Posted from India
Lizzi and I aren't the only ones getting sick on this trip. Unfortunately, our laptop gets a nasty bug every once in a while too. It's really our own fault. Wireless internet has been available in some of the guesthouses we've stayed in but not many. All of our photos and blog posts are composed on the laptop and then transferred to a flash drive, which we connect to a computer in an internet cafe. This is the computer equivalent of shaking the hand of someone who has just sneezed and then licking it. Sometimes you're going to get sick. So far, the flash drive has contracted at least one virus and a couple of gnarly bits of adware. As best as I can figure, the adware is from Thailand (looks to be something Google Toolbar coughed up), and the virus came from a dirty machine in Goa.
Viruses and adware are just a few of the bugs for which there is no vaccine. If you're going to take a laptop, which I recommend, be sure to turn on the antivirus software, download and run Ad-Aware regularly, and just be smart about what you connect to your machine, even indirectly. Just like people, your computer has a history. If you plug your flash drive (this goes for cameras too) into a different computer and then stick it in yours, your computer will be infected with everything the other computer has. The old adage holds true: wrap it before you tap it.
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4 comments:
dirtiest post so far!
Nice work Dr. Weyant.
Can I PLEASE use that phrase for the teen girls I meet all day long who are here for a pregnancy test?!?! Actually - can you please be the presenter to them of the importance of "wrapping it"!
Jess, you're more than welcome to use the phrase. It belongs to Geoff, so I give you free license. I would also be honored to be a presenter, but somehow I don't think the phrase "before inserting a flash drive into a suspicious computer, write-protect the drive and run antivirus when you reinsert it in your own computer" will have the desired effect ;)
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