We went to the hospital yesterday to meet my mom’s ophthalmologist. That was part of her monthly routine check-up after having Lucentis injection for her AMD treatment on August. The initial schedule was supposed to be on the 10th of November, but since it had been raining hard lately we had to reschedule the appointment until yesterday.

The hospital, Jakarta Eye Center, is about 30 km away from our house and easy to be reached by train since both our house and the hospital are located near the train station. However, during bad weather like this, traveling by train is not a good option. There will be many delays or even cancellations. We tried to wait until the weather was good, but it never happened, it got worse instead.

So yesterday I forced myself to drive her to the hospital under heavy rain. My mom actually didn’t like the idea of me driving in rain, and to tell you the truth I didn’t like it either, but we couldn’t delay it any longer since she ran out of her artificial tear (Hialid 0.1) and started to feel burning sensation in her eye so she needed to get a new prescription.

Anyway, despite all the troubles we went through during our drive to the hospital, we heard good news from her ophthalmologist yesterday. He said my mom’s AMD treatment was showing a great result and her eye was already back and stable to its initial condition (which was after the glaucoma and cataract surgery), praise God. So the doctor changed her monthly check-up into every three month. Her next appointment was set on the first week of February next year, unless she felt something uncommon in her vision or her eye then she needed to see him immediately.

She also got a new prescription for her artificial tear and it’s copy until the next three months. Her ophthalmologist advised her to slowly reduce her Hialid 0.1 dosage from 6 times a day (current dosage) to whatever level she feels comfortable. His recommendation was to reduce it gradually until only three times a day but it depends on my mom’s eye reaction. That’s a really good news for us and we’re so happy to hear them!

I got a call from my long lost high school friend last week. We lost contact since graduation until recently reconnected via Facebook and she called to ask if I want to volunteer for the reunion committee. She and a few other friends were planning on having a reunion for our class on January. It’s going to be a 20 year high school reunion.

My first reaction was hah? It can’t be that long! She laughed, “Oh yes, it’s been that long!” Then we talked about our family, kids, etc. She’s been married for eighteen years, has two kids, the eldest is entering high school next year while the youngest is in 6th grade. Well, I guess she’s right, it’s been that long.

I told her I would not have time to become a reunion committee as I’ve been busy with my baby. She asked if I could come to the reunion then. I just laughed! Honestly, until now I’m not sure if I want to go to the reunion or not. After we hanged up suddenly I feel old, lol.

I was using my computer the other day when suddenly a message appeared on my screen saying

microsoft visual c++ runtime library buffer overrun detected

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data/csrss.exe

A buffer overrun has been detected which has corrupted the program’s internal state. The program cannot safely continue execution and must now be terminted.

I could see there was something not right in that message. File csrss.exe was a legitimate Windows core system file but it supposed to be located in Windows\System32 not in Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data. So I immediately suspected my computer was infected by virus or spyware or malware or whatever it was called (I still don’t understand the difference between them).

I knew there was an easy, fast, reliable and (the most important was) FREE way to handle computer problems in my house. Easy because all I have to do is call the computer repairman, fast because he usually knows what to do, reliable because he’s done it so many times and FREE because he is my brother (or his friends), lol. But no, this time I chose the hardest way. I tried to solve them by myself, so I started to do some search (a lot of search to be exact) on Google instead.

After two days (yes that long) of trying several free anti-virus, anti spyware and anti-malware downloaded from the net, finally, I could solve the problem. Apparently my computer was infected with Trojan Agent and thankfully Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware could detect and kill it for free, here’s the log file.

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware 1.41
Database version: 2775
Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2

10/31/2009 11:04:29 PM
mbam-log-2009-10-31 (23-04-29).txt

Scan type: Full Scan (D:\|)
Objects scanned: 132807
Time elapsed: 28 minute(s), 28 second(s)

Memory Processes Infected: 1
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 1
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 3

Memory Processes Infected:
D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\csrss.exe (Trojan.Agent) -> Unloaded process successfully.

Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Infected:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\Csrss (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Registry Values Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Files Infected:
D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\csrss.exe (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
D:\Documents and Settings\Elle\Local Settings\Temp\csrss2.dll (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
D:\WINDOWS\system32\csrss2.dll (Trojan.Agent) -> Delete on reboot.

There were other programs that could detect the Trojan but they asked me to register (read: pay) before I could use to remove it, so I skipped them. Other programs failed to detect it but found other types of infections instead, most were found in my browser’s cookies.

Satisfied with my accomplishment, I called my brother to brag about it.