Of Monitors and Bonzai Buddy

I work at a school and it sometimes amazes me what people are capable of.
I got a call the other day from a teacher who runs a computer lab here. Several of the computers, including her own, were crashing and freezing for no reason. I went down and looked at the student computers first, and after removing bonzai buddy, napster, gator, and other choice programs they seemed to work about as well as a 486 can.
I then went to the teachers and asked her how her problems began. "Well I was typing in Word and the screen froze, so I turned the screen off and left it for about half an hour and when I came back and turned the screen back on it was still frozen."
Thinking that strange I asked her if she turned it off or pressed the reset button. She then pointed to the power button on the monitor! I explained that in the future she should restart the computer itself, rather than the "screen". As I sat down at her computer she added on final little factlet, "Well this all started a few days ago after I installed Bonzai Buddy, could that have something to do with it?"

Students doing this stuff is one thing, but the staff knows they shouldnt be installing any POS program they get off the net...

Ah the Bonzi Buddy. Now there's something we can all agree to hate. :D :D :D

Maybe we should request that antivirus vendors add it to their kill!

I had to kill that sucker for my mom. She puts every piece of crapware on her PC and wonders why it's so flakey, then I have to come and fix it. Guess it's a good excuse to get me to visit though.

Maybe she's really a great tech and knows every piece of garbageware that will hose her system and puts it on just so I can come to see her cause she loves me. :confused: :D

ahhh Bonzi Buddy great prank software :D

I think ill install it on my boss's system :D

humm maybe not ill have to fix it <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

bonzi buddy....hmmm too many problems to list with that crapware

Not running any kind of security programs at the school?
My high school was running fortres, for the most part it stopped all the junk software that students installed, except for meself, I was assisting the computer tech. I figured if something happened to the machine, I would be the one to have to fix it, so why not have some fun while breaking it :D

school comp security programs just add to the fun. :)

I had a guy yesterday who had his homepage set to gohip.com! When I tried to convince him that this is what was causing his problems(signiture line in his email etc) he stormed out of my office cusing me the whole way. He apparently has some weird affinity for gohip. Needless to say, 2hours later he was back asking for my help to remove it because he needed his computer to get his work done. I absolutely love manually going through the registry deleting the 50 or so enrties that it adds.

[quote] By downloading the GoHip! BROWSER ENHANCEMENT, you understand that these changes cannot be reversed without running the removal executable that can be found at: <a href="http://www.gohip.com/remove_browser_enhancement.html." target="_blank">http://www.gohip.com/remove_browser_enhancement.html.</a> If you try to change the items above manually, your changes will be lost when you reboot or turn off your computer.<hr></blockquote>

Directly from gohips site!

Well the problem with the security is the fact that different measures had been tried over the years, sometimes programs, other times windows policies. These computers were then ghosted with this mishmash of stuff on 'em so they security measures will sometimes cancel each other out. Really screwed up.
Most of us have been working in the IT dept. for under a year so we are still creating newer ghost images and getting a handle on this mazelike setup of serverbased and client based stuff.

BonziBuddy actually used to be good. You know, really early, when it was Peedy the parrot, and tehre weren't so many ads. Now it's just pure adware...but I was running it for a while and liked it until one day I downloaded the 'update' :rolleyes: :mad:

For those less than savvy about crapware, what exactly does bonzai buddy do or supposed to do?

[quote]Originally posted by Darksteel:
<strong>For those less than savvy about crapware, what exactly does bonzai buddy do or supposed to do?</strong><hr></blockquote>

He makes jokes and you can make him say stuff. His jokes are kind of lame but it's possible to reprogram him.

I have spent far too much time cleaning up problems caused by Gator or Bonzai Buddy. I started telling the person's manager every time it happened but they kept blowing me off and telling me that it wasn't important enough for them to approach their employees about. I mean, WTF! Like the money the company spends to have me come out and undo the mess every time it happens is not important! No wonder their company stock is on the toilet.

I have started noting it on the trouble ticket every time it happens. Now they will see in hours and dollars/cents how important the problem is.'

Thanks for the rant.

[quote]Originally posted by KINGofBLEH:
<strong>I have spent far too much time cleaning up problems caused by Gator or Bonzai Buddy. I started telling the person's manager every time it happened but they kept blowing me off and telling me that it wasn't important enough for them to approach their employees about. I mean, WTF! Like the money the company spends to have me come out and undo the mess every time it happens is not important! No wonder their company stock is on the toilet.

I have started noting it on the trouble ticket every time it happens. Now they will see in hours and dollars/cents how important the problem is.'

Thanks for the rant.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Just goes to show how businesses under-value computer techs.

[quote]Originally posted by KINGofBLEH:
<strong>I have started noting it on the trouble ticket every time it happens. Now they will see in hours and dollars/cents how important the problem is.'

Thanks for the rant.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Sounds like job security to me.

How meany of you are in control of the FireWall ?
Most of them are able to block ip's.
Start by Bonzi (If I will ever put my hands on him parrot/purple gorila or it's creators they will make for fish bait)
Then Gator, and the rest of the ScamWeres.
Add ZD and download.com and all the rest of places where people can get hold of "free softwares".
Block any port you don't like. IRC, and such.
Block Block Block !!!

I mighe be sounding like the BOFH but this is the first step in blocking this ****.

Commet cursor, p0rn sites....

[quote]Originally posted by Quiet Thunder:
<strong>

Sounds like job security to me.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That's a 2-edged sword. They might decide it's too expensive to manage and outsource IT altogether. ;)

No worries, I'll just switch to contract work for my company. I'd love it!!! :D :D :cool:

[quote]Most of them are able to block ip's.
Start by Bonzi (If I will ever put my hands on him parrot/purple gorila or it's creators they will make for fish bait)
Then Gator, and the rest of the ScamWeres.
Add ZD and download.com and all the rest of places where people can get hold of "free softwares".
Block any port you don't like. IRC, and such.
Block Block Block !!! <hr></blockquote>

I'm with you. After a virus slipped by because someone though they were "Loved", I block just about everything-web sites you mentioned, even email. So forget about .exe, .pif, .vbs, .bat, .scr, etc (anything that could remotely be entertaining). You can have Word docs and Excel docs because that is all you should be looking at all day anyway.
It may be sterile but we tried the old "Sign this understanding regarding opening attachments and going to unauthorized sites, yada, yada." We were trying to be a little bit Worker friendly, giving them some trust and responsibility.
Guess what? That does not work and creates headaches. So the best part is when these viruses are being passed around via email, I don't have to worry about it. Not because I know they will abide by the rules but because they don't really have the chance to obey the policy.

Yep,
Let's not forget about the Email server.
Filters, Black Holes, RBL lists.

there are also several snifers you can run on the network that will go computer to computer looking for not alowd material. some can even check pictures for the %% of "Pink" colors in them.....