In Which Time is Peacefully Passed

[arcane]

My new laptop just arrived which makes me happy. With the aid of wireless technology I am able to write to you all here. Currently, I am lounging in one of my favorite spots on campus, in a quiet, rarely trafficked hallway just outside of the room designated for rehearsal space

Comments

[catchnteardrops]

'Oh, and Happy Birthday to me.'

Indeed!

[arcane]

Thank you!

[elspethkat]

Happy birthday! To get a new laptop on your birthday must be a good present of sorts. I hope your day is and has been very nice. :)

[arcane]

Thank you! My day has gone by pleasantly though without the usuall fanfare that propagates birth days. Which is not a complaint; I really have been enjoying myself.

[shoukinkasegi]

Happiest Birthday to you! Happiest Brithday to you! (& it goes on.)
In lieu of cake and candles (or booze) - If you have any need of software to fortify your brand-new machine against the dangers of teh intarweb - holla and I'll send it.

[arcane]

Thank you! My best friend talmanes and I have equally become net paranoid, especially against the dangers of spy ware. He's allegedly made me a cd of the most powerful agents against spy ware. We're paranoid though, like I said, and we're always looking to add another program to join the army and fight.

[shoukinkasegi]

Checklist?

1 antivirus - NOT Norton
1 firewall - aside from the built-in XP fw
1 anti-trojan
1 anonymiser
1 anti-spyware
1 browser - NOT IE. Firefox 1.0PR or Opera's latest recommended

(What else am I forgetting?) Imho it's best to have a single product handle a single task. The protection suites that big companies have are too easily circumvented. MKS, for example, is really good (if you're conversant in Polish) only for the simple fact that hackers writing anti- software is both funny and scary and impressive.

[talmanes]

I have prepared the aforementioned disk. It sits now beside my desk, waiting to be used.

I am ashamed that I don't know what the difference between an anti-trojan and and antivirus is, and I don't know what an anonymiser is. I feel so insecure in my computer's integrity now that I may cry.

I do, however, feel rather cool about the fact that it takes more than one bit of antispyware to fortify a computer. It takes at least one scanning program (like Ad-Aware), but you're better off with two (like Spybot: S&D), or even three (add in CWShredder), because none of them is perfect. You should also have something to immunize yourself (Like Spybot: S&D's alternate features, and/or SpywareGuard & SpywareBlaster--or are these anti-trojans?), and you need something that checks your registry (like HiJack This!). It's not quite as simple as just running Ad-Aware and hoping for the best.

Still, you (meaning shoukinkasegi, of course, since arcane doesn't know more about computer security than I do, to my knowledge) seem much more knowledgable than I do about these

[caricaneba15]

happy bday
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!

[arcane]

Thank ya very much!

[talmanes]

I will, of course, come to see this play.

And happy birthday, bitch. I've tried calling you all day.

[arcane]

I saw that. Unfortunately, I've been hella busy (as I am each day) and haven't had a real chance to return any phone calls. My own mom called and I missed it. Maybe we can get together sometime this weekend.

[talmanes]

This weekend would be good. I think I'm grocery shopping with my mom Sunday during the day, but the rest of the weekend should be fairly cool.