Monday, June 22, 2009

Stupid Excel Virus Ruined My Weekend

I previously wrote about my insane accounting to keep track of my 7 savings and 3 checking accounts. I don't use financial programs like Quicken or the new-fangled, fancypants online services like Wesabe or Mint. Nope. My insanity is memorialized in my trusty Excel spreadsheet and this blog.

Unfortunatley, looks like at some point, my trusty sidekick became infected with a heuristic virus.



Ugggghhhh! I used my anti-virus program to scan the program and good ol' Norton removed/quarantined the stupid infection. But I couldn't open my spreadsheet anymore. GAAAAAAAHHHH!!!



If that wasn't bad enough, ever since I've discovered my spreadsheet was infected by the virus, some douche-bag in China has been attempting to hack into my computer.

How could this happen to me? I don't download programs, music or movies! When it comes to my computer, I pretty much wear the techno-equivalent of the Jo-Bro purity ring!

I digress, ahem.

The last time I created a "back-up" of my spreadsheet was in January and I've spent the entire weekend re-creating my financial data for the past 6 months. Thank goodness for my blog, since I was able to find most of the info here. I really think there's a special ring of hell for jerks who create computer viruses.

8 comments:

jpkittie said...

that sucks - atleast you were able to get it recreated --- hope the computer problems are over

DogAteMyFinances said...

Google Docs!!!! Then it's safe, but you can also access it from anywhere, and it's always password protected.

Sharon S said...

Hi there-sorry to hear of the computer problems you're having my dear :-( Your weekend away sounds just the ticket I think!!

Christine said...

all hail the blog backup (i've used it many times for that purpose). And china? You must have some good stuff on that computer! lol. Hmmm... thinking Quicken? ;)

mapgirl said...

I second the Google docs. It's not as good as Excel, but v. useful.

I <3 Excel professionally at work, but I use Works at home on my laptop.

Miss M said...

I'd die without my trusty spreadsheet, but I have versions saved in several places as back up. Sorry you got a virus :(

MoneyMateKate said...

I periodically email myself a copy of my important stuff so I'm never out more than a month of data.

As for being hacked...in playing around with my biz website figuring out some code for the SEO stuff I'm trying to effect, Ms. Phone Sex and I discovered that "Turkish Warriorr" (yes, 2 R's twice) had hacked my site at least 3x in 2007 but never did anything to mess it up. He just left some files saying "You've been HACKED by Turkish Warriorr". I felt like I'd been cyber-molested.

Ms. MoneyChat said...

ditto on the google docs. i still use excel but i use google docs merely as a back-up tool to retain copies of my files.

now, all of this talk about being hacked makes me want to get my machine checked.