100 Essential Skills for Geeks (and Zhng my rig part 3)

100 Essential Skills for Geeks

My personal skill set?

1. Properly secure a wireless router.
   
2. Leech Wifi from your neighbor
3. Work from home or a coffee shop as effectively as you do at the office.
4. Wire your own home with Ethernet cable.
5. Understand what “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” means.
6. Benchmark Your Computer
7. Identify all computer components on sight.
8. Know which parts to order from NewEgg.com, and how to assemble them into a working PC.
9. Use any piece of technology intuitively, without instruction or prior knowledge.
10. Install a Linux distribution. (Hint: Ubuntu 9.04 is easier than installing Windows)
11. Remove a virus from a computer.
12. Dual (or more) boot a computer.
13. Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
14. Protect your privacy when using a public computer.
15. Surf the web anonymously from home.
16. Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
17. Build amazing structures with LEGO and invent a compelling back story for the creation.
18. Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.
19. Build a two story house out of LEGO, in monochrome, with a balcony.
20. Be able to pick a lock.
21. Assemble IKEA furniture without looking at the instructions. Bonus point if you don’t have to backtrack.
22. Origami! Bonus point for duct tape origami. (Ductigami)
23. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator.
24. Whistle, hum, or play on an iPhone, the Cantina song.
25. Solve a Rubik’s Cube.
26. Know the difference between skills and traits.
27. Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.
28. Know the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.
29. Understand the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.
30. Be able to explain why it’s important that Han shot first.
31. Know why it is just wrong for Luke and Leia to kiss.
32. Stop talking Star Wars long enough to get laid.
33. Cite Mythbusters when debunking a myth or urban legend.
34. Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
35. Talk about things that aren’t tech related.
    

Guess I'm 35% equipped to be a geek? I'd probably fail a geek job interview.

Star Wars jokes aside...

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Zhng my PC (part 3)

This has less to do with my PC than it has to do with my laptop.

I recently bought a relatively cheap Cooler Master (love that brand!) laptop cooler to, uh, cool things down. My antique Compaq laptop could fry an egg on its wrist-rest area (conveniently located just above the red-hot hard disk drive).

Today I took another look at it and discovered how badly it matched my laptop - it has 2 fans, one on each side, while my primitive laptop has its air intakes ONLY on the LEFT. Being the cheapskate, recent-DIY rampaging me, I decided to shift the right fan over to the left.

Simple sounding enough? It required some ripping apart, drilling, filing and most importantly, cable tie-ing =)

Before:



After:



Note the tiny little almost invisible cable ties popping up through the grill in the left photo =))
Had to remove the bottom cover as well as raise the entire pad to accomodate the lower fan, but I suppose its better that way, more air to circulate underneath.

I probably voided the warranty, but what the heck.