At Home In The Woods

[dstig1]

Ouch. Sounds like a good week to forget...

A friend had that same virus a few weeks back and it was awful to scrub out. A few computer experts looked at it and said it was really nasty. It made several copies of itself and if you tried to delete one it would make more. It was designed with self defense built in to block the typical ways to fix these issues. They ended up scrubbing the disk and reinstalling, but were able to save data files (pics, documents, etc)

I wish you better luck for the coming week...

 

[dave1949]

Yes, forget last week.

Obed, I had the same issue with a dual fuel range/oven. The backs of ranges aren't standardized I guess. My gas line just barely clears some sheet metal on the back of the range with my leveling legs all the way up. Very stupid. I would have thought as dangerous as gas could be, there would be some standards.

After using the gas (propane) range for a couple years, my wife told me she isn't sure she likes it as well as the ceramic cooktop we had in the last house. I like the gas, but I would be sure to get a range top that the grill(s) cover the entire surface. I like that for being able to slide pans around anywhere on the range top.

You are very close to moving in - yahoo.
Dave.

 

[jinman]

Obed, I had the same virus get me on my desktop last week. It wiped out my computer so bad that it would not even boot up in safe mode or any other mode. I had to boot it from the original Windows XP installation disc and do a complete new install. I lost all my Outlook emails and address book and have not yet recovered them. Luckily, I have internet shortcuts and that seems to be working flawlessly. I've had similar viruses before, but this is first one I've had that completely destroyed my system files.

 

[ruralruss]

Ice Storm

On Wednesday my work laptop got an ugly virus. The virus tried to claim it was an anti-virus package, that my computer was infected, and wanted me to enter my credit card information so it could "fix the virus". That was the low point in my week. My notebook had to be rebuilt which meant I would not complete my required projects for my job before I went on vacation this Monday. The result is I will have to work while I am on vacation. Bummer.

Wednesday night we got the forecasted freezing rain. I really needed to get to work to get a new laptop so I could start configuring it in hopes of salvaging some of my upcoming vacation. I had parked my car at the bottom of the steep hill that runs to our house so that I could get to work on Thursday. I put some plastic over the driver's door so it wouldn't freeze shut.

Road conditions were slick but seemed manageable. However, about a 1/2 mile from my house, as I went over a hill I saw that the road was solid ice on the downhill slope. I wasn't going fast but there was no way to stop. As I slid down the hill, I knew I couldn't stop so I then started looking for the least damaging thing I could try to run into. I slid through the stop sign and ran into the ditch across the intersecting street. My car appeared undamaged but I had taken out a mailbox.

There was no way to get the car out of the ditch until the ice thawed. I talked to the owners of the mailbox and told them I would repair it on Saturday. So I hiked through the woods back home. Late in the afternoon after the ice had thawed, my wife and I pulled my car out of the ditch using my pickup truck and a chain.

Needless to say, with all the ice, we didn't have any workers make it to our house on Thursday.

On Saturday I replaced the mailbox post and reattached the mailbox. When I had dug the post hole 18" deep, I hit a large rock. I ended up chipping pieces off the rock with my digging bar until I could make the post hole 24" deep. Also, while digging the post hole, one of the wooden handles on my post hole diggers cracked where it was bolted onto the diggers. So I cut off 4" of the handle, drilled a couple holes through the remaining handle and bolted the shortened handle onto the post hole diggers. Fortunately, I had all the tools I needed with me and was able to finish the job in one trip.

Unfortunately getting a virus now days is not a matter of if but rather when. The ones I commonly see are either drive by downloads or social engineering tricks. The one you got was a combination of both.

I have yet to find an infection that MalewareBytes will not fix (and it is free as well). I keep it on a thumb drive. I power the computer down by holding the power button until the computer is off. I do not interact or try to gracefully shut it down. Then I go to a known non infected computer and get the latest definitions. I do that by starting MalewareBytes and having it update. Then I copy the rules.ref file to the thumb drive. This file is in different places depending OS and your security settings. Take the computer off any network and then start in safe mode. Install MalewareBytes and search for where the rules.ref file is and copy the most recent rules.ref file over it. Run MalwareBytes and let it repair any problems it may have found. Re-start the computer normally and run it again. After this it is common that you can not connect to the internet because the virus sets up a proxy server. Go to Internet Options/Connections then lan settings button. If your company uses a proxy you will have to ask them the settings otherwise make sure the "use proxy server ..." check box is not checked.

I can't assure you that this will always work but I have had good luck with it.

Russ

 

[Obed]

On Saturday the hardwood flooring crew put sealer on the floors. These pictures were taken Sunday as I walked around in my sock feet. We have decided to go with a clear finish instead of staining the red oak flooring. This morning they put on the first coat of polyurethane. We weren't sure whether we wanted semi-gloss or satin finish. So the hw guy put on semi-gloss everywhere except for 1/3 of the living room where he put satin finish. Tomorrow morning my wife and I will look at the finishes and will pick semi-gloss or satin. Tomorrow the hw guy will put on the final finish.

If you look at the closets and doorways you will see there are no thresholds. That makes sweeping and cleaning easier. In our last house I installed laminate flooring and didn't put in thresholds in the doorways. It was really tough to get the tongue and groove boards cut and installed around the doorway openings. I told my wife that if I ever installed flooring again, I would put thresholds in the door openings. The hardwood flooring guy preferred putting the flooring down without thresholds. He's happy. My wife is happy. And I'm happy because I didn't have to do the work.

