joeyh3

I use Microsoft Security Essentials and MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Additionally, I take a few extra safety measures as well, such as only using the computer as an administrator when necessary, routine backups, etc.

I love spicy food, especially buffalo chicken - that's my favorite! I haven't come across anything yet that was too spicy for me to finish.

I'm obscessed with neatness/cleanleness. I hate messes, disorganization, etc.

Pretty much everything came from Deviantart. From left to right: Posters: link, link, link (all were printed with permission from the artists) Calendar: link (the complete calendar is titled "My Little Calendar 2012", this month's image is Pinkie Pie) Cross-Stitches: both made by Cosplay-Kitty Wallpapers: link, link (Blossomforth is on the tablet, but it was switched off in the pic) Fluttershy Statue: made by Dusty

I don't have too many complaints about my ISP - the download speeds are high, prices are reasonable, and the bandwidth caps are fairly reasonable (250-500GB depending on plan). However, when our service does go out and I call them about it, they always ask me a question which I find highly frustrating: "Would you like to switch from your traditional telephone service to our VoIP service?" That question is just highly annoying to me. VoIP is telephone service that runs over the Internet. If my modem goes out and I need to call them, and my phone only works if it's connected to the Internet, that kinda throws me into a loop. Only choice left is to use a cell phone, but I hate talking on those things for more than a few minutes.

I don't really have anything that can capture video too well - just my cell phone, but the video quality on it isn't that great (it always comes out so dark). So instead, have a picture of my workspace instead. (All pictures were printed/used with the permission of the artists that made them)

Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing and sprinkled with chocolate chips are the best possible things ever!

The world did not end on December 21st, 2012. Noticed how I used a past tense in that statement? The entire prediction of the world ending on that date is based on the ending of a "long count" on the Mayan Calendar, which was scheduled to occur on December 21st, 2012. The problem is, however, that the Mayan Calendar was invented many thousands of years before leap years were invented. Therefore, the Mayan Calendar does not account for an extra day being added to the calendar every four years, and thus the dates on the Mayan Calendar are a couple hundred days ahead of the Gregorian Calendar. I don't know the exact date, but December 21, 2012 on the Mayan Calendar would've been a day in July or August of 2011 on the Gregorian Calendar. We are well past that date, and yet the world is still here, so.......

I've never been robbed in person. However, one time I spent about $100 on some computer equipment on ebay, and the guy just disappeared without shipping it to me or responding to emails. Though I'm usually pretty cautious as well - if I'm going somewhere new where I'm unsure of the safety levels, or if I'm meeting someone I don't know, I usually only will carry the bare minimums with me (drivers license, AAA card, $20 cash, an expired/empty prepaid Visa card, and an ancient spare cell phone). I leave anything of value (my actual cell phone, credit/debit cards, etc) at home, so in case something does happen, the losses would be minimal. One of the few things I love about my college is that we have an actual rental program - $25 per course per semester, and you get all the textbooks you need for the duration of the course.

That first part isn't quite true. In Ubuntu, the root account is not disabled per se, but instead the installer simply sets a random password for the account, and doesn't tell you what it is, thus preventing you from accessing it. This is something that only occurs in Ubuntu and a few other Linux variants. With most distributions, you simply set the root password while installing the OS, and if you want to use the root account, you just log in with that password. It's actually kinda annoying really, as when you're working on servers, just about every command has to be ran under root. In Ubuntu, that leaves you to either type "sudo" in front of every single command, or you have to go through the process of changing the root account's password.... Then again, I prefer Cent for servers anyway, and Cent just lets you pick the root password during install, so it's not as bad.

That's what we do at work - out of about 6500 users in our organization, there's maybe a dozen at most who have any form of administrator access on the computers. Virus infections are extremely rare (maybe once every two weeks, which is very good considering we have 2,800 computers), and when a computer does get infected, it usually takes less than five minutes to clean the computer as the user's account from which the virus is running under doesn't have the ability to modify anything important and infect the entire system. And you really should keep backups - Ubuntu is only useful if you're locked out/prevented from accessing your files. You still have undesired deletions and modifications (both accidental and malicious), hardware failure, historical reference, etc. You talking about su/sudo? That is a nice feature of Linux. Windows does have several features similar to that (such as "Run As", which lets you run a program as an account other than the one that's logged in). Windows 7 was also a major improvement - now if an admin is logged in, they're treated as a user, and in order to do anything that requires modifying the system, they have to confirm it. It's not perfect, but I have seen far fewer Win7 infections than WinXP infections. And ever since I sold my Macbook (which had Linux installed on it longer than it had Mac OS installed), I've almost completely forgotten what it's like to deal with dependency resolution, compiling applications from source, getting QT-based programs to run in GNOME, chmod permissions, modifying conf files in a text editor, etc Not trying to dis on Linux - I do love Linux (and have several web servers at work running it), but there's no such thing as a perfect operating system - no matter what you're using, there are drawbacks and advantages to each one.

One thing that really helps protect you, even though very people actually do it, is use your computer with a regular user account, as opposed to an administrator account. User accounts only have control over their data, while admin accounts have control over the entire computer. If someone is logged in as an administrator, and a virus attempts to attack, it'll usually be able to take over the entire system (provided that the anti-malware software doesn't stop it), because that account would have the ability to modify all of the system files. If someone is logged in as a user, and a virus attacks, it usually won't do as much damage, as the account it's running under won't have access to write/modify any important files. The account would be damaged, but the computer would be fine. Keyword is usually though - it is possible for a virus to take over an entire computer when just a user is logged in, and I've seen it happen, but it's not nearly as common. It still would be a great idea to use an anti-malware application. And always keep backups - no anti-malware program is perfect, so you always want to have regular backups just in case.

To me, it seems that being forced to clump all of your data into one folder is more messy - having folders of pictures right next to folders of music, etc. Plus, you already have a Pictures/Music/Videos/Documents folder on Windows, having to create additional ones while leaving the default ones sit around unused seems messy. Besides, the interface is very well organized, so you don't really get lost in keeping track of what's being sync'd where. Not to mention the advantages of syncing any folder on your computer: 1) If you use multiple programs that save to the same location, it's much more convienant to sync to just sync that location instead of always saving to an alternative location/changing the default location in every program. 2) Some programs do not even allow you to choose where data is stored (especially logs, configuration data, etc), but you would still like to back them up/sync them. With DropBox, you'd manually have to copy the files to your DropBox folder every so often. With SugarSync, you just sync that folder and forget about it. 3) The ability to choose what folders are synced allows you greater control over your data. For example, if you wanted something backed up online on one computer, but don't want it syncd to the other computers on your account, you simply sync that folder, but don't sync it to the others. As for the space thing - 5GB is the default for free space. You get 500MB extra for every person you refer to a free SugarSync account, up to a limit of 32GB. If you refer someone to a paid account, you both get 10GB free, and there's no limit on how much you can earn for paid referrals. So the maximum amount of free space offered by DropBox is significantly lower.

Personally, I prefer SugarSync over DropBox. SugarSync offers 2.5 times as much free storage as DropBox (5GB vs 2GB), their paid subscriptions are cheaper, and you get more free space for referrals. The main reason I picked them though is because of how it lets you sync files. With DropBox, you simply have your DropBox folder, and if you want something synced, you have to save it somewhere within that folder. With SugarSync, however, you can simply sync pre-existing folders on your computer instead. So instead of having to move all my pictures to the DropBox folder, I simply right click on my pictures folder and select "Sync this folder". I can then choose which computers it is synced to, and where it is saved on those computers, and so on.