I hate computer viruses! (sp?)

[amalthia]

I hit one of those invisible ads at mininova.org and boom! all this shit downloaded to my computer and started installing itself. I've run spybot (which removed a lot) and now I'm running AVG while will hopefully remove the rest but I'm looking at making sure I have my laptop backed up and maybe next weekend begin reformatting...just to be on the safe side.

This weekend I didn't do nearly as much reading as I anticipated. I've been doing food and drink runs for my husband who is currently installing wooden floors in our new home and I've been taking care of all the errands this weekend and even helped out a bit on the installation stuff at the new house. This has been a weird fourth of july weekend.

On the plus side, I walked my grandmother through logging into livejournal we have each other friended now. I got to talk with my sister (who I haven't spoken to in about a month) mostly we talked about the baby she's going to have and our niece, who according to her, looks just like I did when I was her age. It's weird to realize that there's a little person running around with my some of my genetics...okay I'm no biologist but I still think it's neat.

My husband and I are also completely re-watching Firefly. I still feel like crying when I realize there are only 5 more episodes to go and then that's it. So many stories they could have told! I mean really how many shows are this awesome in less than 13 episodes?????

Recs should be coming up later tonight.

Edit: figured I should warn my peeps to not visit mininova not sure what's going on there but my computer goes crazy if I do any searches. I think they are getting some kind of attack. :(

Comments

[blnchflr]

Have I already asked you whether you've considered trying out Linux (I think I did - I think there was something in Windows you need to be able to use)? It's not for everyone and blah blah, but man, just the not having to worry about viruses and spyware to the same degree is awesomecakes <3

[amalthia]

the main reason I haven't quite switched over has to do with the video editing aspect of my computer usage...though to be fair I haven't vidded in ages. :( For the longest time my biggest reason for not moving is the lack of programs but a lot of the major programs do have linux compatible versions. Even Calibre has a linux version. I'm not sure the Zune software has a linux version but I can look, I'm 99% sure Songbird would work if I switched over.

But after stuff like this it's so tempting to say screw Windows and find something better.

[amalthia]

I was giving some consideration for having a dual boot setup. So on the off chance I start vidding again I can switch over to windows for that but for my regular internet browsing, converting stories to ebook format I can use linux..will have to do research on this. Because I'm seriously fed up with not being able to go to a regular website without getting spy ware on my computer.

[blnchflr]

I'd always recommend beginning with dualboot, anyways - is you're a Windows superuser, chances are, the first few days/weeks will be tough, because things aren't done the Windows Way, and some things may not work out of the box, so you need help setting them up and so on - during that time, it's good to be able to boot into Windows and do things the way you're used to.

If you keep at Linux, though, and give yourself time to get used to it, I think you'll come to prefer many things done the Linux Way over the Windows Way (c/p! Installing programs, *orgasms*!).

I'd say partitioning one's harddisk and setting up a dualboot with e.g. Ubuntu is fairly simple. But if you've never partitioned before, it can be daunting (it was very daunting for me), and obviously mistakes can happen, so read up and BACK UP before attempting.

At least you've reformatted before - I never had, so installing a system as well as partitioning were all new things for me.

Here's a short article to start with: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/a-home-users-successful-migration-strategy-from-windows-to-ubuntu-2/ - it also mentions installing Ubuntu as a program from within Windows, which is probably even better than a dualboot, if you're daunted by partitioning.

Please feel free to ask any and all questions, and if you get serious about installing, I can try and dig out some of the better step-by-step guides to installing!

[amalthia]

I think I'll just go for the dual boot option. :) For some reason the running an operating system from cd makes me nervous.

will check out the link you shared! thanks for helping.

You really don't want to know how often I reformat/re-partition my drives.

[blnchflr]

Excellent that you know how to format/partition, you're way ahead of where I was!

I'd always recommend trying out the livecd before installing - that way you can check basic compatibility with your hardware.

(A Wubi install is not running Ubuntu from CD - it installs Ubuntu just like it's a program within Windows.)

Anyways, ask-ask-ask, if you have questions.

[amalthia]

Well the good news is that 99% of the programs I use are linux compatible. the bad news is I tried using Open Office and I can't seem to edit the metadata properly which is killing me! I do a lot of converting stories to RTF for my ebook and I need to be able to edit the meta data and format docs. It seems rather daunting to learn a whole new word program. Even the non-printing characters are different. but I was thinking if I could open the linux program like you're saying, then I can open Firefox within it and basically use that to access websites and download torrents?

still reading up on this.

[blnchflr]

Oh, right, viruses - I'm not actually sure you're protected from viruses, etc. in a Wubi install. With Ubuntu installed as a proper OS, you can still dl viruses, but they won't work. With Wubi, I don't know how it works, you'd have to ask Wubi experts :o)

(And if you want to get all out of Linux, you should dualboot - sounds like you'd be perfectly capable of doing a manual partition and using the new file system ext4, which is faster than the previous ext3. I loff ext4 <3 !)

[grey853]

Viruses suck and there should be a special place in hell for the bastards who design them. Grrrrr!

[amalthia]

They probably go to the same special hell that's reserved for people who talk during movies.