As the seconds ticked down, people from across the country rushed to do some last-minute updating of their anti-virus. Egging on their computers to work faster, users performed full scans of their hard drives and registry. Consumers flocked to Microsoft’s update site to get the latest patches, hoping to get them downloaded and installed before time ran out. In homes and offices everywhere, eyes jolted from one side of the monitor to another, looking for more files to back up. In this scurry of confusion, nobody really took the time to read up on the cold, hard facts. According to calculations done using information acquired 24 hours after Conficker.C was scheduled to strike, the chance that you had the virus was less than one-tenth of a percent.

I know. What a waste of time.

On April 1st, I was shocked for two reasons. One, because of the large number of people who contacted me asking how they could find out if they had the virus, and how to remove it, even though this information was easily obtainable using Google; and two, because of the large number of people entirely oblivious to Conficker.C all together. The following is for the ignorant.

The media began mass-broadcasting one day that on April Fool’s Day of 2009, the largest, most destructive virus would rise to lay waste to computers everywhere. Months beforehand, this deadly worm dug its way into Windows XP and Vista computers, capitalizing on a security flaw that Microsoft discovered and patched this past December or January. Millions of computers across the planet remained unpatched, however, as not everyone downloads updates from Microsoft like they should. Then, the media went ahead and told us that on April 1st, all these worms already on our computers would receive instructions from one of approximately 250 captured websites, and carry out what they were made for – to destroy computers worldwide.

So it’s over now. Five days have passed since the long-expected release of an army of destroyers that were supposed to drive us crazy and make us pull our hair out. I specifically said this on March 31st to about twenty of my friends, and I’ll repeat what I said: April 1st will come and go quietly. And essentially, it did – in the United States, at least. China fell victim to the most infected computers because the Chinese have a reputation for using pirated, illegal versions of Microsoft operating systems that are unable to receive updates. An estimated 14% of all infected computers in the world were from China, while less than 2% were from the United States.

So it’s over. The dust has settled. We’re all safe.

April Fools!

… Okay, that was lame. Pretend I never said that.

Most experts believe that the Conficker.C was never intended to have a massive break-out on April 1st. Everyone was too prepared, everyone was too safeguarded, everyone was just plain too ready. Various sources state that the trigger date never actually was April 1st, but some other date all along. Nobody except the masterminds behind the Conficker really knows when this is. I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

Note: All Macs are immune to the Conficker.C worm.

As time progresses, people progress with it. Now in the Internet Age, people have power like they have never had before. With seemingly endless resources available in countless databases right at their fingertips, people have the ability to wipe out the population of a country with something they built in their backyard. Literally.

With the Internet Age came high-technology portable computers and mobile phones capable of accessing the internet anywhere, anytime. As a way to relieve their fear of the thought that their friends might not know where they are, teens now use those annoying social networking sites like MyFace and Spacebook to constantly update their "status" – what they’re doing, where they are, what’s on their mind.

Even though I’m a user of Facebook myself, I never found it that appealing or entertaining. When I first joined, I used to check my account at least once a day. Nowadays, it may be days, even a week, before I check it again.

Then, those dissatisfied with having to summarize their moment in life with one line of text resort to blogging – those endless, could-be English papers that go on forever, talking about the most boring stories of stuff that people just don’t care about.

If you feel the same way about my blog, you may leave now.

I’ve had my website ever since I graduated elementary school, and continued developing it since then. Throughout the multitude of years, I have always been on the lookout for new things to add to my website, and for old things to get rid of. I have "gone with the flow," and adapted my website to fit what was popular at that time.

In the past, I’ve tried blogging before, but I had severe difficulty keeping up. I would always forget to post, or forget that I even had a blog for weeks or months at a time. Now that having a blog seems more like a necessity than an option to keep a website modern, I’ve made a commitment to continue blogging, possibly on a daily basis.

So here it is – my first real blog post. Take the millions of blog entries posted to the internet every day, and add one more to the list. Why? Because I’m modern now.