Yesterday, late afternoon I got infected with adware.  After some research I found a way to remove it with an adware/spyware sweeper.  It’s been running ALL night long and it’s still only scanned 76% of my hard drive.

I don’t want to open my email program because I don’t want it to send it to someone else.

I HATE INTERNET EXPLORER!  I use FireFox because IE is so prone to viruses, bugs, adware etc, but I had to check one of my client’s sites in IE yesterday and as soon as I opened it I got infected.  ARGH!

I uninstalled IE, and it’s still popping up somehow. OMG I am so frustrated!!!

I’m now mad because the SpyDoctor that I downloaded wants me to pay to remove it. After it took all night to scan!

I hate being forced to buy something without more research and recommendations from my sys admin friends.

So… after more research, I found this site and a solution in these forums . I’m working it right now.

OH, and I didn’t uninstall IE – I just removed the shortcuts. Apparently you CAN’T uninstall IE. Microsoft is evil, evil, evil.

The house is quiet. Everyone is in bed. I’m writing HTML, PHP, mySQL queries and mucking around in Photoshop.

It’s 10:30 PM. And the emails start coming in

Several from Tiffany, a graphic design artist. Two more from Tracy, our mutual client.

11:30 PM. More new emails. And I notice that May has just signed on to her IM – she’s a programmer.

What do we have in common? We’re all work at home moms. During the day, we make meals, change diapers, do laundry, carpool, run errands, referee sibling battles, comfort boo-boos. Night time is the only uninterrupted time we have to go through emails and really work on projects.

Oh, I hate SPAM. And I get LOTS of it.

I had to change my long time (since 1995) email address of maida AT maida.net because it got so much SPAM.

I use JunkSweep in Outlook, and that gets the bulk of it. I still have to skim through it, though – just in case. I also still have to grab it all and delete it. Hundreds of messages a day.

So, my web hosting company, WestHost finally offered a partial solution to it. Using Real-Time Blackhole List (RBL). I installed that last night!

And, I finally fixed the biggest culprit of all today. We had a contact form on our family website that used the well know MSA formmail script. And some – I think many – SPAMmers were using it to send SPAM through our website. And we would get hundreds of these emails, all day, everyday with the “WWW Form Submission” subject line.

SO… I replaced that form with Tectite’s Formmail PHP script.

Since I did that, I haven’t had an email with the dreaded “WWW Form Submission” subject line. Imagine that. Yahoo!

Your results:
You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 95% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Wash (Ship Pilot) 75% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 70% River (Stowaway) 55% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 50% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 45% Inara Serra (Companion) 45% Alliance 30% A Reaver (Cannibal) 25%

Dependable and trustworthy. You love your significant other and you are a tough cookie when in a conflict.

Click here to take the “Which Serenity character are you?” quiz…

I would so totally use this with a newborn!

Itzbeen Timer When’s the last time your kid pooped, fed, or took medicine?  You may be too sleep-deprived to remember, but the Itzbeen does. Its a must have Dad Gadget and is perfect for Mom’s night off. There’s a button for last diaper, feeding, asleep/awake one custom timer. There’s even a switch for left/right breast for nursing! Now that’s handy! If you go to this link, you can see a 30 second commercial for it.

I have spend more time with php and mySQL in the past few weeks than I have with HTML and Javascript. While I love learning about it, it can get a bit frustrating.

I’m not a code writer. I’m more into configuration and customization of PHP/mySQL programs like WordPress, Simple Machines Forum and so forth. I am doing more and more projects that involve PHP these days. And I like it… much easier for maintenance than regular ol’ HTML files.

But recently I’ve had a rash of odd things happening with programs I have been using for a long time. Programs that I have NEVER had a problem with before, having odd install issues or configuration problems.

The latest was supposed to be a relatively painless switch/upgrade from YaBB Gold 1.1 to SMF. I ran the conversion and install one time to make sure it worked, and it did!

When I tried it again, live, no dice. I actually had to use phpMyAdmin and run SQL queries throughout the upgrade/conversion process. It was UGLY. It works fine now. But still has some oddities going on with certain functions. I don’t know if I will ever figure that out.