January 8, 2007

Dear Sassy: I tried to update and run the Spybot program that you installed on my PC but it keeps giving me an error message “Bad CheckSum.” How do I fix this problem?
~ Spybot with Errors

Dear Spybot: Sassy is SO glad that you are active in keeping spyware off of your computer by updating and running Spybot! Sassy tried to update Spybot and received the same error message that you did. Spybot has come out with a new version (1.4) that must be installed in order to keep up with the new spyware out there. Let Sassy know if you have Spybot so that I can update your program to 1.4.

For those of you that don’t have Spybot on your machine – we need to get this program on your computer. Spybot is a program that eliminates spyware on your machine. Spyware is a type of software that is installed on a computer (usually without the users consent) that tracks information about the user. All of this activity occurs in the background and can slow down the performance of your computer. Sometimes spyware is attached to a valid program that is installed on a computer. Sassy could go on and on about spyware, so if you would like to read more view the wikipedia entry on spyware.

Spyware is not something to be afraid of, we just need to remove it.


Dear Sassy: I’ve noticed less of the brown webpage timeouts recently. Has something changed?
~ Less timeouts in the Library

Dear Timeouts: Great question! We had been experiencing a lot of trouble with the internet before the holidays. Librarians couldn’t get to valid websites to perform research. During the holidays networking has made a few adjustments that should eliminate the brown screen webpage that indicated internet congestion. If you should get the internet congestion error, please let me know and I will inform networking.