So, this weekend I got hit by something called the av.exe virus on my Netbook. (My main computer is dragging along due to not having a sufficient hard drive due to complications in imaging the existing drive. Thank-you very much Dell Computers – NOT!) This is an old-school virus. It is nasty. It goes back to the days when viruses were just destructive instead of trying to self-propagate.
The worst part of this? I keep my stuff up-to-date and pay Trend Micro for virus protection. Trend Micro is not the only company that is not protecting against this gem. Kaspersky isn’t. Norton isn’t. None of the major anti-virus companies are. You get infected despite doing everything right. If I can get infected, anyone can. And my husband, the networking / security expert, agrees with that assessment. (Let’s not mention that I can attract weirdness in all my life.)
So, what did it take to rid myself of this monstrosity? I started at Virus Removal Guru and followed their instructions. This is NOT a short – or even complete – process. It took all day Sunday – after I discovered I was infected. The muttering from my expert husband was interesting. Oh, by the way, if you get this, you need access to an uninfected machine to fix it and continue searching. DH used this for the manual part. This is mutating fast, so any instructions written up are going to be subject to constant change.
From DH, the expert, it seems to be traveling via Adobe products – .pdf, flash, etc. So, be very, very careful opening anything of that sort.
How did I know I was infected? Suddenly a very Windows looking window opened up claiming it was scanning for viruses. Since I run PC-Cillin I knew this was just not right. Firewalls don’t stop this nasty thing either. The common consensus? If you get this, you are screwed.
I’m a little bit of a luddite when it comes to ebooks. This is partially due to why I’ve been on a blogging break – and why I’m still fighting with technology right now. I do, however, believe they have a place in an avid readers life.
First, why am I a luddite? Well, the failure of my backup drive in the midst of a major data transfer which led to the loss of much data. I was trying to make room on my too small main hard drive. The back-up drive died between the time of it doing its back-up and the creation of my secondary back-up. I lost a lot of data. (I am also attempting to replace this drive. This means computers aren’t always available for use. More on this later.)
Now, some sellers do allow you to grab your ebooks more than once from their servers – and don’t limit your device usage too much. One of the reasons I am very comfortable with Audible.com is because they store my audiobooks so I can get them again. This is not true for all of them – and some are stupid about DRM.
Audible.com handles DRM issues well. When my Creative Zen died (wail), and I had to migrate to Zune, I didn’t have any trouble deactivating my Creative Zen and activating my new Zune. Not that it matters at the moment since I can’t download my podcasts until this hard drive is replaced. I have heard people have had issues with digital editions when they wanted to switch devices – not exactly pirating a book.
This insistence on control of device and format could easily lead to the same disasters that hurt the music industry bigwigs. Now, there are some major genre players who have seemingly “got it.” Harlequin and Baen are both early adopters who have actually done some interesting and innovative things.
Baen lets readers read a selection of free books – or chapters – online in order to entice readers to go out and buy the whole book or the rest of the series. Of course, most readers will want that first book too.
Harlequin has also embraced ebooks. They have been slowly creating a new way to buy their limited number publications as ebooks. They have also created an online exclusive line with Nocturne Bites. I know I have picked up a Harlequin series and found that the other books are not available unless I want to spend a lot more money than I budget for my pleasure reading.
Do you know of any publishing houses that are taking advantage of the ebook – or that are just trying to tie their books up even tighter in DRM?
Amazon.com, however, has limited ebooks to only the Kindle. I read on my Palm. I like my Palm as a reader because it has a few other applications I use regularly. I wasn’t planning on switching until the new Palm Pre phones come down in price. Mobipocket is owned by Amazon, by the way, and is the underlying technology for Kindle books. They put proprietary code on top to prevent other devices from using the books sold specifically for the Kindle. I was surprised by this. I like Amazon. I love Amazon. But I was disappointed with their decision. (I completely get it on a business level. I just wish they had allowed me to continue using my Palm and just added functionality for Kindle users.)
Now, I’ve been reading telereader.com – a blog devoted to ebooks, and have more to say about ebooks in the near future. But I want to take an opportunity to complain about technology.
I have a Dell Inspiron that I am trying to upgrade the hard drive on. It has something called Media Direct that is making the traditional imaging software throw up on itself. I have had supergeeks look at it and they are getting into the area of technological esoterica to fix it. This includes weird hardware they must dig out of their collections. Why do we make it so hard for people to make what should be easy changes?
Due to some computer issues, I am going to take a short blogging hiatus. It shouldn’t be more than 2 weeks – hopefully much shorter!
