coneblog

This Blog is entitled “A Day in the Life of a Project Manager”, but like many of you, what I do during the day sometimes has nothing to do with Project Management.

I’m reading e-mail yesterday morning, when The Reverend <<my Spouse>> lets out a yelp from the next room. Five browser windows just leaped up onto her Laptop screen, touting everything from Low Airfares to On-line Casinos. Over the next half hour, more junk comes up, and the machine repeatedly freezes. There is an Adware infection loose in the house.

As the IT professional on-site, I’m responsible for the maintenance of the family computing facilities. I ran my own software development firm for years, and stocked the house with used machines from the consulting practice. My family has always had access to personal computing, both Macs and PCs. I brought home one of the first 100 Mac Classics sold in NJ. We have moved on to networked DSL internet access, with Laser and color printing, and (of course) a dedicated machine for everybody.

I have set the bar on expectations for family computing services pretty high, and find myself on-call when problems arise. So I dropped what I was doing, and moved over to The Reverend’s machine to take a look.

I ran a scan with the installed Trend Micro internet security package. It picked up a Trojan: TROJ_REVOP.A, and quarantined it. So far, so good.

When I boot back up, and get on the internet, I’m looking at a “Search-Ad” homepage, with an un-asked-for floating toolbar that promises me quick access to Drugs, Sex, Gambling, and “Singles in your Area”. Not Good.