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One of my children has done it again. I have a bug in my system and now Michael is going to have to remove everything and reinstall. This happened once before and he was pretty convinced it came from AIM. I don't use AIM a lot, mostly to chat with family members (including my kids.)

After the first time this happened, I didn't download AIM. I only used Express from their website. After nearly a year, one of my kids (who lives out of state) convinced me that I really should just download. So I did. It works fine when "I" use it, but I'm not the only one who uses my computer. All family members at one time or another have gotten this bug (or one like it.) All but Michael. Guess who is the only one who doesn't use AIM ever???

Then one of my children admitted to chatting on AIM with a school friend when the friend sent a message/link with pics. She said when she clicked on it, the computer went ballistic. It in turn, also sent the same message to everyone on her buddy list. I thought I had been pretty clear about not opening links in emails or AIM, but their interpretation was that it was ok if it was from someone they knew.

What really infuriates me is any business that would advertise and use a service that would infiltrate a computer unknowingly in this manner. Oh, and the other thing it does is highlight words throughout both email or any web page you go to. For example, I was reading a blog yesterday and the person had a couple of words highlighted to links she had put on there. But then I noticed there were some highlighted and I could tell they were part of this virus/advertising scam. Most of the pop-ups are for ridiculous things, but occasionally I've noticed them from companies that I thought would be more reputable. Apparently not.

Well, this rambling was merely a warning to those who use AIM. Also to say, that until this is fixed, not sure how much I will post. It takes at least twice as long to do anything on here now. Michael said he'd probably get to this problem within the week.