Computer Repair, Epic Fantasy Style
What do I do all day? Pretty much this:
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Heed my words, and hearken well to them, for I am the technomancer. The daemons of Linux are mine to command, and I have the words of Command Line power to bind Mac OS X, and the innermost secrets of Windows have yielded themselves up to me. And lo, many come from far and wide to hear my counsel, for their computers are recalcitrant beasts, and they cannot remember how connect to the wireless, or yea, even to unpin Internet Explorer from the Start Menu.
And one day, in the frozen heart of winter, a young man did come to my tower, bearing a laptop.
“Alas!” spake the young man. “My laptop has fallen to evil fortune! For a wicked virus has seized its faculties, and overthrown its reason. Now I am bombarded by advertisements for both Viagra and discounted Ugg boots, and regularly does the evil virus beseech for the secret number of my credit card!”
“How did such a calamity befall you?” I spake.
“I know not, wise technomancer,” said the young man.
I gave him a look magisterial in its sternness.
“Perhaps,” spake the young man, “I may, in a passing moment of folly, downloaded a pirated clip of Monday Night Football. For surely I say unto you, I do enjoy my Monday Night Football. Also, cable in my neighborhood costs $85, which is like total BS.”
“It may be that your folly has undone you,” I spake. “Yet I shall do what I can.”
And I did take up my USB flash drive of Eightfold Gigabytes, and waged war against the virus. Yet my efforts availed me not. For the virus ringed itself round with cunning protections, and it was invisible to the eyes of Microsoft Security Essentials, and did baffle the installation of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and shielded itself from the keen talons of AVG.
Then the virus manifested itself, and spake tauntingly unto me.
“Fool!” spake the virus. “Think you to destroy me, mortal man? For I cannot be deleted! Erase my executable, and shall only be reborn, stronger than before! Buy Ugg boots now! Discounted Ugg boots, amazing bargains!”
“Speak not so haughtily, braggart software,” I spake. “For I have undone many a virus in the long years ere you crossed my path. And if need be, I shall unleash the cleansing fire of the FORMAT command, and renew the computer from scratch.”
Yet the virus only laughed. “Do that, and this fool’s data shall be lost! And you will have to reinstall Windows, a process both laborious and tedious. Discount V1Agr@! Be a stallion for her! Discount V1Agr@!
I answered not, for I knew the virus spake truth. Yet if brute force would not serve as my sword, then cunning perhaps would do. Therefore I powered off the laptop, and removed the hard drive, and connected it via USB cable to my Mac Mini. Then I summoned the powerful daemon Sophos Antivirus For Mac.
“I summon you,” I spake, “and bind you with this task. Seek out the virus upon this hard drive, and destroy it!”
“Scanning now,” spake Sophos Antivirus For Mac.
But the virus’s protections warded off the powers of Sophos, and it stood unharmed. But Sophos, though it failed, did give me the location of the virus’s files and registry keys, the secret repositories and reservoirs of its immortal life. Protected its files were, guarded from the flames of deletion, but I plugged the hard drive into a Ubuntu system, which heeded not the file protection of a Windows computer.
Quickly I conjured forth a shell script to unleash the cleansing fire of deletion upon the virus’s files.
“Think you these petty tricks can overcome me?” spake the virus. “Fool! I am invincible! Your computer has been infected with 11453 viruses! Pay $89.99 to remove them now!”
“We shall see,” spake I, striking the ENTER key and unleashing the shell script. “Foul virus, you are undone!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” spake the virus, but it was too late, for Ubuntu had bypassed its defenses, and the virus was cast into the outer darkness of the Recycle Bin, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched and the directories are not indexed for local search.
Victorious, I returned the cleansed laptop to the young man and received my free.
“Awesome!” spake the young man. “Now I can watch pirated Monday Night Football clips again.”
“As a dog returns to its vomit,” I spake, “so too a fool to his folly.”
“You have a dog? Where? I like dogs!” spake the young man.
Verily, I shall spend some of my fee on a stiff drink.
-JM