Therefore, in order not to be a pain to anyone anymore, virtual or not, I have decided to streamline everything, and delete email accounts, so that there will only be one representing each cyber domain .... Yucks, I hate it when I use techie language ... techie as in tacky ... What's that one? Oh yes, Open Domain Name System ..... Which brings me to this point .... After I had zealously deleted my oldest, and by far, the worst brought upon myself, email account, I had accidentally deleted the account in which this blog was .... well, accounted for ..... It was enough reason for me to get up at 3.30 in the morning .... Anywayz, I couldn't get any sleep, hence the account-deleting mania .....
Moving on to my story, the strangest thing was, I could log on to this blog, despite having earlier deleted the email account ..... Look, I'm no internet wizard, but tech-wise, wouldn't I have not been able to log on, since I used an invalid email account? ....
Strange things have happened to me in my internet sojourns, and I'm not merely talking about my Yahoo Messenger adventure .... So strange that I have decided to become inured by it .... My whole point, in recounting all this phooey baloney, is what assurance do I have in having all my email, blog, whatnot accounts secured, if I could access any of them with an account that has been deleted, hence invalid?
I don't know the answer .... Do you? ....
On a different note, I surf personal stuff on the office comp ... Doesn't everybody? ... Oh, not you, of course .... Anywayz, while trying to squeeze every single juice from my brain in typing up endless copy, I go and update my blogs, Facebooking, chatting using Yahoo email, chatting on Facebook, blah de blah ....
I also surf for fresh news from reputable press agencies via MSN and Yahoo ... as well as movie news, and the occasional celeb goss .... And very recently my computer has hanged a couple of times .... Now, with me not being techie-wise, I had not got the foggiest idea what was going on ....
Just last Saturday, right after saving one very important copy (as with all the copy I've typed), I shut down the computer, only to find that it wouldn't shut down .... I wanted to wait, but it was really late at night, so I just skedaddled out of there ... When I came to the office on Tuesday, my comp was still not shut down ..... After sitting down with the IT gal (yes, of course, there are women out there who know their bytes from bites ... way to go) and shooting a few random questions, I found out that my surfing habits may very well contributed to the hordes of viruses found inside my poor computer ....
Firstly, apparently Yahoo sites are unstable ... Even though all those error messages kept popping up while I surf for that one in a million celeb goss, I never thought the better of them until now ... So, for those of you out there who are tech-wise, you probably already know this, but for those of you, like me, completely clueless on internet matters, just take note ....
What saddens me is that I really like to surf Yahoo!News .... Tried Google News, and, erm, I don't really fancy it, but not to say Google itself is not good, I mean, for goodness' sake, it's my main search engine .... If I'm not mistaken, it's only when I surf Yahoo!OMG that those error messages pop up, but I am not taking any chances ....
Maybe I should go directly to the press agencies' websites, which I have done for major local print media, not forgetting BERNAMA .... Using search engines to surf multiple news from different sources saves time for me .... Wouldn't it be for you? .... Besides, I have tried to surf to this well-known and reputable, even with my little knowledge of the British Press, newspaper's site, and it takes like, dinasour years for the page to load ....
(Hmmm, checking up on two internationally renowned press agencies ... Okay, a lot faster than going to that British newspaper's website ... But I still prefer Yahoo!News)
Now, I think I read somewhere that the local major ISP has connection problems, something to do with bloody cables linking it to North America and Europe (not to sure about the validity of this story ... My God! You're a reporter! Go and check it out!), but I've been trying to go to this newspaper's site for some time now ... Maybe I should go to another British newspaper's website ....
Anywhooo, chatting ... Oh, puhleeeezzz, don't tell me you have never succumbed to this? ... Oh-My-God, you don't?? That's so, like, get out of here! .... Of course, I shouldn't be chatting, or in the very case of what I'm doing now, blogging, during work time ... but I think I'm responsible enough to know my limits ....