The glass door for the dining room/office arrived and was installed by the trim carpenter Friday. It will need painting. My wife is debating whether we will bring back the painters to finish up the shoe moulding and touch-ups or whether she will do the remaining painting herself.

 

[Obed]

The trim carpenter installed a barricade across the back door that leads to the unfinished back porch. A physical barrier is required by the county if we are to occupy the house while the back porch is unfinished.

 

[Obed]

My wife will be ordering door knob and lock hardware for the house tomorrow. We are planning to put deadbolts with keyholes on both sides on every exterior grade door that has a window beside the deadbolt. The exterior grade doors that do not have windows beside them will only have a keyhole on one side of the deadbolt. We are installing an exterior grade door at the top of the basement stairwell; this door will have a deadbolt. We aren't installing a deadbolt in the exterior grade door between the kitchen and the garage at this time. We might add that later if we decide there's a real need.

We will be ordering one extra exterior door knob, one extra interior locking door knob, and one extra non-locking interior door knob.

We plan to shop for a keyless deadbolt for the door to the back porch after we move into the house. For now, we will install a regular deadbolt in this door. When we replace the deadbolt with keyless deadbolt, we will keep that deadbolt for a spare.

The Schlage door knobs that we ordered and had installed for the exterior doors have an "emergency exit" feature that I despise.

Here's the verbage from the FAQ on the Schlage website:
Why does the interior knob or lever allow the latch to be retracted and the door opened, even when the turnpiece is in the horizontal locked position?
This is an emergency exit feature which permits quick exit without the necessity of stopping to unlock the door. This feature cannot be defeated. Locking knob sets (but not lever sets) are available without this function.

If the the door knob is locked, you can still turn the handle and open the "locked" door if you are inside the house. When I lock the door, I don't want to be able to turn the door knob because that's how I determine if the door is locked or unlocked. My mom's previous house had the "emergency exit" door knobs and I would lock myself out because I would exit the house while not realizing that the door was really locked. In our new house, I almost locked myself out of the house on several occasions.

My wife talked to our building supplier; we are going to return all the door knobs for the 7 exterior doors and replace them with normal door knobs. The building supply sales rep is going to re-key all the new doorknobs so that the deadbolts and door knobs all use the same key. Unfortunately, all the Schlage lever type door knobs have the emergency exit feature so we will have to put a round door knob on the back porch door instead of a lever. I wanted a lever door handle on the back porch door to make it easier to open the door when carrying stuff through that door like steaks and burgers from the grill. Now we'll have to live with a round door knob. This issue alone might have made me choose a different door knob company had I known about this consideration at the beginning.

 

[dcyrilc]

Looks like you're really getting close. Do you think there's any chance you might be able to have Christmas in the house? Or is 4 days just too short to get the CO?

Can you tell I'm getting excited for you?

 

[eepete]

About 2 weeks after we got all our door hardware, that style was discontinued. So we ran around to a number of stores and scrounged up a few more. We had the normal moving door handles, and the stationary ones use for pull-open closets. The pull open closet ones were barely holding together due to bad design. I think they were Quickset, got 6 pin locks for all the exteriors stuff.

We've had one failure, and use a spare. I'll have to get a local shop to do a tricky weld to repair it.

So consider getting a spare of the exterior locks units and the interior units (both locked for baths and "normal" non locks) so if something breaks in 5-10 years, you have a replacement. Also think about getting/putting door handles for your unfinished upstairs and/or basement doors where you could harvest a spare for 1st floor in a pinch.

In a similar vein, hope you got some spare pieces of flooring wood in case some gets damaged and you need to fix it.

Pete

 

[LogChain]

My wife talked to our building supplier; we are going to return all the door knobs for the 7 exterior doors and replace them with normal door knobs. The building supply sales rep is going to re-key all the new doorknobs so that the deadbolts and door knobs all use the same key. Unfortunately, all the Schlage lever type door knobs have the emergency exit feature so we will have to put a round door knob on the back porch door instead of a lever. I wanted a lever door handle on the back porch door to make it easier to open the door when carrying stuff through that door like steaks and burgers from the grill. Now we'll have to live with a round door knob. This issue alone might have made me choose a different door knob company had I known about this consideration at the beginning.

Obed,

I'm sure you're aware of the Schlage Electronic Keypad Locks with lever handles (e.g., FE595VCAM619ACC) that run ~$125 at Lowe's, HD, and Amazon. I and my 84-year-old mom have found just one of these on a single, less used, exterior door extremely convenient. We've never had a lockout at the her house, and I've never needed a key to get in. The keypad lock is keyed alike with all the other standard, lockout-prone, lever-handled, Schlage exterior locksets and can be opened with the same key if desired. We've used the keypad lock for nearly 2 years, and the original standard 9V batttery is still working fine.

You might consider keeping all but one of your standard lever-handled exterior locksets and replacing that one with a keyed-alike, keypad lock. Of the many electronic gadget available for the home and competing for your dollars, the Schlage Keypad Lock desires consideration. Just some thoughts ...


- LogChain