This Midnight Pool of Data

Dunno. That's sounded like a cool way to describe the situation. All of my programming work that I ever did (with the exception of BASIC in 5th grade) is stored on this computer. That's about 3 years worth of VB.net, C++, C#, as well as an innumberable number of photo editing projects and FlashMX documents. I'm going to back up all my work to about 4 or 5 DVDs first thing tomorrow morning.

My computer has been acting up lately. First, programs would randomly glitch out after the computer had been on a while. Then, several of my most valued programs (in usefulness, not $$$) stopped working for about an hour. My friend told me that we probably had spyware.

OMG. DUH.

I had completely forgotten how overconfident I was about spyware, since we'd never had a problem with it before...WAH! I downloaded SpyBot-Search&Destroy, which I've found to be one of the best spyware removers out there...and this one's free! If you have Norton or McAfee, keep it at all costs. That will save you sooo much trouble.

Continuing, I removed all 312 spyware-infected files from our computer. Thats when the really random stuff started to happen. Today, as a matter of fact. The screen had a hard time rendering on the y-axis (straight up and down), so scrolling or dragging windows along that plane was really choppy. My other friend told me that it was probably either my drivers, or...*scary music*...BIOS issues. Lord have mercy.

For those of you who don't know, a BIOS issue means that you're pretty much screwed. I haven't figured out if that's what it is yet, but it's not the drivers; the screen is fine now. I turned off my computer at about 9PM to go watch "Who Wants to be a Superhero?" (SUCH a corny show, by the way, I can't even TELL you.) At 10 (a half hour ago) I started the computer back up, typed in my password, and...the screen acted like it was logging off of my account and put me back at the account selection screen. By this time, my head is screaming "BIOS!!! BIOS!!!". My Dad's account was the only one that worked, strangely enough. My friend wasn't there to help me, (Let's clear something up: I'm a computer geek. I am WAY above the average computer user knowledge-wise. My friend did a few IT jobs, and has been at it longer. The hardware just confuses me sometimes....just so we're clear?) so I was forced to log off and try again. Praying all the while, I tried logging in again, vowing to back up all my data the first thing I could tomorrow. Lo and behold...my prayers were answered! Thank you, God! I'm now posting this story of horror and triumph...and the power of prayer combined with backups...on my own account.

I will hunt you down and DESTROY YOU if you do not go out and back up all your documents. It's quite simple, actually:

(Windows XP Instructions)
Get a DVD burner.
Get some blank DVDs that are compatible with your burner.
Go to "C:/Documents and Settings/". You should see a folder with your account name.
Find any folders that you wish to back up, and burn them to the DVD.
Note: If you have less than 2GB of files, then just use a few CDs.
That easy. I didn't even need to tell you. Go ye, therefore, BACK UP THOSE FILES.

(Older Windows Instructions)
Get a new computer. You can't possibly have anything worth backing up on that old '95?

(Mac OS Instructions)
Fill computer with gasoline, and make sure your camera's rolling as you toss a LIT match on the computer. Put on YouTube and send me a link, while you're at it...Macintosh is of the devil. (And what's up with a BITE out of their logo?)

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