Computer Mayhem

I have officially been witness to great computer mayhem since I have returned from California. It is an interesting story, so I am compelled to tell it even though I am typing this at a library computer terminal. My computer was infected with the MSBlast virus during my first connection to the internet on this Monday, so I've been spending a lot of time in Linux, which I now believe is about as good as Windows (I switched to Gnome 2.2 after using KDE 3.1, and I think Gnome is way better--less swappage). Basically I installed support for NTFS in the Linux kernel (very painless: a simple rpm command), and so I can mount and unmount my Windows XP partition from Linux, and remotely administer files. Essentially, I couldn't log in on Windows because MSBlast shut down my computer almost immediately. So, I deleted the MSBlast executable and edited the registry, but still I had symptoms of the virus. At this point I was prepared for the worst: a total rebuild of Windows. It was theoretically possible because I could hold out on Linux indefinately. But I chose to go a little further. I found the patch on the internet, which fixes the vulnerability that MSBlast exploits and burned it to a CD under Linux (the most amazingly painless thing I've ever done: you just drag and drop files to a queue and press burn). Then I managed to install it under Windows before MSBlast shut the computer down. And now everything works great! Call me a nerd, but Linux is really cool. Plus it doesn't get viruses like MSBlast.