Time & Money Saved. Shawn’s Easy Computer Tips, part I.
Oct 20, 2008 Computers and Internet, Tips, Tricks & Tutorials
I wasn’t always a customer service manager.
In a former life I worked for–and at one point, owned–a small, honest, computer repair business; working on everything from large office networks to private home computers. Unfortunately, as usually happens with any good business, the market became crowded and turned into the abusive used car lot that is computer business today. I bowed out as gracefully as I could before losing my shirt.
In that time, I learned quite a bit about the best ways to build computers and keep them running. I’ve managed to turn this knowledge into a few bucks here and there and build and maintain my own tidy little home network, including two gaming grade machines, with a minimum of time and effort and without spending every dime I own to do so.
Here’s the thing, though: About 90% of the money I make and the tricks I use are basically the sort of thing that anyone can do. No, seriously. Anyone.
So, rather than horde this knowledge to myself and dish it out to our internet friends and readers through rushed IMs typed by my better half, I’ve decided to put together a little guide to making and keeping your computer running as quickly as it can. There are billions of guides available on the internet for people that are technically minded, but this guide is not for them. This guide is for you, semi-normal people.
In order to keep your brain from exploding, I’m going to split this up into three installments. Each installment will cover one of the three key components of any good system, the is the Holy Trinity of Computery goodness: Hardware, Software and The User (That’s you, if you hadn’t guessed).
So, let’s get on with it shall we? Shawn’s easy computer tips to save you time and money:
Part I - Hardware
The Penguin Thanks You All
Apr 9, 2008 Humor
Well Hey thar, interwebs! We just wanted to thank all of you that visited us yesterday on what became the busiest day at 2PhatGeeks. Between the Diggers and Stumblers and Reddit-ers, in a single day we doubled the traffic we’ve had since the site officially opened in March. As we’re both (obviously) new to this real blog thing-a-ma-bob, this is pretty big news for us.
A special shout out to the Reddit folks out there. Between some meaningful discussion about the topic at hand and some inferences that I have just never read a book before, the story was actually the number 1 in the gaming category on Reddit for a while.
Finally, I want to put out a very special thank you to the Reddit reader ColdSnickersBar that had this to offer.
And indeed I do…. waaaaaak waaak! Thanks, internet! You all made our day!
Tags: Internet
Things the internet has taught me.
Mar 22, 2008 Humor
1.) IDK, MY BFF JILL.
2.) What you mistype may forever go down into internet infamy. Pwned.
3.) Why, yes, tentacles can go in there.
4.) Someone is probably masturbating to that right now.
5.) If it’s too good to be true: that hot young twenty something with the perfect bod and killer smile—it probably isn’t.
6.) Some times you don’t even need to make sense of have a point. As long as you’re the loudest and obnoxious asshole, currently, people will listen to you because you can use the many variations of the word, fuck, in a cool manner.
7.) That people can be incredibly stupid.
8.) That people can be incredibly cruel.
9.) That other people will document this incredibly stupid and laugh until they cry over it.
10.) How petty we truly can be
11.) LOL cats are LOL.
12.) Lolrus haz a bucket.
13.) There are other crazy cat ladies out there!
14.) That I am, truly, a gigantic geek. And that there are droves of other ‘me’s’ out there right now.
15.) Stumble Upon will eat your very soul and you’ll like it.
16.) There are way too many things to do to keep you online.
17.) As long as it exists, there is probably badly written, smutty fan fiction about it.
18.) Be careful who you give out any information to.
19.) That we’re all not as different and unique as we’d like to pretend to be.
20.) That we’ve all been there at some point in time, and we understand.
21.) There’s someone out there going through what you’re going through right now, and are under the belief that no one understands them.
22.) We really aren’t alone. All it takes it a set of fingers over a keyboard.
Have you learned something from the internet, be it bad, good, or insane? What is it?
Tags: Internet
Getting Reacquainted
Mar 8, 2008 Computers and Internet
It’s been a really long time since I’ve written with any sort of regularity on the internet. I used to post once or twice a week to my own blog pretty regularly for me. Back in the day I had my own Geocities domain and a blogger account. I role-played online. I wrote bad poetry and posted it up for the universe. I chatted constantly in AOL political and atheist chat rooms. I helped Mel write the back story for a play by post role-play board she ran. At one point I even ran a Yahoo! Group for free-thinkers called “Does It or Doesn’t It Exist?” I was in a web ring! Really! I was just Mr Webernets between 1996 and 2000. Hell, I even voted for Browne. I had serious ‘net street cred.
And suddenly… without warning… life intruded, as life tends to do… and the internet and I, well, we drifted apart. The magic was gone. Sure, we saw one another on a daily basis, but it was pretty much just passing glances.
And then, two things happened. First and foremost was mah wimmenz. She’s been the only one of us actually using the internet to actually talk to other humans, and it’s pretty much just her urging that’s gotten me back online. But there’s one more impetus and one she introduced me to: Stumble Upon. Stumble has brought the magic back to the internet! The great random trip through the dysfunctional world of the internet with all it’s freaks, nut-jobs and geeks has somehow finally reinvigorated the urge to, perish the thought *communicate* with my fellow internet people.
Now, then is that awkward bit where you end up sharing friends with someone you used to date and maybe… just maybe, you could hook up again. You’re just not sure what to say.
So, um… hey there, internet. Um, so… How’ve you been?
