Back up your files and Junk Mail

Oh, boy! Norton aka Symantec has made my lifetime black list, along with Hilton hotels, the Marshall swim team and Arby's restaurants. :: pthhptt!!!::

Many moons ago, swayed by those dire predictions about the rampant epidemic of computer viri, I bought McAfee's antivirus program. I began to notice that not infrequently my computer malfunctioned after one of their automatic updates installed itself on the computer. Tired of this, I replaced McAfee with Norton antivirus and later the total Norton security system. One can't be too careful in these days of identity theft I thought. I could imagine scores of brilliant but sadistic hackers toiling to break into my computer.

The Norton system was sloooooow, but I was no longer experiencing the glitches that I had with McAfee. Then a few months ago a Norton automatic update ate all my iTunes files. All of them, every last song was gone! System restore brought my music back from oblivion but I was not happy at all. So I turned off the automatic updates. Saturday, tired of all the endless popups reminding me to renew my antivirus protection, I took time to download the 2007 version of Norton anti-virus. Well, the download was successful and as directed, I began to shut down my system. My computer crashed. The blue screen of death is all I can access. I called Norton. After agreeing to pay $9.50, I was connected to their Madras India branch. Their representative was as pleasant as could be and had nothing to offer me except to suggest I call Microsoft which we both knew was ridiculous. She has a script to follow, I know. I did demand a full refund but that doesn't fix the blue screen of death. Let me see..the software that I purchased to prevent some virus or unknown hacker from destoying my files or crashing my hard drive, has destroyed my files and crashed my hard drive. Yes, I get it now! In the meantime,I'll use my laptop with Norton disabled.


For the past few months I have been following the blog adventures of No Impact Man. His goal is to see if he and his family can live in New York City for a year leaving as little impact as possible on the environment. Some of his ideas are so off the wall that it makes for interesting discussions with the hubster...guess what No Impact Man is up to today? He's trying to figure out how to keep his toddler daughter's milk cold without refrigeration. His readers offer many suggestions and their input is interesting and entertaining as well. Yesterday he wrote about how his readers could help. One link was to the Direct Marketing Association where for $1.00, it is possible to get one's name off of junk mail lists. Good deal! I'm hoping this action will greatly reduce the ridiculous number of catalogs that come to our house. I had my mother's mail sent to my house when she went into the nursing home, and the catalogs and charities have already found her here. No Impact Man reported that getting off the mailing lists reduced his junk mail by 75%. I'm hoping to do as well.