:( A moment of silence in anticipation.

Looks like that will be left (kind-of like Thunderbird)...

I would plug directly in via Ethernet to your modem and try: 192.168.100.1 (I had an older model of that router, my issue was constant resets however).

Is there an instructables for this?

I've used the windows one before with no issues, the thing you'll need to be careful of is what partitions you allow Ubuntu to set up.

Can you log-into your modem and check your logs?

I haven't from my iPhone over the computer - I just have it do it in the native iOS dropbox app.

Yeah, I think the other folks are right.

Generally speaking yes, that is true.

Try this for linux.

Generic.

A live disc should still work for you, if you can't get past the BIOS even with a install disc or livedisc then it may be more than just the HDD.

Definitely a LiveCD. You can make your own if you want in the SUSE Studio, for example. Other distros have tools like that as well I believe. You could drop out the GUI and it'll be a pretty easy use.

Apparently Linux Users are too mature for VLC... I'm not sure I'd ever really want to not use vlc... Especially now that you can (supposedly) get BluRay working [which I intend to try this weekend]

I like VIM too, you just have to know your way around the keyboard a bit (the commands were at least new to me).

Finding this surprised me.

Many of those are either built in or the average user install for a new computer (i.e. most folks get the chat clients and browsers first).

Along with not starting that war, those are both resource hogs :D

Have you installed any other updates recently or other new software between when it worked and stopped working? Perhaps something there could have mucked up some resource.

I feel you. My buddy called it my 1/4 life crisis.