COLUMN: Mega Hurts — The Halloween edition
I must preface this column with a little explanation. My career in radio lasted three months, whereas my career in journalism lasted only two. I’m obviously much more qualified to host a radio show than write a newspaper column. Hence, the radio show call-in format.
Welcome to the Halloween edition of “Mega Hurts,” USU’s favorite radio show about computers. You might want to leave the light on for this.
CALLER: Should I see someone about this red lump?
ME: Um … I think you’re looking for the Student Health call-in show. They’re on right after this.
CALLER: So, I’m like trying to send an e-mail to my PE instructor, and my cat jumps up on the keyboard, and by the time I get him off, my e-mail message is gone from the screen. I looked in my “Sent” folder, and there’s this message from me to my teacher which reads “You’re such a @%jma;jd#$@!!” Is there any way to “un-send” e-mail?
ME: Maybe if your cat had his own e-mail account, he’d quit trying to use yours. Despite what you’ve seen in Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts movies, there is no “un-send” button. If I know PE teachers, you’ll be playing barefoot bowling ball soccer tomorrow.
CALLER: Hi, I live in the dorms, and my roommate is taking a computer science class from Steve Allan, so now he hates Microsoft. As we speak, my roommate is in the next room downloading Linux from http://redhat.usu.edu. The thing is, I don’t think my roommate knows anything about networking or security. Should I tell
someone?
ME: You did the right thing by calling. Too many people ignore the early signs of Linucide. A good hacker can use an unsecured Linux box to take-down the campus network faster than a janitor tripping over a power cord in the server room. Your roommate will have some Red Hat ISO image files for burning Linux CD’s, which must be confiscated until he visits http://fslc.usu.edu and commits to attending the next “Install Fest” put on by the Free Software and Linux Club.
CALLER: A few days ago, my computer started to run slowly, then I was getting e-mails from people I don’t know asking me why I keep sending e-mail to them. Then today, my Internet quit working. What’s going on?
ME: [Sound engineer cues-in “Poison” by Alice Cooper] You’ve got a virus. Your computer was infected, then began attacking those around you. Like an appendix on the network about to burst, you had to be removed. Go to http://www.sarc.com and find your virus under “Removal Tools.” To be absolutely safe, however, you may wish to bring your computer in to the Help Desk, where it can be disinfected in a sterile environment. It’s worth mentioning that all students, staff and faculty have license to download and install a full-featured version of McAfee Virus Scan at http://mcafee.usu.edu, so there’s really no excuse for this.
CALLER: You’ve got to help me. My 15-page paper on data storage for my BIS class is due tomorrow, but when I try to open it from my floppy disk, I just get error messages saying the file cannot be opened. This disk has worked fine since high school. What can I do?
ME: There are a few things you can try, but keep in mind that academic probation is a real possibility. First, try one of Windows’ built-in disk utilities. On Windows 95, 98 or Me, put the disk in, click your “Start” button, then go follow this link trail Programs->Accessories->System Tools and click on Scandisk. Make sure you check the “Thorough” option. In Windows 2000 or XP, open a “Command Prompt” from your Accessories menu, and type CHKDSK A: /X /R . If you bring your disk to the Help Desk, we’ll let a recovery utility run on it for a couple hours, but again, it might be too late. So please, everyone, make sure you back up your crucial files. Don’t use the same disk longer than one semester. Make copies, e-mail them to yourself, or use an FTP utility to store them on your USU VMS account.
That’s our show for today. Until next time, may all the bits on your data bus be processed.
Kevin Jolley is a junior majoring in computer science. Comments can be sent to helpdesk@cc.usu.edu.