Here’s another virus story…well not really. Weekend before last I was called over to help an elderly women with her Windows machine. Her screen had gone blank. She was wondering if she had a virus.
Again, her main use of the computer is email–primarily to share jokes and pictures. She just wants that part to work and she doesn’t want to have to learn anything else. She wants to view the computer as an appliance.
However, everyone–including me–has given her plenty of warnings about opening email attachments and viruses, so she’s definitely cautious with the computer. Probably overly so. It didn’t help her confidence though when AOL branded her email address as a spammer and blocked all outgoing emails. And as a beginner it’s easy for her to click on the wrong thing and then go into a spiral of Windows where she gets lost. She’ll catch on, but in the meantime her display is completely blank. So over to her house I went.
What did I find? The video cable on the back of the computer had come loose. No virus here.
Yep, viruses do plenty to shake people’s confidence.