Computer slowing up?  Pop ups got you down?   Download Ad Aware! I started out the other night on Liz's computer, which hadn't been virus protected in the four years she's had it.  After exposure to college dorm ethernet, internet in Japan, and now broadband at home, her computer had become a veritable hornet's next of spyware, malware, and just all sorts of nasty critters.  One sweep of Ad-Aware found over 500 items that shouldn't be there, like active spyware and popup programs in her memory and even worse all sorts of trash in her registry.  Now... clean as a whistle!   I did the same thing with my GM computer, which is supposed to be swept for all these things with expensive enterprise wide virus scans, etc...   250+ Items.  It also got rid of this annoying Internet Optimizer code that hijacked my IE error screen, so every time I went to an internet it couldn't find, I got sent to a "search" screen that was a popup nightmare.  This was especially annoying b/c, with a wireless connection, you tend to get knocked off sometimes and that error screen comes up a lot. 

But, the real test was on my home computer, which had a corrupt registry that was preventing me from loading Internet Explorer at all.  After a year of not being able to use IE...   BAM, it was up and running in no time and gone were the over 600 critters that shouldn't have been there.  This program is sweet, and you should get it.

I was a little overzealous with the plastic utensils at lunch today, causing my fork to break and slice my finger. 

Now we have to reset that sign:

General Motors Asset Management:  0  days without an onsite injury.

This isn't my car.  My car didn't have snow on it because I had just used it, so I scraped this into the car in front of me.  :)

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And now, a brief commercial break.  I just want to take some time to promote my career Q&A site for college students, Find My Path (www.findmypath.com).  Over the holidays, I'm really going to ramp up promotion now that I've got a little buildup of content to hit the ground running with.  I'll be mass mailing to lots of career counseling professionals and talking about it wherever I can. 

I would appreciate it if you could help spread the word.  College students have lots of career questions, and those that don't would benefit from hearing the questions being asked by their peers.  This is a great forum to get questions answered and I'm very proud of it.  Please pass this site on to teachers, students, anyone you can think of. 

Thanks,

Charlie

Last night was yet another Fordham Young Alumni Third Thursday Happy Hour.  This one was a benefit organized by the Young Alumni Committee (see left) for Toys for Tots.  We didn't get the same kind of turnout we did last year, but it was still a blast.  I think a lot of people don't show because they don't know who else might be coming, but for the people that went, we were at O'Flahertys from about 6:30 to midnight.  Some of us partied harder than others...   I think the highlight of the night was introducing Jillian to Kristin Naz.  They're both going to be in the same teaching in Hungary program next year, and they hit it off tremendously.  Its funny, because Amanda was upset that the turnout was less than expected, but I think that seeing just this one connection was worth everyone's participation for the entire night.  Its about the quality, not the quantity.  Plus, I was glad to see Kristin there, because I hadn't seen her in a while and her work schedule is usually pretty ridiculous.

Me, Samara, Trevor and Ryan shot some rounds of pool as well. 

And, better late than never, Kat Bride graced us with her presence after work.  I think this is an interesting shot...  perhaps its the combo of the colors and the art behind her...

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