TheLeong.com

I write this entry after finally getting back online. Insight, the local cable and internet provider, apparently decided that last night would be a fun time to go nuts and cut the internet on and off for my section of town (possible all of Bloomington?), meaning that I haven’t really had a stable online connection since last night at 6PM. They’re apparently upgrading and screwed up big time. I’m going to call and complain; this is ridiculous. I’m not in the best of moods.

It does make me realize, however, how important the internet is to everyday life. I mean seriously, especially with summer here, and me still being technically unemployed, a great deal of what I do is with the internet, and cutting it off is probably more of an inconvenience than the electricity going out. Please ignore the fact that to use the internet, you need electricity. I think you understand what I’m saying. It’s not even that I want to sit at my computer for hours on end surfing and reading pages and changing my Facebook picture every 10 minutes. What really gets annoying is the smaller things, the ones that you use the internet for because it’s convenient. I guess I might do this more than others, but the internet has clearly infiltrated most peoples daily lives and without it we cannot operate as we would most like to. Unless you’re Amish. I guess they’re stuck building barns and eating oatmeal.

E-mail is the first big one. Summer’s here and IUSTV has tamed down, so I don’t have the usual 2,929,084,903 (approximately) e-mails a day to wake up to, but e-mail in general is somewhat of an obsession of mine. Outlook is open all the time. When an e-mail comes, I will immediately get up off the sofa, only to be ever so slightly disappointed when it’s spam or something I don’t care about. Without the internet there, I always have that feeling of “what am I missing?” OK I realize that makes it sound like I have some kind of severe psychological issues, but it’s not that bad. Instant Messenger is another big one. Like most people between the ages of 16 and 25 (I’m just guessing), I use AIM to communicate with people probably more than I use the phone. And of course that means cell phone, because who uses land lines anymore? Not having AIM to communicate with the outside world means that you don’t know what’s going on, what people are doing, and sitting at the computer isn’t quite so entertaining without the flurry of beeps and boops that AIM provides.

Other minor things, for me at least, mean that a sudden internet failure just makes things less convenient. Watching TV even, which I have not paid for since last July (somehow I just plugged my cable in, and I got cable TV, although I only pay for the internet service), usually starts for me with a quick look at the Yahoo! TV Guide, so that I know what is on and what to watch. Note that 9 times out of 10, this means I will watch Cartoon Network or Food Network. Another thing that seems to stand out is just the general ease of information that the internet brings. I mean, if I’m sitting here wondering that the names of the 7 Koopa Kids were from Super Mario Bros. 3 and can’t remember offhand, it will literally take me 30 seconds to find the answer online. There’s no other way to do this, unless you have a really really brainy friend who sits there ready to answer trivia questions. But I met Donkey Lips, not Sponge.

Well that’s the end of this nerdy rant. The internet hasn’t cut out again yet, and hopefully it won’t anytime soon again. The computer was a great invention, but the internet made it 1000 times better.

I don’t know if I should be proud or ashamed of this, but you have to admit it’s a LONG time:

That’s right. I was online for nearly 18 days without shutting down my computer OR logging off of AIM. Shortly after taking that screencap last night, I turned my computer off for the night to give it a rest. I left my computer on for so long mainly because I’ve been downloading a lot of Kamen Rider and stuff, and eMule likes it if you don’t log off (can get quicker access to files). But wow, my computer is still a tank.

I’m in the progress of signing up for a new Gmail account (it will be my third). I thought the response it gave me was funny:

anthonyleong is not available, but the following usernames are:
leongenator
leongorama
leongmeister
anthonyleon

I got that title from Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I just wanted to write some stuff about my fun little experience with spyware and viruses galore.

I was looking around on the web for torrents and stuff (not like I would try to get illegal copies of software or movies or anything), and of course I hit one of those shady sites that opens a bunch of pop up windows and tries running all sorts of weird scripts. Well, one of them was pretty potent apparently, and my computer got all screwed up. It did all the standard tricks with Internet Explorer (yeah, yeah, maybe now I’ll finally switch to Firefox): changed my home and search pages, added about a million favorites, opened up dozens of popups whenever I opened the browser, etc. Windows also wasn’t safe, as it kept restarting explorer and wouldn’t let me open My Computer, Search, or even folders.

After trying to frantically use Ad-Aware, that didn’t really do much. I tried Spybot Search & Destroy, and that didn’t work too well either. I tried XoftSpy and Spyware Begone, which both seemed to find the problems, except you have to register and pay like $40 to have the problems actually removed. Thanks a lot assholes. I was actually so desperate this morning that I had my wallet out and was considering actually paying for one. But then, luckily, my cheapness prevailed and I did a few more searches. Turns out, Microsoft now has it’s own Spyware blocker, and I have to say this thing saved my life (well, my computer’s).

Yeah, so it’s still in Beta, but it really is awesome. Integrates into the shell nicely, does all sorts of stuff, and most importantly got rid of pretty much all the crap that was messing up my system. I was so happy. Oh, and here are the links, since I think everyone should give this a shot, especially if you have spyware messing up and clogging up your machine (PC).
Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)

Trend Micro Free online virus Scan – caught all the worms and stuff

Computers just aren’t my thing today. My laptop’s hard drive or motherboard is going screwy, but at least I have the warranty on that still. That’s not too much of a concern.

My desktop, however, got some serious spyware or a worm or something, and I’ve been up for the last 3 hours trying to fix it. I would have been asleep by 2ish, but now it’s past 5AM. I’m trying to clean my computer but nothing’s working yet.

I seriously and genuinely hope that everyone out there who creates spyware, adware, viruses, and other crap like that will just catch on fire and burn. No one should have to put up with this. I’m pissed, I guess I’ll sleep for a few hours before class.

So I ordered phone service and DSL from SBC about 2 weeks ago. No DSL yet, so I called to see what was going on. Turns out that my apartment isn’t eligible for DSL since there are too many people nearby with it or something. SBC, of course, didn’t have the decency to contact me and tell me that I wasn’t going to be able to get it. yarg. So I got this local phone line now for nothing, and there was a $50 setup fee, which they won’t give me back. I hate you SBC.

Called Insight to order cable internet. They’ve got a deal so it will be cheaper than I expected. I should have just gone with them in the first place and gotten some TV. Anyways, I guess everything will be OK, except it’s going to take a week for them to come and install the internet for me. Pain in the butt, especially since the wireless I was stealing from a neighbor started going out last night. I guess I’ll be at the library more this week…