So my printer dies, and I go printer shopping with my friend Dawn who knows all about setting up printers. That was yesterday.
Today I decided to try to quickly read my email before going out into the beautiful day.
The printer program chimes in: “I want to check for Updates”. “OK” says I, but my goodness – I just bought the thing and it already needs an update?
Then the McAfee anti-virus chimes in: “There is something fishy going on – do you want to stop it?” Now I KNOW it must be the HP download – but then I thought maybe something from cyberspace is trying to ride the wave. So I say – “stop it”. Then the HP download stops and has to start up again. Then I get the McAfee message again. This time I tell McAfee to let it alone (“Fool me once …….”).
Then McAfee starts talking to me: “It has been three days since we did a download and you are at great risk. Can we do a download?”
Now I always thought that the McAfee program came and went at will so I was really surprised that it asked permission (for once) before doing something. (Has something changed on my PC that I don’t know about? Huh – something is always changing on this computer.)
Three seconds later the McAfee pops back up: “Your Windows XP has an anti pop-up program that could interfere with the McAfee download. Do you want to turn it off?
NO I DON’T WANT TO TURN IT THAT OFF BECAUSE IT WORKS AND I LIKE IT AND I WOULD NEVER REMEMBER HOW TO TURN IT ON!
I take my chances that this program is just trying to bully me without reason so I say “NO!!” Luckily the program is able to download and install without further incident. (Did I mention that I was just trying to quickly read my email?)
Well – that ended today’s battle with the machines (Terminator 4). But there’s one more thing that reeeeeeeeally is bothering me.
My Windows XP recently asked for permission to check for updates every day at 3:00 AM. I sat and pondered this one for a long while, but I finally (and maybe foolishly) gave this computer permission to go cyber-surfing every day at 3:00 AM looking for things I know not about.
Now the machine is always churning away and doing something of which I have no idea. I often go by the machine and just wonder …………… “Whatever is it doing?”
In the final analysis – I must admit that I find myself living in fear.
I have become thoroughly convinced that ………
…………….I am living with “Hal”*.
* (From the movie 2001)
