We got INOCULATED!

Dragon Mood? -- smug with anti-virus inoculation

I realized this morning that I still haven't blogged about our Norton Internet Security fiasco. I think I almost want to BLOCK IT OUT OF MY MIND!

Last week, in preparation for trying to install this software, I printed out numerous support documents from Symantec's Support website. I'm talkin' NUMEROUS. And there were many links and articles talking about all the possible and potential errors one could encounter installing this software. That should have been a clue.

Saturday morning (last Saturday morning), I woke up, happy and ready to tackle this installation. Allow me to digress. In preparation the night before, I had read up on System Restore, created a System Restore benchmark, backed up megabytes and megabytes of data on CD and generally did everything of a preventative nature I could.

Saturday morning. I began the download of Norton Internet Security at 8:10 a.m. Two hours later (yes, we still have dial-up and downloads are SLOW!), I was ready to install it. I followed the directions, the installation wizard popped up, and two screens later, the error messages started coming. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say, I logged off, logged back on, and tried the installation again. How do you make that game-show rejection sound in a blog? Enhhnnnnh!

By this time, it was 10:30 going on 11:00 and I had had ENOUGH! I was DONE!

I pulled up my gmail account, searched through the numerous PC World newsletters I've received over the past year and found it. Yep! A small but highly effective anti-virus software from a company called Avast!. And it was FREE!

I downloaded it in under three minutes and installed it in less than five. Done! So far, so good! Avast! .... you are a prince among men! A diamond among chunks of coal! And with a good piratical name like Avast! (the exclamation point is included in the name -- sort of like Yahoo! I guess?), who could ask for more?