minor rants on major viruses
Mar. 3rd, 2004 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dchenesIn the last two days, I've gotten at least ten e-mails from KSU, warning me about the latest virus they got socked with. They had to reinstall Windows on all the grad lab computers, which of course plays hell with anybody who wants to get any work done in that lab. I suppose I'll give the propagators of this virus credit for not including yet another attachment that everybody with two functioning synapses knows not to open, these days. This one uses .zip files instead. That being said, though, viruses are a pain in the ass, and how big does the Hammer of Don't Open Strange Attachments have to get before people listen when they're hit with it? I've only heard that advice twenty or thirty times minimum, and I don't use Windows at home. Maybe if everybody who owns a PC and doesn't heed the Hammer of Don't Open Strange Attachments got a virus, then the advice would stick.
The other thing I don't understand, but this might be a reflection on my chosen profession, is how people can open attachments in poorly written messages that claim to come from people they know. If I got a message, supposedly from my parents, that sounded like a bad translation of furniture assembly instructions, I damn sure wouldn't open any attachments in it. As I said, though, that may be me being overly sensitive to grammar and such things lately.
My other minor rant has to do with the actual computers in the grad lab. There are five or six that are formatted for Japanese, and five or six that are formatted for Russian, and three or four that just don't boot up at all. I don't begrudge the Russian and Japanese translators their chance to get work done, but what I do begrudge is when they use a computer that isn't formatted for it, reset the web browsers for whatever language, and then I wind up with random Chinese characters all over the place when I want to look something up. It's a minor problem, but I seem to have to deal with it every time I use a computer in the lab.
OK. Back to being useful.
The other thing I don't understand, but this might be a reflection on my chosen profession, is how people can open attachments in poorly written messages that claim to come from people they know. If I got a message, supposedly from my parents, that sounded like a bad translation of furniture assembly instructions, I damn sure wouldn't open any attachments in it. As I said, though, that may be me being overly sensitive to grammar and such things lately.
My other minor rant has to do with the actual computers in the grad lab. There are five or six that are formatted for Japanese, and five or six that are formatted for Russian, and three or four that just don't boot up at all. I don't begrudge the Russian and Japanese translators their chance to get work done, but what I do begrudge is when they use a computer that isn't formatted for it, reset the web browsers for whatever language, and then I wind up with random Chinese characters all over the place when I want to look something up. It's a minor problem, but I seem to have to deal with it every time I use a computer in the lab.
OK. Back to being useful.
