Bloody Hell!
I had the intention of drawing a new page for my Lovarian Adventures webcomic this past weekend but it seems that fate conspired against me updating the webcomic.
Friday, I was all revved up to draw the page after I got home from the company night bowling. But like I said in my previous post, my thumb and wrist hurt and that hindered me from drawing.
So I thought of coming up with a new way of drawing the page. That is, designing the whole page in Photoshop, add the dialog and dialog balloons, flip the whole page horizontally (making it a mirror image of itself), print it then draw on the other side of the paper using the print out on the reverse side as a guide.
Anyway, that's what I was doing that Friday so come Saturday I can just finish the design then print it then draw draw draw. I was able to finish off the design/sketch for panel 1 and 2 that night despite my aching hand. I think it was that day I first noticed this odd thing.
I usually use Alt-Tab to switch between the multiple applications I have running simultaneously on my PC. And sometimes, I hold on to the Alt-Tab keys and wait for that pop-up window that shows all the active applications' icons and select the one I wanted to use. The odd thing I saw was that there is this one empty slot where an icon should be in that window. I tabbed to it and according to Windows, a program called SP.EXE is running and that empty icon slot belongs to it.
SP.EXE? I don't recall running that application. In fact, I don't remember installing it at all. Since the program doesn't really have a window of its own, there is no easy way of closing down the application. Good thing I use my keyboard more than my mouse to navigate through my PC so I know the shortcut key to close an application: Ctrl-F4. That closed it.
I thought it was a one-off thing so I forgot about it. Until I encountered the same thing last Saturday when I was about to start working on the new page. When I found that it was running on my PC again, I promptly closed it using the Ctrl-F4 technique. But this time, my curiousity was piqued. I want to find out what that was about! Again, it's a job for Google!
Using Google, I was able to find out that the SP.exe program was indeed some form of spyware or trojan software. Supposedly it alters the Internet Explorer so that it creates links to ntsearch.com search site. Others say that it also captures keystrokes so that it could've sent any of the passwords I have entered while it was on to somebody on the Internet! Bloody Hell!
I was furious with myself for not updating my Windows XP with those security patches Microsoft dishes out. I should've known that my system would be vulnerable to hacks like that from the web since I'm a Windows user.
Anyway, instead of drawing the new page, I spent that Saturday trying to remove the blasted SP.exe file. I also installed the new Windows XP service pack 2, installed Ad-Aware from LavaSoft to remove all adware and spyware from my PC and updated my old antivirus signature files.
While doing that, I tried to continue sketching the page on the PC anyway. I thought, "there's always tomorrow anyway." I thought wrong.
So Sunday, I fully expected finish this new page but as it happens, it seems like fate is against me finishing this new page. I turned on my PC and it was no longer the same reliable PC it once was.
Something was wrong with the tablet. Yahoo Messenger (YM) cannot connect to the Internet when the Windows XP starts up (it does connect on the second go though). Not all of the expected icons are appearing on my system tray (like the Palm HotSync icon, the YM icon, the PowerVCR icon, and Audio control icon. When I open up the Windows Explorer, it cannot find my C: and D: drives. And then there's also the bloody Gozilla window that keeps on popping up when I'm using Internet Explorer. What's infuriating about that bit was that I just uninstalled Gozilla! How can I uninstall something that is already uninstalled!?
Simply, my PC is messed up, stuffed and buggered! It's at the end of its rope. I fear that it was time for what we like to call (or hate to call actually), a reinstall. I tried to salvage the system. I even tried to finish the page at the very least. And I was actually able to finish the page design. It was ready for printing but then my printer driver was on the blitz too! It won't let me print the damned thing! I tried working the scanner so that I may still be able to draw the page from absolute scratch and then scan it in the end but it's no use. The scanner driver is stuffed too!
My Sunday was spent trying to fix the system and then in the end, formatting my C drive and reinstalling Windows 2000 Professional on top of it. I decided to install Win2k this time because I feel it is more stable and hopefully more secure than WinXP. The other reason is so that I can finally connect with Raquel's PC which also runs Win2k (couldn't get WinXP to connect with Win2k in the past).
Anyway, so ends what could've been a very productive weekend. The frustrating thing is that I'm still reinstalling my PC. I have lots of applications I need to reinstall in it like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, OpenCanvas, Visual Studio .Net, etc, etc, etc.
So yeah. The short of it is that the new page will be delayed. Heck of an excuse isn't it? Bloody Hell!
Friday, I was all revved up to draw the page after I got home from the company night bowling. But like I said in my previous post, my thumb and wrist hurt and that hindered me from drawing.
So I thought of coming up with a new way of drawing the page. That is, designing the whole page in Photoshop, add the dialog and dialog balloons, flip the whole page horizontally (making it a mirror image of itself), print it then draw on the other side of the paper using the print out on the reverse side as a guide.
Anyway, that's what I was doing that Friday so come Saturday I can just finish the design then print it then draw draw draw. I was able to finish off the design/sketch for panel 1 and 2 that night despite my aching hand. I think it was that day I first noticed this odd thing.
