to go to the IT people on campus." I came across a GOOD chunk of people who need to have their arse-elbow syndrome sorted. I thought that the people who didn't know what spyware was was limited to just my father but, eh, what're you gonna do.

Annnnnd that concludes the Crazy Update of the Day.

[bean]

I thought that the people who didn't know what spyware was was limited to just my father but, eh, what're you gonna do.

Surprisingly, my parents have yet to get anything serious on their computers, ever. I've found an occasional spybot, but never more than 1.

Now when my roommate moved in.. oh damn. At the time I had a 6 megabit cable connection (6 megabit down, 512k up - it's now 10 megabit down/1 megabit up). Within 30 seconds of him plugging his laptop into my router - I lost all internet connectivity to my PC. I could still ping the router, the modem, and I could ping the upstream gateway (with >1000ms response times and high packet loss instead of the normal 10-15ms). My router runs DD-WRT firmware (linux based), which is far more powerful than the stock Linksys firmware, and can even tell me exactly how many connections are open through the web interface (if I telnet I can break it down by PC).

Over 1000 connections open to his PC alone, or connections being attempted. His antivirus (Norton) hadn't been updated since 2002. I made him unplug from the network (at which point my connection worked perfectly again), downloaded a current copy of my virus scanner (avast!, which is free) along with the latest definition file. It found over 2000 infected files with almost 150 different viruses and backdoors. Spybot S&D found an additional 100 things (not counting cookies or anything like that - actual programs).

I told him if he ever wanted to plug his laptop in, he had to format the hard drive - no ifs, ands, or buts, and I added his laptop's MAC address to the router's deny list until he did so. There was no salvaging anything on it with that much crap. He gave in and formatted it (... and promptly got it infected again.. argh). Thankfully I have a strong firewall on my PC, though the log on it normally logs almost nothing incoming (since my router has a firewall as well) - the log file on it logged over 5000 connection attempts from his PC in about a 20 minute period.

edit: for what it's worth, my other roommate is playing World of Warcraft right now and has AOL Instant Messenger running. I'm connected to AIM as well, along with MSN Messenger, and have 3 tabs open in my browser (Firefox). The router shows a total of 25 connections open from the inside network to the outside world right now.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My dad's boss used to call him at home all the time for computer help, either work related or personal...

My dad has a friend who is an argument for needing a license to own a computer...he calls at least once a week with some sort of problem - email, network, printer, SOMETHING! And his son once managed to erase his hard drive (my dad got it back - he rocks).

When I was in college my computer somehow decided it no longer recognized the hard drive. I'd turn it on and it would have a little disk icon with a blinking question mark in it (I had a Mac) in the center of the screen. Our campus Help(less) Desk was unable to figure it out so my dad sent me an emergency disk and talked me through fixing it. Later my computer died another death and he had to drive 3 hours to bring me a new one because we couldn't figure it out over the phone. Of course it had to die on me the night before I had a paper due and no copy printed out. I was typing away and suddenly - no typing...nothing...rebooted...nothing...9pm, talked to my mom earlier and knew my dad had gone to bed early with a migraine, called home frantic, in tears, had to wake him up...sadly, it was not to be salvaged that night...thank god for understanding professors, extensions, and a roommate willing to read your newly hand-written paper aloud to you while you type it on her computer.