What a week this has been. It all started on Saturday when my wife got on the computer and said "honey, the Internet will not start." This, of course, got my full attention because we all know that the Internet starts unless something is wrong or just not on. This slight annoyance quickly changed to aggravation when I sat down and noticed that none of my programs would start. I would double click, the hourglass would appear and then....nothing. With that knowledge I did what any of us would do; I restarted it and it didn't work. At that point in time I was getting worried. I manually powered down the computer and started it right back up.

Needless to say, my computer had a virus - a nasty virus that was attached to the reboot process. It took me until Thursday to get my computer running to 100%. Yes, six days of fighting a computer virus. I think it was around Tuesday when I really felt like it was a battle between good and evil and Thursday morning I was convinced that the computer would end up flying threw my office window. Alas, it is fixed and everything is back to normal. I, unfortunately, lost a lot of time and feel way behind on my job, e-mail and social networking (including this blog).

I do apologize for not posting this week and hope that you understand my situation. I did learn from this experience and, since we pretty live on computers in this day and age, I wanted to share a few with you. First, I have no idea how I drew the attention of such a nasty virus but my friends tell me that it is becoming common place for normal sites to carry viruses. One friend caught one from an ad attached to msn.com of all places while another had to save his aunts computer when she got a virus from the website of a teddy bear company. The people that develop viruses and malware are becoming smarter and craftier with each day. Where does that leave us? What should we, the average computer user, do to protect our work and hardware from these programs?

• It is imperative to have a reliable antivirus and malware detection program. It is also critical to have a solid firewall. The firewall will not be a problem as most computers come with that built in; however, antivirus and malware detection programs are a different story.
• There are thousands of antivirus and malware programs out there BUT, as I learned the hard way, if you don't keep them updated and current then you leave your computer open for these programs to slide in and cause major problems. Some of the antivirus and anti-malware programs update automatically bit it is still important to regularly check and confirm that they are doing so. I use free software for this and they work very well (as long as I update).
• Your virus protection is not the only thing that need be updated on a regular basis - printer drivers, program updates and security updates for your operating system need to be completed on a regular basis. These are not normally done automatically because it slows your computer far too much to be efficient so it is important to remember and check them.
• I highly recommend a program such as Glary Utility. This program cleans up your registry, deletes temp file and tracks and also identifies other potential problems. Think of it as house cleaning, if your computer is clean then it will be easier to diagnose, identify and fix any potential problems and delete viruses.
• Don't be afraid to research on potential problem or error message on the Internet. You can find a wealth of information by doing so and can often find the solution quickly.

It take a lot of effort to keep a computer running smoothly but it can be done and will save you from frustration and the desire to destroy your computer.