You Might Be a Computer Geek

Dr. Roger L. Haggard

You have e-mail addresses on more than 3 servers.
You can't carry on a conversation without talking about computers
Have ever found "stray" diskettes when doing laundry
You have made your ISP completely rethink that "unlimited access" thing
You consider writing a program to change your backgroud/screensaver regularly
You have ever modified an ini file
You get up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop to check your email on your way back to bed
You check your email and get "No new messages" so you check it again
The tech support folks at your ISP call YOU for the tough ones
You have at some point explained what that damned "tilde" thing is (and again)
You know what IRQ stands for...
You don't have a life other than computers... and are proud of it
You've ever described a color using RGB values
You've ever resolved an IRQ/DMA crisis
You have to look at the computer aisle in any store you walk into
...you don't because you know they only have overpriced stuff or junk.
You've used ping to prevent timeouts on your connection
...your ISP had to redo their idle checking because of it
...you simply came up with a way to fool their idle checking
You can program in more languages than you speak
You keep old hardware that you have replaced "because you may need it someday
You email your girlfriend everyday even though it's a local call
You understand dirty jokes about typing one handed
You know 100s of URLs by heart but can't remember your wife's birthday
You have made (or are just about to make) additions to this page
You understand the sounds your modem makes
...and can speak them
You delete a major software package from your office computer to clear space for Quake
You know what "jumpers" are
... and have changed them
... for fun
You can reprogram your VCR, answering machince, fax and microwave
... from memory
You have a personal organizer that is more powerful than your bosses' computer
You look down at you watch and say "Oh, my Gosh it's 5am and I have class/work in 3 hours."
....and instead of going to bed you keep working on your computer.
You have a monitor that is three times larger than you television set.
...you don't have a television at all.
The most comfortable seat in the house is the chair behind the computer.
You stay in school for two more years just for internet access.
Two Words: "Pizza's Here!"
Your dream vacation is a room with lots of fluorescent lights and an unlimited supply of coffee.
You have more bandwidth in your apartment or condo than most major universities.
You come home from work on your lunch hour to check your E-Mail, not to eat lunch.
....Who has time for food anyways
People call you to set up their ISP hookups, and you memorize their login and password.
.. and you don't have your own ISP account.
You're told you should be the C programming tutor in your college.
You store postal addresses in your e-mail program's Address Book.
You've partitioned your hard disk.
... and some of those partitions use an uncommon file system.
You have ever bought a 50-pack of floppies.
You find yourself repartitioning your hard drive for fun.
Even though you have a PC and a Laptop with 56.6K modems, you still save that old 2400bps modem, because "you might need it someday"
You`ve Every E-mailed Yourself to See Your Program is Working After Getting A No New E-Mail Message
You somehow use morphing technology to make your cat look just like David Duchovny
During a power outage, you paced around the house like a caffenated squirrel
You refer to plug and play as.......plug and pray.
You've ever seen two sunrises in a row
...three
You're surprised there's also a 2:00 in the afternoon
You've ever dismantled a HARD drive
...and reassembled it
...and it worked
You've ever used a hex editor to change the IO.SYS file
...on someone else's computer
You run more than 2 OS's on one computer
...at the same time
You've ever edited winmine.ini to cheat on your minesweeper score
...You're going to now
You've ever written batch files to make DOS behave more like UNIX
You've written "Hello, world" programs in more than 10 languages
...and one is binary
You have the ASCII chart memorized
...and you know the name of character 255
You know the keyboard scan code for CTRL-SHIFT_BREAK
You've rearanged the jumpers for the LED's in your computer case
...to say "hi"
...to make others think your computer is faster than it actually is
You laugh at the scene in Jurassic Park where the girl hacks the "unix system" in the control center and everyone stares at you.
You could spend hours elaborating on most of the more popular religious wars (Mac vs. PC, CLI vs. GUI, BBS vs. Internet, C vs. Pascal, etc.).
You laugh at popular computer-related movies because the characters obviously don't have a clue. (How the heck does knocking the phone off the acoustic coupler stop a trace!?)
...you remember what movie that was in
...and you recognized it as an acoustic coupler
You actually know how baud differs from bps.
Your cat knows BASIC.
...and C++.
...and has written more than one popular software package.
Parents coworkers call you for computer help.
You have a simm for a keychain
You have a geek code on your email sig
You hear someone dialing the phone and know what the number is from the tones.
You've ever explained how a modem works
You've ever called that funny noise a modem makes when it first connects a "handshake"
every electronic device in the room(s) with your computer(s) is somehow hooked up to your computer
Your "pocket" calculator can't comfortably fit into your pocket

This page maintained by Dr. Roger L. Haggard
Last updated: February 01, 2006