I'm aware of the media freak-out regarding the oh-so mysterious Conficker worm and it's apparent payload of blowing the back out of your hard drive, poisoning your french fries and killing your dog this April 1st - my advice to you, don't worry about it.

This particular virus really isn't all that much different than a few thousand we've seen this year, it's just a little more streamlined and for some reason the media has got a scary stalker crush on it. You shouldn't be worried. If you're running virus protection (which, if you're reading this blog, you SHOULD BE BY NOW OR SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG WITH YOU) then you're ok. If you want to be really safe, download McAfee Stinger from here:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

and give it a run. It'll clean out Conficker if you've got it. Once you've done that, click the Start Button, click "All Programs", then click "Windows Update" at the top and get all the latest updates just to be sure.

After you're done, take a deep breath, relax, and go worry about something real like the economy for awhile.