Creeva’s World 2.0

Max­i­mum PC recently ran an arti­cle titled 50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have, I wanted to go through and see how I ranked in their skill list.   Let’s find out.

1. Name the Con­nec­tors — yes I was able to :)

2. Run your essen­tial apps on a USB stick — no I don’t do this, I could — I just pre­fer to run every­thing in the cloud or on my N810 — which is with me most of the time.

3. Straighten Pins on a CPU — I have done this too many times

4. Know the 13 basic HTML Tags — well I kinda know most of them — I use freak­ing word­press I hardly need to use HTML and when I do I look it up and hav ethe answer in sec­onds.   Though I do know quite a few by heart that aren’t listed in the basic 13.

5.  Get through to exec­u­tive cus­tomer ser­vice — hey I read the con­sumerist.

6.  Beat quake in 60 min­utes — maybe at one point in time, but I’m not big on FPS games.

7.  Build a Hack­in­tosh — I know how, I just don’t the com­po­nents that seem to work, and I’m a cheap bas­tard that won’t buy parts just to run OSX - I’ll stick with ubuntu as my alter­na­tive OS.

8.  Watch TV Online legally — um that’s how I watch 100% of my TV these days.

9.  Get around a con­tent fil­ter from a pub­lic com­puter — yes I know how, I’ve helped friends at other com­pa­nies, it’s not worth it to do it at my own job though.

10. Recite Pi to 23 dec­i­mal places — nope — I have no incli­na­tion to ever learn either.

11. Replace the con­troller board on a hard drive — hey I did that once, it’s not a skill that comes up at par­ties though.

12.  Bench­mark your com­puter — really?  Is this even on this list? Yes, I was doing this before I fully under­stood what the bench­marks meant on my 386 DX40.

13. Dec­o­rate your room with only printer paper — am I phys­i­cally in the skill set to be able to do this?  Yes I am — would I?  No.  I’m more likely to dec­o­rate with NES cartridges.

14. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recov­ered — yes I am capa­ble — it would be eas­ier if you encrypted it first though.

15.  Get into a win­dows com­puter if you don’t have a pass­word — yes I’ve done this quite a few times.

16.  Hide data from any­one — yes encryp­tion, hid­den vol­umes, steg­nog­ra­phy (which I got bored with in 2001) — I am capa­ble of doing all that — I’m more likely ot share my data then hide it though.

17. Explain what e=mc2 means — yes I would like the e=MC2 with a side of fries please — yes I am capa­ble, but refuse to put in the details here since I want to make it through this list.

18.  Abstain from buy­ing extended war­ranties — I may have bought one, once — it was on some­thing i thoguht it fall apart though — so it’s all good.

19.  Use pho­to­shop or gimp — yes I am capable.

20. Use a DSLR in full man­ual mode — I can — I’m just lazy and pre­fer it to do the work.

21. Mooch your neigh­bors wi-fi — my neigh­bor doesn’t have wi-fi but I’m ready to mooch when they do.

22. Pro­text your wi-fi — Wep2 cur­rently — For a while I had mac fil­ter­ing, I hated to keep get­ting mac addresses from vis­i­tors though.

23. Cre­ate an ani­mated spray in Valve games — um — I don’t think I’ve played a sin­gle one for more then 5 minutes.…so this one is a no.

24.  Setup RAID — yes I’ve done this a few times over the years for my home net­work.  Now imple­ment Iscsi raid across mul­ti­ple com­put­ers — that’s a challenge.

25. Cal­cu­late a Pitch­ers ERA — no I don’t know how — but I know google will give me the answer quicker then I can cal­cu­late it.

26. Run two Oper­at­ing Sys­tems — um I dual boot currently.…..

27. Install a hard drive in lap­top — done before and some day I’ll do it again.

28. Pull off an elab­o­rate prank — I think have the skill set and knowl­edge — I just never have — unless steal­ing street signs as a teenager counts.

29.  Rocket jump with a macro — um — I said I don’t really do FPS games — so no I can’t do this.

30.  Wire your home with eth­er­net — um every place I’ve lived with my wife we have had wired eth­er­net — we even used RG58 at one point.

31.  Know the 6 most impor­tant linux com­mands — yes I get com­mand not found when I’m not think­ing and run them in windows.

31. Rip your CDs to Flac — we did this for awhile then went back to MP3

32.  Stream Music, Movies, Pic­tures to any TV in the house — I’ve done this before — now we just carry our lap­tops around — shrug.

33.  Install and con­fig­ure a VM — yes I’ve done this for lit­er­ally years (maybe even a decade by now)

34.  Run mul­ti­ple mon­i­tors — yes I use to dual mon­i­tor and run SWG on two dif­fer­ent ones at the same time — I’m sad I know.

35. Run hacked firmware on a router — yes liek the rest of hte world I have a hacked linksys router /yawn.

36.  Pick a lock — I’m not good at it, but I’ve done it a cou­ple times.

37.  Tell the dif­fer­ence between Dr. Pep­per and Mr. Pibb — it’s been awhile but I think I could.

38.  Avoid DRM on every­thing — well stream­ing video legally that they talked about above seems to con­tra­dict this one doesn’t it.   How­ever all my local video, music, picutres, and ebooks are DRM free.

39. Down­load a flash video and refor­mat it — yes I’ve done this — youtube videos locally stored on the N810 ftw.

40.  Get around in DOS — I grew up and DOS and resisted win­dows for a long time — so let’s just say yes.

41. Rip a DVD to h.264 — yes been there done that.

42.  Over­clock your PC — yes I’ve done this my pride and joy was over­clock­ing my AMD 133 mhz 486 to 160 MHZ — and it bench­marked and ran like a pen­tium 133 for half the cost.

43.  Use remote desk­top — it’s part of my job — so yes.

44. Debate the mer­its of a star destroyer vs. the enter­prise — yes, and the star destroyer would win.

45. Buld your own com­puter — built too many to actu­ally count — I’m seri­ous to — I worked at a small PC store and we sold hun­dreds — thou­sands of machines — so I cna build my own.

In irony they don’t seem to actu­ally have 50 things on their list — so I think most geeks should know how to count also.