  tonight has been a rough night for julius (my computer for those of you who did not know). i attempted to download an update from aol and the next thing i know is that julius is completely screwed. i have no clue what happened. all i know is that my start up menu was different, my taskbar had been rearranged, my printer no longer worked, and worst of all, i could not surf the web.
i was seriously concerned that serious damage had been done. i ended up spending over two hours on the phone with multiple toshiba representatives and i basically had to reset my computer to the way it was when i purchased it. i saved a few files that i had created, but it was almost like my computer was brand new again. i had to re-install softward that i had personally installed and it took quite a while.
i am not really sure what happened, but i really do not think it was a problem specific to my system. i think it was a problem specific to the aol download, needless to say i will not be doing that again, and i am not too concerned at this point. you will all be happy to know that julius is up and running again without any apparent side effects. 
