Paranoia when working...

In 2010 I was in the middle of editing a book... and my old desktop PC died.  From malware attacks.

It had survived many moves with me.  [Don't ask how many.]  We'd gone to live in Vegas, my old PC and I, then moved back across country to Michigan.


So today I've done some more research on my current tech problems.  On my new Acer desktop, which I bought in 2010.

I thought this was malware.  Nope; yay!

It may be the hard drive.  Not yay.  Not at all.

OTOH, my marvelous tech adviser at Chicon 7 -- hi, CKD! -- gave me lots of wonderful advice.  One was to get regular backups scheduled to an external hard drive.  I did these things.

This is far better than saving to a flash drive and having to readjust back and forth.  Computers get tetchy about that.


WRT program updates.  Do them.  When I was researching additional virus-checkers last week, a great post pointed out the importance of program updates in 12 Sure-fire ways to get infected.  Read that and see if you're guilty of any of these.  I was.  :/

The legit programmers are trying to keep you safe from malware and such, you know.  Don't give the spammers more ammo!


I updated my machine just now -- I must've missed some updates.  Because now it's not hanging and playing the lagbeast.

Why am I blogging?  This is actually a test.

I tried to write a blog post earlier and my machine kept hanging.

The mouse would freeze -- it's been doing that constantly.  Lately I'd boot my machine, then reboot it, and it seems like an hour afterward, my Acer finally lets me move between screens, open screens, close screens, or just plain use the frickin' mouse!


I was even beginning to fear our wifi router had a Trojan, since the lag wasn't just happening to me.

But now my Acer's fine.  This is wonderful news.  (Happy happy, joy joy!!)

Really glad I found a solution, or at least possibly a partial solution.  My fingers crossed that things continue much improved.  Any good thoughts are also very much appreciated.