This, That and The Other

Yesterday was a busy day. Child didn't have to go to work until noon, so I visited the animal shelter that morning. It turned out to be a very busy day, and we were able to do several adoptions. That's always the best part of working at an animal shelter. We also had a Boy Scout and his mother and sister visit for a merit badge, so I got to show them around for that.

At the moment we have three rabbits. They're hard to adopt out, and usually end up being adopted by a...well, raptor rescue. To try to adopt them out faster, I made up a card for them that said, "Long-eared Pomeranians. Guaranteed not to bark!" It seems like 3/4 of everyone who comes in wants a small dog like a Pomeranian or Shih Tzu, and I figure that maybe we'll get some older couple who doesn't see too well. "Goodness, dear, this Pomeranian is the quietest, most well-behaved dog I've ever seen!"

In other news, Pat also told me that someone had come into the shelter and mentioned that they had seen their dog on my website. Another success!

UCPets.com News Article

The local newspapers picked up the story on the UCPets website.

• Daily Herald
• Deseret News
• BYU Newsnet

Notice how the BYU paper doesn't have a link. That's because the article never got published. Yeah, funny story about that. Child hates BYU and everything BYU related. When the newspaper called, she answered my phone. When the caller said who they were, she put the phone against her chest and said "It's that crappy newspaper."

I talked to the girl at the other end, answered all her questions, then hung up and looked at Child. "Um, if you put the phone against your chest, the person at the other end can hear quite clearly what you're saying."

"Oh," she said.

The article never appeared in the paper.

Not that I mind; my thesis adviser has been "strongly encouraging" me to get my thesis done, and I'd just as soon he didn't see I've been spending time working on another website.

Encounters of the Trojan Kind

When I got home from school today, I had an instant message from a friend. We only talk every few weeks, but I had just stopped by his work to see him that morning. Also, my name's been in a few newspapers because of articles about the http://www.ucpets.com website. The IM said, "Hey, isn't this you?" and had a link to what looked like an MSN news site.

"Why would the website story be on MSN?" I wondered, and clicked the link.

The IM had been sent by a virus on my friend's computer, and the link led to a malware website whose purpose was to install a Trojan on the victim's computer.

Fortunately, I use Firefox with NoScript installed, and my computer was safe. Just goes to show, however, that even the most paranoid computer user (myself) can be tricked.