There are a lot of valuable IT functions other than programming. Good business analysts are valuable (assemble the requirements for new software and turn into specs for programmers) and good project managers are also valuable. Both need excellent organizational skills and communications skills but don't require technical knowledge (although it's helpful, for sure).

Being a good programmer requires a very particular mindset and an uncommon way of looking at the world. Notice "good" programmers. I work in a very large organization surrounded by lots of programmers and most of them are very bad at writing code and abysmal at debugging.

Kaspersky does get good marks and they're usually on the cutting edge of anti-virus research and detection. The detection rankings can be deceiving, though, because it all changes so rapidly. Sometimes X brand AV will detect a new virus but Y brand won't, and then someone releases a virus based on old code that X brand stopped checking for but Y picks it up. Then a database and/or scanning engine update comes along and the detection rankings all change. That doesn't include whether or not a product that detects a virus can remove it.

That reminds me that a lot of people don't know that if you know you have a virus and you know specifically which one it is, the major AV companies will have a tool specifically to clean that one that you can download for free. You don't have to be a paying customer for that.

P.S. Intel recently sold off parts of Norton but I can't remember if they kept the AV piece or the backup piece.

There are lots of drive wiping programs. Eraser is excellent in many ways and DBAN is the most popular for totally clearing an entire drive because you boot from the DBAN cd/usb drive. The tricky part is still ensuring that you overwrite the master boot record. Viruses that infect that drive sector are the hardest to clean.

"... the day I allowed a stupid friend to use my W98 machine" Right, that's why I make sure I don't have any friends!

Thanks for the info. Support got back to me late yesterday and sent a link to fix the issue.

Hi, Nick:
I know you're being helpful, but I haven't a clue as to what you're talking about. I understand what makes cars and computers run, but that's it. I get flummoxed by the slightest snag. Or when installing software, I dread when it asks me a question. I hate upgrades. It took me a while to learn this much -- I don't want to learn anything new. I know, I'm an old fogey. OK, I've gone on enough. Hopefully there are some out there who are older and understand my dilemma.

I did some classes in some of the various programming languages and found sticking red hot pokers in my toes to be more fun. I got an IT degree but have never went back to try anything, as it is just not something I can wrap my head around. Hardware is easy, software not. Good for you if you can, my hat is off to you!

Check your windows account, there is a user account and an administrator one. Normally that message means you are logged in as a user. Most OTS install of windows sets you up as a user, to prevent people from starting out in administrator and doing unintentional bad things. Go to Control Panel > User Accounts and you should be able to see if you are an administrator or user. It depends on your Win version what it says, my company laptop is different from my home install so I don't have a screen shot.

I am with you on Norton (and Intel owns them) I do not use it because , while good in the beginning, it went downhill fast. Poor definitions and updates, so I went to Kaspersky about 10 years ago and have stayed with them, they rate really well in most of the reviews I see each year.

I am not so sure the drive is lost, there are some good tools for doing a total random write cycle on a hard drive that will clear every sector on it. There used to be a DriveWiper you ran in a DOS window at bootup that worked really good but took a long time, I don't know if it is related to the Win version. I still have it on floopy, but haven't found my usb floppy drive.

That is my understanding, I am going to look at the beta and see if it has any really nasty side issues, but I may give it a whirl...something like this is useful only because they have a boatload of ways to send it, but it usually involves opening an attachment you do not know, or a bogus website. Kaspersky is good at saying this is a bad site, and blocking it. Happens quite a bit with ads on these multi part web pages.

The fact that they have been allowed to run wild in the country side until they piss off someone important, before any prosecution. The ransomeware thing is a perfect example, some police departments have paid to get their stuff back!! A good ongoing backup system is the best defense in this case, or something like Malwarebytes if it works...

Herb, I am willing to bet you are in the 80-90% of people who are in that same boat. I do not pretend to know much in the software area myself, I have built many systems (I am building one right now with a Haswell E 6 core chip) and can usually get them to work, but she software end is just what seems to work and what doesn't. I can say if you get CC Clean (free) and run it at the end of each session, it seems to keep your system pretty happy. My major issues have almost always been windows or driver related and sometimes have to throw my hands up. One issue was one of my back up harddrives caused the computer to shuffle the hard drive designations around and the boot drive went off to become like z: and windows does not work. Finally undoing all the drives let me get it back, but the new way motherboards use BIOS is the culprit, along with a bad SATA port. Hardware I can do (I work at Intel making chips) but software is mehh.. so stay with your son or experts. :)

Thank you, I look forward to what you find. I use Internet Security, so I am not sure what config changes would be need to get them to play nice with each other. Kaspesky is very auto setting.

Indeed, thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the heads-up. I use Malwarebytes; I'll look this up.

Jan

As with ALL BETA software, even from reliable sources, it is still BETA, so be warned, otherwise great software and company!!!

Thanks for this, nick. I've downloaded, installed and even though Kaspersky Total Security is a little different than the product described in the article in the link provided below, set up the exclusions to hopefully keep both Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware and Kaspersky from conflicting. I'll report back if I have any problems with it.
http://tinyurl.com/jem5yf9

Even though I've been using computers since '88, I really know little about them. To me, a computer is like a car. If it runs, and does what it's supposed to do, I'm happy. If something happens and it doesn't function properly, I go to the mechanic in the case of the car, or my son unless he's too busy, or the computer wizards who know my HP computer inside out. I couldn't tell one computer protector company from another until my computer goes down, which means the company I used wasn't worth crap and I got a different company. This one gives me reports every few days and makes me feel secure, but, what do I know?

Wow, the closest I came to Kernighan and Ritchie was their book on C programming - back in the 1980's. Feel free to disagree, but after dealing with C I have to say I prefer C#. Of course there're a lot more differences than just improved code safety and support for real strings, but my comparison was just about the language improvements - without regard to the .net framework et. al.

I guess that's true. I was going for the ultimate win, trying not to spend money on a new hard drive and hours installing software.

It seems we must go to extremes to keep the barbarians at bay. (barbarians= hackers and their digital intrusions)
Don't they have better things to do?...guess not.

Pain in our butts!

The one time I had major trouble with viruses was the day I allowed a stupid friend to use my W98 machine. I thought he was just going to check his mail on Yahoo. He discovered I didn't have any games he liked and immediately downloaded a whole bunch of stuff.

Now any guest users of my Linux boxes get guest accounts. They can complain all they want about not having CrazyVirusGame.exe, but they'll never be able to run it even if they download it!

Yes, there might be Linux viruses. Once in a while I'll hit a website that announces that my computer is infected, and I just laugh.

I'm STILL sooooooooo verrrrrry happpppppy with Linux.

I've used Unix or something much like it since 1976. 40 years now. Even once met Ken and Dennis, way back when.

Ditto Snezzy.............

The data is all that matters. If your data is safe, then you have defeated the ransom request. Repairing the MBR, or any other part of the system, is then one approach to returning to normal operation. Another is trashing the hardware altogether and starting over. In any event, data safety means the ransom attempt has failed.