Now, I have stopped using Yahoo messenger for some time now, I chat using Yahoo email, which I think is safer ... Then again, you can't really take my word for it, 'coz I am quite blur about internet security (refer above) ... Besides, it's Yahoo .... I get a lot of spam on Yahoo, and once there was this weird message from the vice vice president of Yahoo telling me to do something Godforsakenly weird ... Mind you, I almost fell for it, if not for the weird English ....
Neverthless, chatting on Facebook is fun ... Apparently, not everybody likes the chat function on FB, but I do ... It has landed me in hot water with the associate editor, so, yes, I have actually toned down ... I still think I'm responsible enough to know my limits .... It's pretty much as to how you limit yourself to alcohol ... We all have our vices ....
What's is the point of me telling you all this? Okay, here goes, and probably you know already ... Besides being a movie addict, I'm also an internet addict .... I can go on for two days without going on-line, but not the third ... But I'm not as bad as some people I know ... I mean, how about those people whose livelihood depends on them surfing on the internet? Are they internet addicts? ...
So, maybe 'internet addict' doesn't so much describe me as ... erm, 'internetphile' ... In fact, I think it's a wonderful invention ... Even TIME magazine has a made a mention of it as being one of the greatest 20th century inventions, if I recall ... I can't thank Sir Tim Berners-Lee enough ....
But, the internet's greatest gift is also it's also greatest curse, I think .... No thanks to some really irreponsible people .... This beautiful invention, which can connect you with someone, regardless of space and distance, can also destroy your system, and all your precious files, with one swift stroke ....
Before I strike down with my point, a little rambling history first ...I grew up during a big transitional period of computer and internet advancements .... I joined the computer club in Lower Secondary, learned BASIC, and went, "Whoa, I know computer language" ... I remember MS-DOS ... Forget the 3.5" floppy diskettes, I still remember the 5.5" ones ...
I even recall Wordstar ... Lordy me, I remember using that programme to type my assignments ... It can never hold a candle to Microsoft Word (except perhaps the version in the latest MS Office Vista, God, what the hell is this?) but in it's simplicity, it works ....
Then, one time, I was moseying down the library hall when I chanced upon a few collegemates doing something on the library computers .... And it was there that I got to know Netscape (can't remember which version) ... OMG, it was sloooww, like longer dinasour years .... Probably got more to do with the 56K modem than with the poor sodding browser ... Move up a couple of years, and I was introduced to FriendFinder, and that, I think, was the beginning of social networking in a big way ... Heck, I got to know my one, and only, ex on FF, opened via my very first Yahoo account, so all this hold a special place in my heart ....
Well, enough personal history ...So we all grew up and moved on and advanced .... And now people like Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, and the two dudes behind Youtube make mucho moolah, while people like you and me, in the background, are lazing on our ergonomic chairs, just enjoying playing on our workstations, and reaping in the rewards of what they've accomplished ....
But, like I said, there are a few irresponsible people out there who just cannot see other people happy .... So they create viruses, and somehow these viruses mutate or what, how the hell would I know, but their lethalness is incredible ... Some of these viruses can even disable anti-viruses, as I found out to my own, incredible you may think, astonishment ....
Yes, I was astonished, I did not realize the full extent of what these viruses are capable of .... I just thought, like most of us probably, "Oh, the anti-virus will take care of it" ... What anti-virus? .... So, if you're one of those hacks who enjoy flooding major servers with your very own concoctions of Bloody Mary bloody hell viruses, and so happen you come across this blog .... STOP!
Because I'm not just talking about me, I'm talking about the thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, people out there who are incapacitated by our own limited abilities, not so much knowledge, of troubleshooting virus attacks that keep getting more and more sophisticated .... Yeah, there are more imminent issues at play at the moment, like the global economic crisis, and global warming ... But you know what, the internet can contribute as much to solving these very problems, among others ... To highlight a point: Barack Obama uses Facebook to garner potential votes ...
I hate to see a future where the very thing that advances us, is the one that ultimately destroys us, and it's not because of the machines per se, it's us really ...
Useful reading (probably):
- Microsoft Support on computer viruses (Read: blatant advertisement)
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