My computer has been giving me a hard time lately. It is six years old, and completely exhausted . I'm proud that during these years it didn't require any technician work; I was the only one to touch its inside when opening the case to clean the ventilators and throw a loving look at the Motherboard. There were problems with it now and then, but I managed to solve them with whatever little knowledge I have on computers.
Only once did I need the intervention of an outside factor. Two years ago, the computer got attacked by malware. It was a shocking, frightful experience; it looked as if some kind of monster within the box was trying to torture me by interfering with my work in various nasty ways. In fact, I couldn't do any work.
It started with the sudden appearance of a big blue Microsoft ad in the middle of the screen offering an anti virus program. Luckily, I understood right away that it was not Microsoft but some dangerous, invasive agent, and so I didn't get tempted to install the program. After a few unsuccessful trials to deal with the situation, I phoned Microsoft technical support and they promptly emailed me an anti malware software. It helped, of course, but it took me several days to make sure everything was under control.
The whole thing scared me so much that I tried to forget all about it. When the attack was on I took a shot of the ad but apparently didn't care to save it.
Anyway, that's all behind me now, and I'm looking forward to get a new computer, hopefully by the end of next week. In the meantime, things are not easily done and certain things (slideshows, for instance) will have to wait .