Why am I doing this?

So ... why am I doing this? Well, first off... because I can and I should. Why else? Hoping that the major industries will not come after me (and I don't think they'd bother) I have an admission to make: a lot of the software on my old computer could have been qualified as warez (for those who aren't that technical, a) why are you reading this? b) warez = pirated software ). I don't consider this to be a good thing and as such I'm getting away from that and moving towards that which is better on every level.. Free Software.

I recently started reading the autobiography of our beloved Linus Torvalds (entitled Just for Fun) and it has inspired me. I've realized I've grown up on Windows for far too long, being ignorant of the truth of computers, the innards, the very soul. I discovered Linux back when I attended Cybercamps (it was several years ago, I don't remember the date) and the very nice head counselor, who I recall only as "Lizard" (short for Elizabeth) and her husband introduced me to it and the Open Source Movment in general. They gave me some CD's of Mandrake 8.2 which I installed as soon as I got home.. As a second OS. I loved Linux but I didn't use it as much as I wanted to, and ultimately it ended up just sitting on the drive until I finally deleted the partition. I have re-installed it (and other distros) several times, but I've never really used it as my primary OS.

Well on the morning of Dec 24th I awoke and went to check my e-mail. All of a sudden, my mouse froze in the middle of my screen. My mouse is wirless so I assumed it to be a battery failure. To make a long story short the ultimate result was: Hard Drive Failure (the whole ordeal is layed out on the TechSpot Forums in this thread). As I note in the thread, all my data is shot, I have no back-up, and I've had to get a new HDD. At the time of this writing it is in the middle of Louisville, KY (if you want to follow it, which no one will: the tracking page is here ) and this a golden oppourtunity to g ofor the complete switch.