New to this comic strip?  You can start from the beginning, or you can settle for a summary instead and start with the current semester.  I recommend reading all the archives, but you don't have to if you don't want to.  This comic strip updates five times a week, theoretically Monday through Friday, though in practice that's more like Tuesday through Saturday, since my definition of a "Monday update" tends to be "it goes up around 3 am on Tuesday."  Enjoy!

                              


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NEWS (January 1, 2010):

Happy New Year, everybody!  And I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc., too.  :)  The new year seems an appropriate time to write this, to me, not the least because I can finally talk about some rather big things.

First, remember how my site got hacked, back in November?  Well, I didn't fix the problem when I originally assumed I did.  I wound up fighting with the password, and the server, and the nasty hackers, continuously over the next few weeks. Every day, it seemed, I had to go through and re-upload most of my entire website, in order to clean the files from virus-code or other such nasty things.  Not thrilling.  I finally worked out that the problem was on my end, and that I had to have some kind of spyware, virus, trojan, or rootkit that was causing my passwords to get stolen as soon as I transmitted them over FTP (which happened every time I logged into the website to upload things).

I spent the next two weeks going crazy trying to fix things.  Despite two anti-virus programs, two anti-spyware, and three anti-rootkit, I could find nothing besides a few minor issues -- which I promptly fixed, and always found the problem still existed.  I am reasonably certain that I had a rootkit that was hiding several trojans and whatever nasty spyware was stealing my password every day.  Unfortunately, no matter what I used or how thoroughly I searched, I could find absolutely nothing.  And I tried some pretty majorly extreme things.

Unfortunately, those of you familiar with computers know exactly what this means: there was only one solution left to me, and that was to reformat and install Windows all over again.  I most emphatically did not wish to do this -- I hate reformatting -- but it was starting to look like it was going to become more and more necessary.  And then the unthinkable happened: one of those trojans I'm pretty sure was hiding somewhere on my system downloaded a worm that deleted my BIOS, or some such thing.  Yep, that's right -- my computer could no longer TURN ON, much less be used for anything.

SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!

Under some major prodding from my brother, I decided to take his advice, very grudgingly.  He said I should really try Linux: it's much more secure, consistently updated, and forever-free.  I didn't want to do this for quite a few reasons, most of which can be summarized as, "Windows is what I'm used to!  Stop bugging me!"  Especially since, when it comes to computers and programs I use, I'm extremely finicky.  Anyone who's ever seen me keyboard-shopping would know exactly how annoyingly finicky I can be.

I finally came to the conclusion that, uncomfortable as the idea made me, Michael had a good point, and it really wasn't fair to refuse to try a program when there were multiple good reasons I should do so.  So he came over, used a boot CD to restore all my data so I could back it up (HURRAY!), and then helped me reformat and make Ubuntu my operating system.  He offered to immediately then make me a Windows partition, but I didn't want him to, mainly because I knew I shouldn't have the temptation to just go right back to the familiar without giving this new operating system a fair chance first.  "A week," I decided.  "I have to try it a week.  Even if I absolutely hate it, I have to keep trying for a whole week."

Within twenty-four hours, I was regretting this decision.  I hated how long it took me to fix my color scheme, I gnashed my teeth over the many bitty things that were now changed, and I went crazy trying to get my two most important programs working (one of which took time and tons of configuring, the other of which Wine refused to install completely).  I could transition to different programs for burning, web browsing, FTP uploading, spreadsheeting, and numerous other things.  But OpenOffice could not take the place of WordPerfect.  Oh, it was significantly better than Word (hate hate hate Word), but there were just too many little things -- and big things, for that matter -- that WordPerfect did much better.  And let's not even try to compare Photoshop with the GIMP.  I'm sure the GIMP is fine and everything, but if I'd wished to use it, I would not have paid massive bucks to own Photoshop instead.

Fortunately, none of the programs I had been attached to were Microsoft-created, with the possible exception of Windows Media Player (I got used to Ubuntu's superior equivalent very quickly) and Notepad (which is much less featured than gedit, but I still preferred it slightly).  Plus, while I do game casually, I'm a console gamer mainly.  So my stubborn roots in Windows sprang almost entirely from habit and a decade of comfortable familiarity.  Once I finally, finally, FINALLY got WordPerfect installing (I bawled like a baby to have it back), the last of my major problems with Ubuntu was fixed.  Yes, I still have lots of minor issues, but I'm now a month in, and finding I am settled in quite acceptably.

The only major issue still remaining is that my good scanner refuses to work properly, even when I put the drivers in Wine.  Even my lousy scanner, which was expensive and a ridiculous waste of money, only worked once in Ubuntu before it decided to choke and die.  (Glares at uncooperative scanners.)  I'm currently having to scan everything with my husband's computer, which is an annoying workaround, but it's tolerable, as long as it's the only major issue remaining.  I'd really, REALLY love to get some drivers for the Canon CanoScan 8400F to work in Ubuntu, however.  I don't suppose anyone has any idea if any are existent or in the works currently?  (Wishful thinking . . .)

Finally, the only thing remaining is the fact that Photoshop now makes my fonts look slightly different.  -_-  Perhaps I am the only person who's noticed it -- if that's the case, I'd be quite relieved, though it does still bug me.  See, the problem is that I had to enable font anti-aliasing in Wine (WordPerfect needs it), but that had the unintended side effect of making my fonts look slightly different in Photoshop than they always have.  Grump.  Anyone have any idea how to turn on anti-aliasing with one program in Wine, and off with another?  (I know, I know, more wishful thinking . . .)  It would be terrific if that minor annoyance became a moot point again.

In other news, I'm not sure when I'm going to be moving this website to its permanent home (since I now have my own domain name), but I'm thinking I may start somewhat soon.  That may mean "a week," "a month," or "several months," depending on a few things -- we'll have to see.  I may try to get it moved before my TopWebComics free advertising kicks in, which would probably mean "about a week."  I kind of wanted to finish a few extra things before the official moving, but I may be sensible and do it earlier, before I'm finished with them.

I did not succeed in my wish to finish chapter four of To Prevent World Peace by the end of December (pouts), but given my computer issues lately, and the fact that I've had a great deal of trouble wrestling the script, I think it'll be okay.  I started late with the 100 pages I wanted finished in 2009, and I will have a better sense of what I'm doing in 2010.  I'm pretty sure I should be right on schedule next year, so I'm pleased and excited at that idea.  I did get pretty close this year, really, especially given all the computer issues that have kept me from doing anything for the last few weeks -- and the fact that this script required twice as much rewriting as chapter one (and chapter one's rewriting sure seemed endless while doing it).  Chapters five, six, seven, and eight are much more tightly nailed down in my mind, and I'm psyched to start chapter five.  Plus chapter seven is going to be AWESOME!

I've also joined Portrait Adoption, a website where artists can sell character portraits exclusively to one person, sort of like commissions.  I don't have a lot of work on there currently (my gallery), but I do have a little, and I'm going to be adding more, as time and effort allows.  If anyone likes my style and wants to pay for a commission, I'd also be willing.  (As long as it's PG, and all that sort of thing.)  I'm getting better the more practice I put in, though I still have a long way to go before I'll be where I want to be.  Good thing my manga forces me to practice so intensively!  :P

Oh, yes, and Nowhere University has been running some old fanart I drew for it recently.  Three of the pieces were from five years ago (I cringe at them now . . .), and the black and white one scanned in poorly, but I still think the color one looks pretty neat.  Hopefully Shada will be ready to post new strips again soon!