I've Been Sick With A Computer Virus

I'm so glad to be back online. The backlog of things I have been missing out on this last month is crazy!! For those of you that don't know, last month I made a monumental mistake that cost me $80 and a month of no computer access.
The short version of my story... I had just logged on to check my email back in the beginning of December when a little bubble came up from my anti-virus program stating that the latest scan had discovered a trojan, and needed permission for removal. I clicked the bubble. BIG mistake.
As soon as the "scanner" came up, I realized I had been tricked, the program was not MY anti-virus, and that the bubble was only a pop-up that was disguised as my own anti-virus. I tried to immediately terminate the program, but it was too late. It had installed a PUP on my computer under the icon "system tool 2010". And it was blocked my own anti-virus software and windows defender.
I tried rebooting my computer to no avail. In fact, that lead my desktop background to be converted a rather scary-looking blue screen that proclaimed my computer was infected, and that I needed to pay the scareware"company" to have it removed. Oh shit. I. Really. Messed. Up.
Of course, I didn't want to completely erase all my memory to get it off, and I don't know much about the technical side of computers, so off to the shop it went. What I thought would be only a few short days, turned into a week, then weeks. And as the month came to a close, I started to feel almost panicky. I have reviews to write. Emails to check. I'm losing touch on facebook. I wanted to update my resume. I wanted to do some online Christmas shopping. I HAVE THINGS TO DO!!
Finally, my laptop has been restored to its former glory, pictures, musics, etc. still intact.

So note to others like myself.... never click on the bubbles that the dashboard pops up, as it is possible they may not actually be from the dashboard, but actually a cleverly disguised virus intended to trick you. If you are concerned that you need to scan for a virus, manually go to your anti-virus program and run a scan.

As for reviews, I intended to publish a comparison review of Blossom Organics warming vs moisturizing lubes and G-Play Large by Nexus in the next couple days, and several more over the next month or two. Ahhh......... so glad to be back!!