Are viruses, like the flu and hiv ones, not computer ones, considered alive? If so, are they their own family in that whole list thingy of living things?
[Question has probably been asked before, but I couldn’t find a direct question on this when I searched.]
Hmmm, the last time I checked no one could really agree if they were alive or not.
There are certain characteristics of life that need to be filled (able to reproduce, life cycle, use energy and react to external stimula). Because viruses need a host cell to reproduce it doesn’t ‘offically’ qualify as a life form but it sure as hell feels like you’re being attacked by something when you have a cold 
its a pointless question to ask. depends purely on your definition of life.
there is a notion that any idea is a virus. it infects hosts and uses them to replicate, it can also mutate in the process. the analogy is very good.
so, is an idea a living thing ?
No and No.
ok…how about assuming why is part of the quesion? : )
Ok. 
The biological definition of life is tenuous at best; much like thermal classifications of organisms. Poikilotherms? Ectotherms? Heterotherms? Warm Blooded? Cold Blooded? None of these do an adequate job of describing the body temperature characteristics of organisms under all conditions. The same problem arises when we try to define life; there are no hard and fast rules per se, but there is a generally agreed upon definition. (I know it as “The Principle Of Molecular Logic Of The Living State,” but I couldn’t find any links for that on google.)
In most cases, the most basic criterion would be the presence of cellular respiration in the cell. This is the “digestion” of sugar molecules into usable energy in the form of ATP, the “energy currency” of the body. This occurs in the cytoplasm, the “soup base” of the cell. Viruses don’t have cytoplasm, nor are they capable of cellular respiration. They aren’t capable of reproducing their genetic material, they aren’t capable of replicating themselves. Basically, they aren’t capable of anything autonomously.
One of the hypotheses for the origin of viruses holds that they once were life; that they represent the pinnacle of evolution of parasitism. They require almost no energy from the environment, they use almost no energy when not in a host. The host provides all of the resources for the reproduction of the genome, etc.
If I am not mistake, one of the more widely accepted hypotheses holds that they represent fragments of genetic material that separated from the parent genome at a very early point in the evolution of life. These genes coded for the proteins that formed the “shell” of the virus, and thus, when they recombined with the parent genome, the cell began producing copies of the original gene. The mechanics of this are a bit complicated for casual discussion, and it isn’t my area of expertise, so we will leave it at that for the time being.
Another hypothesis, panspermia, holds that they came from outer space. Carl Sagan was a proponent of this theory.
Viruses are not included in any widely accepted taxonomic system, and as you have seen, they don’t meet any of the criterion for life. So, to answer your question, No and No. 
As has been said, it really depends on what criterion you use to determine if something is ‘alive’. Cellular respiration would exclude viruses. But many criteria would suggest that viruses are alive. Viruses can mutate. They can adapt to different environments and different hosts. Mutation is one of the more commonly-used criteria for life that does include viruses; the other common criterion is metabolism, which excludes them. Also, viruses can replicate, though they require a host organism in which to do so.
Viruses are genetic material, so they are clearly somehow different from other things that are clearly not alive. Whether they meet the standard for being ‘alive’ really depends mostly on the standard you choose. Personally, I’d say they’re at least ‘semi-alive’. Certainly, they’re more alive than prions, the renegade proteins thought to cause CJD (mad cow).
It is possible to classify viruses; see here. The classification is similar to the ‘kings play chess on fairly green spaces’ system developed by Linnaeus, but species are not named binomially (genus and species) or in Latin. The classification is based on the type of genetic material (single or double stranded, DNA or RNA), the configuration of the genome (single or multiple, linear, circular, coiled), shape, size, type of host, and the types of proteins present.