Although the malicious code that this person generated may have worked for a small percentage of users, sufficed to say, the online service continued on and still exists today. Despite his motivation or intention, his efforts were null. We wouldn't be surprised to learn if other motivations behind spreading viruses were similar to this person's, but that doesn't justify the damage that viruses do. Sure, computer stores do their best to keep their inventory up to date, but when you can download version 5.6042 of a shareware program as opposed to buying a commercial 3.0 version from the local computer shop, there's just no comparison. Which brings up our next point. Just where does one get shareware? And it isn't fair to expect a tech support person to automatically know what a "thing-a-ma-jingy," or "whatcha-ma-call-it" is. The following describes the correct names for common components of software so that when you experience a problem, you can effectively describe an issue that you're having and a technician can readily resolve it. All the drivers of a program are stored onto the computer and used whenever a program is started. Apple's Macintosh computer was among the first of a couple systems to establish a user-to-hardware relationship through a user-friendly interface. Today, we have quite a few operating systems. Some of the more popular ones are Windows Vista, Mac OS X, ZETA, IBM, Unix, and Linux. exe - This extension indicates a program or an application like Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, or Outlook Express. Use extreme caution when downloading .exe files from the Internet since malicious programmers like to hide viruses in these types of files. .gif - This extension indicates another image file and it stands for "Graphics Interchange Format. Yes, computers have finally taken over and if you doubt it, we're here to convince you - but not because we want to or because we can. We want to convince you that if you don't take the necessary steps to control that reign, you're going to be left behind further than you could have ever imagined. Computers are everywhere.