Archive for August, 2007

A sign from the gods of technology


On the day my MacBook Pro is due to arrive I wake up to discover a virus has infiltrated my beloved’s favourite game on the desktop PC, Half-Life 2.

It’s not going to be at all hard to remove the troublemaker but the game itself and all D’s saved plays are going to have to be wiped as well as the virus. The baby nearly always has to go along with the bathwater where virus attacks are concerned, if only to be err on the side of extra caution.

I suspect the virus came on board through Steam, the required add-on for all Sierra games that sits in the system tray and acts to ensure gamers are using legal copies of games. Originally, that was its primary function but it has over the past couple of years also downloaded updates and add-ons for the game itself. Like many Windows applications that are designed to sit in memory all the time even when not in use, Steam is a resource hog. I also loathe the fact that I paid a tidy sum for Half-Life 2 when it came out, as a Yule present for my man, only to discover he had to jump through hoops just to register in order to start playing the game and had to wait about three hours while essential parts of the game not included on the DVD were downloaded to the hard drive.

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Friday, August 3rd, 2007