I usually use Alt-Tab to switch between the multiple applications I have running simultaneously on my PC. And sometimes, I hold on to the Alt-Tab keys and wait for that pop-up window that shows all the active applications' icons and select the one I wanted to use. The odd thing I saw was that there is this one empty slot where an icon should be in that window. I tabbed to it and according to Windows, a program called SP.EXE is running and that empty icon slot belongs to it.
SP.EXE? I don't recall running that application. In fact, I don't remember installing it at all. Since the program doesn't really have a window of its own, there is no easy way of closing down the application. Good thing I use my keyboard more than my mouse to navigate through my PC so I know the shortcut key to close an application: Ctrl-F4. That closed it.
I thought it was a one-off thing so I forgot about it. Until I encountered the same thing last Saturday when I was about to start working on the new page. When I found that it was running on my PC again, I promptly closed it using the Ctrl-F4 technique. But this time, my curiousity was piqued. I want to find out what that was about! Again, it's a job for Google!
Using Google, I was able to find out that the SP.exe program was indeed some form of spyware or trojan software. Supposedly it alters the Internet Explorer so that it creates links to ntsearch.com search site. Others say that it also captures keystrokes so that it could've sent any of the passwords I have entered while it was on to somebody on the Internet! Bloody Hell!
I was furious with myself for not updating my Windows XP with those security patches Microsoft dishes out. I should've known that my system would be vulnerable to hacks like that from the web since I'm a Windows user.
Anyway, instead of drawing the new page, I spent that Saturday trying to remove the blasted SP.exe file. I also installed the new Windows XP service pack 2, installed Ad-Aware from LavaSoft to remove all adware and spyware from my PC and updated my old antivirus signature files.
While doing that, I tried to continue sketching the page on the PC anyway. I thought, "there's always tomorrow anyway." I thought wrong.
So Sunday, I fully expected finish this new page but as it happens, it seems like fate is against me finishing this new page. I turned on my PC and it was no longer the same reliable PC it once was.
Something was wrong with the tablet. Yahoo Messenger (YM) cannot connect to the Internet when the Windows XP starts up (it does connect on the second go though). Not all of the expected icons are appearing on my system tray (like the Palm HotSync icon, the YM icon, the PowerVCR icon, and Audio control icon. When I open up the Windows Explorer, it cannot find my C: and D: drives. And then there's also the bloody Gozilla window that keeps on popping up when I'm using Internet Explorer. What's infuriating about that bit was that I just uninstalled Gozilla! How can I uninstall something that is already uninstalled!?
Simply, my PC is messed up, stuffed and buggered! It's at the end of its rope. I fear that it was time for what we like to call (or hate to call actually), a reinstall. I tried to salvage the system. I even tried to finish the page at the very least. And I was actually able to finish the page design. It was ready for printing but then my printer driver was on the blitz too! It won't let me print the damned thing! I tried working the scanner so that I may still be able to draw the page from absolute scratch and then scan it in the end but it's no use. The scanner driver is stuffed too!
My Sunday was spent trying to fix the system and then in the end, formatting my C drive and reinstalling Windows 2000 Professional on top of it. I decided to install Win2k this time because I feel it is more stable and hopefully more secure than WinXP. The other reason is so that I can finally connect with Raquel's PC which also runs Win2k (couldn't get WinXP to connect with Win2k in the past).
Anyway, so ends what could've been a very productive weekend. The frustrating thing is that I'm still reinstalling my PC. I have lots of applications I need to reinstall in it like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, OpenCanvas, Visual Studio .Net, etc, etc, etc.
So yeah. The short of it is that the new page will be delayed. Heck of an excuse isn't it? Bloody Hell!
posted by Gabeprime at 10:08 AM
2 Comments:
Oooo. Ouch.
I use XP on my laptop, and it seems pretty reliable. Of course, I haven't had spyware try to make a mash of my system. Not that I know of, anyway.
Sorry to hear about your lost weekend. But, hey, at least you got the design done and your computer is salvigeable. Us fans can wait, especially when delays are caused by something this big.
Please don't give up on Windows. I know it seems like it's more buggy and suceptable to spyware and viruses, but trust me, I've used Macs and they are a real bear. When one program crashes the whole thing freezes up and you can't do anything but manually reboot. Hackers just seem to like progamming viruses and the like for Windows because many of them are anti-capitolism.
This comment has gone on long enough, I suppose. Just wanted to express my sympathy and I started rambling. Just like I do when I talk. Hee-hee.
lol, alright, I could not resist, that Mac comment is a comment about an aged Mac system which comes from the '90s. I have had more trouble with Windows than with Macs. :-) OS X is very reliable, though, like any computer, you can kill it. I just find it a bit easier to wipe out or destroy a Windows computer than a Mac.
Not to mention Mac's are so much easier to program. :-)
But don't give up, Geejay, and yes, we can wait, I can sympathize with your situation, I just cringe with the thought of what you must have felt.
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