Y’know what?
I never got touched by the Blaster worm that’s taking down machines all over the place (yes, I own a PC as well as a Mac).
Y’know why?
When that little “Windows Update” icon blinks at me on my PC, I pay attention to it, download, and install the updates. It’s a pain in the butt, especially since there seems to be a new “cricital update” every week, but sometimes those critical updates really are critical.
I’m sorry that this is hitting so many people. But at the same time — look, you’re dealing with Microsoft software. Bugs aren’t an unfortunate side effect, they’re a gaurantee. The patch for this particular exploit has been available for over a month on Microsoft’s site. Rant at Microsoft all you want for writing shitty software (it’s often well deserved), but at least in this instance, the fix was discovered, publicized, and patched in plenty of time to protect your computers well before Blaster was released.
Yeah, so I’m a little snarky this evening. I spent all day barely restraining myself from beating the ever-loving crap out of my work PC for various other bugs and oddities, which has left me in no great frame of mind when it comes to PCs or Microsoft in general. But at least in this one instance, they did what they could.
In all the years I’ve had a computer I’ve updated Windows twice. Rick did it for me about a year ago when he was working on my computer. And I did it 3 days ago because a little voice in my head said update NOW.
I have no idea why it popped into my head but it did, and I always follow my little voice. Call it what you will, ESP? Woman’s Intuition? Or a Guardian Angel, I don’t care, whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you.
I didn’t get hit by the nasty Blaster worm either. I did do an update. I usually delay the updates a day or so. I’m not like you, I don’t do them quickly. And just to make sure my computer was safeguarded, I did do the individual security patch update. Everything’s okay on my end. Thank goodness.