Human Multitasking
Several incidents in my life demonstrate my consistent inabilities to multitask. While the idea sounds wonderful - who wouldn't want to be able to do many things at once? - I am of an unfortunately blend of random thoughts which yield terrible consequences when attempting to multitask. Last night's adventure, and the reason for this blog update, is more evidence I should stick to getting one thing done at a time.
The adventure began when I decided to install a piece of software from the Internet. Yes, I should have known better. Yes, I should have checked on the Internet to make sure everything was legal and no one had any complaints. However, I was in the middle of writing a paper and was trying to do two things.
After downloading the software, I clicked on the extraction file, and files started being written all over the place. The software asked for permission to install and so I provided it. A momentary thought crossed my mind that this may really be dumb - but we'll save that thought for later when the thought was proven correct.
Immediately after providing access, the command line opened and I noticed files were being copied into the Mozilla directory. The registry was being changed, and there were several other intuitive signs that threw up a huge warning.
Moments after the installation was complete, Windows Defender barked a spyware alert. Sadly, I was too late to fix this because a dozen or more IE browsers started to launch. My word document was stuck because the CPU was pegged at 100%. I clicked to close each browser, only to have IE crash and restart - launching even more browsers.
I tried a vista rollback to see if this would help but my backup plans have always been too sloppy. The rollback was only available for after the spyware installation.
I shut off the machine, restarted it, and entered safe mode so that I could pull off the word document. The document was copied onto a USB flash drive and I went to another machine. The document was completed and I returned to my crippled box hours later.
Vista is wonderful because there are multiple options for safe mode, one option is to start safe mode with networking. Therefore, I was able to get the machine into safe mode and have access to download hijackthis. Hijackthis was installed, run, and I obliterated the nasty spyware.
Lesson learned. I can only do one thing at a time. I am human and will let the machines multitask. Multiswitching, on the other hand, may be more my speed. No. I'll stick to the basics in life. One thing at a time.