Why I Am A nerd

Okay, so truth be told I’m a bit of a nerd. Actually I’m a huge nerd. Here’s why:

Finals are coming up, and I can see sleepless nights and large pots of caffeinated Arabica beans rolling quickly over the horizon. In my last few days of relaxation I decided it would be fun to mess ar

ound with my computer, updating what I can and installing/deleting the stuff I need and don’t need.

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FW390 customized laptop. I love the thing like a little brother (although I have an actual little br

other whom I love more) and I spend a

great deal on it for both fun and education. I run Windows 7 Professional on it, and I have also partitioned the hard drive for Ubuntu Linux, which I used to use for small programming projects and as a small getaway from the world of Windows.

 

The new Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx distribution update came out last week, and just for fun before I had to start worrying about finals I decided to give it a try. Immediately I was blown away. This is the cleanest looking Linux release I have ever seen. Its finely rounded, easily accessible, very VERY easy to work with (installations are much easier, less coding, more double clicking) and straight-up gorgeous!

 

 Anyway, when I finally got around to restarting my computer and (sadly) going back to Windows, the computer would not reboot! What a bitch! I need this computer to study for finals (and to Facebook creep, etc.) What a terrible time for it to decide to crash. When I got down to figuring out what went wrong, it turned out that my Windows filesystem got corrupted somehow.

 

Luckily I have my Linux partition, so I reloaded that, backed up all of my files to my external hard drive, and then reinstalled Windows 7 with the cd. I took the occasion to perfect the relationship between my two operating systems, Ubuntu and Windows 7, and I decided that Ubuntu will become my primary OS. After all, it handles all the basic tasks I need to study, blog, and browse.

 

I installed Windows and all the programs I determined were necessary to my survival:

Opera, Firefox, Safari, Norton Anti-virus, Open Office, Evolution Mail, The Gimp 2.0, Blender, Guitar Pro, Fruity Loops, Mathematica, Windows Live Writer, Zune, and Total Media Theatre 3.

 

And then I did something I should have done a long time ago: BACKED EVERYTHING UP! Next time I run into this kind of trouble again, I’m going to be prepared. (Knowing how I like to tinker, chances are that this will happen again sometime in the future.)

On my Ubuntu desktop I installed the programs that I needed, and I was surprised at the level of improvement since the last time I visited the world of Linux. Skype is now compatible, as well as Opera. Also I discovered something incredibly awesome:

Because I plan on using Ubuntu as my primary OS, it must be fully integrated with blogging software, programming software, and my network connections. Ubuntu now automatically comes with Gwibber, an application that combines Facebook, Flickr and Twitter (and many other networks) as well as Evolution Mail; all built into the panel!

I needed a decent blog writer, and ScribeFire would have been fine, but I find it a little bit annoying that it is a Firefox plug-in. Firefox has been replaced by Opera as my browser-of-choice simply because Opera has a built in Bit-Torrent client and unparalleled speed. (Yes, faster than Safari. Don’t give me that “Apple is better than everything” bullshit.) What I really wanted to use was Windows Live Writer, which I have on my Windows partition, but will not run on Linux.

Here’s where my mind was blown. I know that this is old news, and this probably isn’t as exciting as I found it to be, but I installed Windows 7 as a Virtual Machine using VirtualBox OSE. This is AMAZING! While it has no connection to my real partitions (so running a program that needed to access my files would be ineffective), this setup is perfect for using Windows Life Writer.

So here’s the moral of the story:

   1. Backup your files so when you do something dumb and you break your expensive computer’s OS, you can still save your paper for your Scandinavian Literature class.

   2. If you aren’t afraid of the possible dangers of partitioning your hard drive incorrectly, try out Ubuntu sometime. With the new release of 10.04 Lucid Lynx, Linux has never been this easy or looked this good.

   3. I am a nerd, and this is not the first, nor the last time I have screwed something up on my computer that may or may not be repairable.