I spent the previous five days sick in bed with what turned out to be just a plain old virus, nothing alarming.
But the virus my laptop caught has resisted all efforts to treat it so far. My neighbor Luke, a computer fixer, says it's the worst case he's seen.
His laptop had the same virus -- actually, he calls it "malware" -- awhile ago, but Luke was able to heal it by doing some mysterious procedure on the hard drive.
This time, that hasn't worked, and my laptop remains in intensive care. It's only a year and a half old. And yes, it had the recommended virus protections.
I'm trying to put out the e-Alert on Luke's tiny netbook -- a challenge, to say the least.
I hope my flu shot will work better than the protection I put on the computer.