I don’t use a laptop for navigation because it physically isn’t practical on my boat. However, I depend on it for Doppler radar, detailed weather reports, tide information, and inland waterway alerts. I wouldn’t want to go back to relying on VHF and printed publications for that information any more than I would want to give up my chartplotter. It was a real crisis therefore when my computer was brought to its knees by a nasty virus.
I keep my computer pretty well secured but this virus punched right through the protections. I’ve cleaned up a lot of viruses for both myself and friends but this one was beyond me. I was having visions of having to stay in a town, rent a car to get to FedEx or UPS, send off the computer, and then wait for it to come back. I wanted my guy in Maine to work on it as I’ve had poor luck just walking into unknown computer repair places.
I called him up for advice and he had something even better. He emailed me a program which I installed and he then took over the computer from his office in Maine. I watched as the cursor danced over the screen, programs were installed and run, the registry repaired, and the computer restored. It was just like he was sitting there on the boat and I was watching.
It turns out that he now provides a subscription service in which his software checks your computer every time it connects to the Internet and makes sure that the browsers and other potential virus conduits such as Java are all up to date with the latest security patches. If not, he pushes them through to you in the background.
The service costs about what the virus removal would have cost and, best of all, virus removal s are free. The $119 a year it costs is worth it for that alone as insurance. Virus removal can be done remotely, as long as you have an Internet connection.
There may be others providing such services but this is the only one I know of and has my highest recommendation. If you are using the same laptop for navigation and email or other web connections, it is absolutely vital. If you don’t know of such a service, go to:
http://pcrescueme.com
http://pcrescueme.com/plans.html
You don’t want to go through the day of hell I went through before I called him.
I keep my computer pretty well secured but this virus punched right through the protections. I’ve cleaned up a lot of viruses for both myself and friends but this one was beyond me. I was having visions of having to stay in a town, rent a car to get to FedEx or UPS, send off the computer, and then wait for it to come back. I wanted my guy in Maine to work on it as I’ve had poor luck just walking into unknown computer repair places.
I called him up for advice and he had something even better. He emailed me a program which I installed and he then took over the computer from his office in Maine. I watched as the cursor danced over the screen, programs were installed and run, the registry repaired, and the computer restored. It was just like he was sitting there on the boat and I was watching.
It turns out that he now provides a subscription service in which his software checks your computer every time it connects to the Internet and makes sure that the browsers and other potential virus conduits such as Java are all up to date with the latest security patches. If not, he pushes them through to you in the background.
The service costs about what the virus removal would have cost and, best of all, virus removal s are free. The $119 a year it costs is worth it for that alone as insurance. Virus removal can be done remotely, as long as you have an Internet connection.
There may be others providing such services but this is the only one I know of and has my highest recommendation. If you are using the same laptop for navigation and email or other web connections, it is absolutely vital. If you don’t know of such a service, go to:
http://pcrescueme.com
http://pcrescueme.com/plans.html
You don’t want to go through the day of hell I went through before I called him.
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It should be mentioned that at this point one should run Windows Update and download the latest antivirus definitions since they will both be out of date. This methodology has stood us in good stead for many years and seems a near 100% solution to all virus and human error problems. We've also setup the computers of friends and family this way. BTW, we use the (free for non-commercial use) remote control program called TeamViewer to support friends and family for minor issues that don't require an image restore.