Automatic Health Card

January 17, 2010 by Bambit · 1 Comment
Filed under: Workstuff 

One of the medical benefits we have at the office is a card that we were issued. It looks like an ATM card and works pretty much the same as one, except it didn’t have any money in it. At first we did not understand how this health savings account worked, thinking that we had to deposit money into the card so that it would work. I put mine away in my drawer, thinking that it was just taking up space in my wallet.

Our boss clarified that bit for us. What we could do with the card was show it at any accredited hospital during an emergency and the hospital would either swipe the card at their terminals or call the health card provider who will verify that we are indeed bona fide members of the program. The hospital will then treat us and pass on the charges to the card provider. We could practically walk out of the hospital after the treatment, without shelling out any cash.

Sounds good, but honestly, I really don’t want the opportunity to put the card to the test.

When a computer gets a cold…

January 17, 2010 by Bambit · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Techstuff 

Some time after Christmas a photographer friend of mine issued an S.O.S. Her computer had become infected with a virus, and apparently the antivirus software that she had on it could not remove the infection. She contacted me online to ask if I could help her, and of course I said I would.

I told her to bring the sick computer to our house, lock, stock and huge widescreen monitor, so I could apply the latest in fumigation techniques that I learned from our technical department.

Me on Bangge's Computer

The computer had one of those free downloadable antivirus programs that really didn’t do much especially if the signatures weren’t regularly updated and a daily full scan was not run. There were other ways of getting a virus, most common of which is through removable drives, which is how my friend’s computer got infected.

The virus hid all her photo folders, which to my friend looked like they were deleted. The virus also hid the Tools > Folder Options link from the File Manager, which removed the ability to unhide the folders.

Short story is, I installed a Kaspersky trial version, ran updates, ran all possible scans and in the end managed to get the virus out, the folders back, making my friend so happy she brought me a huge bag of goodies from Pan de Pugon.

Yummy! :D