EDITOR’S CORNER
If you’re a regular reader of The Reporter’s page 3A you noticed a couple of important things were missing last week.
There was no Milam County Jail Log and no sheriff’s report.
There was a very good excuse for those omissions. Milam County computers were attacked last week by a “ransomware” virus.
That’s exactly what it sounds like. Apparently the virus was coiled up like a sleeping rattlesnake in the innards of the computer system awaiting being poked with a stick so it could strike.
The “poke” came in the guise of a keyboard tracker virus which was launched with one click on an innocent looking spreadsheet.
The virus spread throughout the system—that’s why it’s called a virus. Then it told the county it would get rid of itself for $183,000.
The county reached for the penicillin, so to speak, paying nothing and eradicating the virus to the extent that was possible.
Three computers were casualties of the skirmish and had to be replaced.
As the Mafioso would say, while tallying up the body count, that’s the price for doing business.
I did a little business with my own computer system while the county was having its problems.
The Friday before Memorial Day, I tried to get a jump on the upcoming busy week by starting a Reporter front page linked to what we call the runover page, the final page of section A.
Knowing Monday (Memorial Day) would be an extremely busy work day, I especially needed to get something going early.
So, I made several contacts, went out and got a photo to accompany the story, sat down and wrote it, came up with a headline, formatted the whole thing and put it on the front page.
Friday night was graduation so I had a lot of photos “in the can.” Plan was to come in early Monday and start working on them.
Which I did. First couple of hours was spent on those photos and writing a graduation story. I also began another story at the top of the front page.
The Memorial Day Service was at 10 a.m. I worked up to 9:45, hurried out to the American Legion Hall and took a lot more photos.
I came back to the office briefly, uploaded those photos, selecting and formatting the ones I would use.
After a brief lunch, I was back in the office at 1 p.m., ready to rock and roll.
Which I did until 5 p.m. or so, writing a graduation story, a Memorial Day story, finishing the story I had started on Friday and more. I left tired but pleased that I had gotten such a good jump ahead of Tuesday.
(Tuesday is deadline day. It’s also blood pressure-heart palpitations day. I have it on good authority there will be no Tuesdays in heaven.)
So I came in at my usual 7 a.m., called up the front-run-over pages document I had started Friday and.....
There was nothing on them from all my work the previous day. The document showed it had last been worked on at 1 p.m. Friday-No Memorial Day, no graduation, no photos, nada.
I spent the next half hour frantically trying to find where I had saved the page. It was nowhere to be found.
I had resigned myself to do all that work again, starting from scratch.
Then I saw a Plan B. Here was a file where it should not have been which told me it was the front page. I clicked.
It was, indeed, the front page. But it was also the front page as I had left it on Friday, one partial story.
Back to Plan A.
Do it all over again. Which I did.
And I didn’t even have ransomware to blame it on.
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