Author Topic: How do you spend your time on the computer? (Read 50,391 times)

zridling · « **on:** January 08, 2007, 01:25 PM »

Like some, I spend my entire day typing, pointing, and clicking (I work with exhaustive database files and it sux), and when I get home I'm ready to be entertained or learn something. How do you spend your time at the computer? Here are some common online activities:

Gaming
Blogging (reading/writing/posting in forums)
Social activities (chat, myspace, findbook, second life)
Porn (gets my vote)
Multimedia (watching movies, making movies, photography, graphics)
Usenet/P2P/BitTorrent (sharing)
Programming (really?)
Writing the next great novel
Learning something/anything (Wikipedia, or any educational source)
Shopping (would get my vote if I had the €€€)
Money matters (banking, stocks, or what the rich do with it all)
Sports, gambling, politics, etc.

What else?

brotherS · « **Reply #1 on:** January 08, 2007, 01:49 PM »

Interesting topic!

I mostly

listen to music from online radios (no more music mp3s)
listen to my own mp3-recordings of a FM radio station (that I let Total Recorder record automatically for me: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1560.0) that I like; I listen to "just people talking" recordings at >200% the original speed with Pacemaker: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=3198.0
plan things to do in the future with RememberTheMilk: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=5584.0
use AutoHotkey (http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1167.0) to spend less time on repetitive PC tasks
read websites and PDF documents that I find online
help others in forums and IRC channels
order tons of great books (http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=6892.0) to continually grow (I read them while listening to music)
keep track of birthdays
keep in touch with friends by using emails and IM messages (using Miranda: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1201.0
watch movies after making sure I won't totally waste 2 hours at http://akas.imdb.com/
write down interesting dreams when I remember them in the morning
write down every single good idea that I have
backup my most important files (not often enough)

cthorpe · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2007, 02:00 PM »

Try out interesting and cool software
Read about elementary education, especially technology education
Listen to music
Read about current events and politics

jgpaiva · « **Reply #3 on:** January 08, 2007, 02:20 PM »

I don't do much, but still i always have something to do:

Gaming (both online and offline)
Reading/Writing at DC
Chat on msnmessenger and on DC's irc channel
Watching Movies and series
Programming (for school and DC)
Studying
Trying to impove my computer experience (new software, new tweaks, new hardware, etc)

nudone · « **Reply #4 on:** January 08, 2007, 03:15 PM »

from what i've observed - my computer is using me for something and not the other way around.

brotherS · « **Reply #5 on:** January 08, 2007, 04:01 PM »

Quote from: nudone on January 08, 2007, 03:15 PM

from what i've observed - my computer is using me for something and not the other way around.

Deozaan · « **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2007, 01:00 AM »

Gaming, programming, DonationCoder and the DC IRC channel, occasional blogging, other miscellaneous things. And I listen to music while I'm at it.

f0dder · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2007, 09:49 AM »

I'd have to agree with nudone. It can be summed up as "trying to convince myself that I'm just about to do something relevant" - aka procrastinating.

This involves surfing forums, checking out links, idling on IRC, playing the occasional game, and doing excel charts of our power consumption and calculating how much we'll have to pay for it.

tomos · « **Reply #8 on:** January 09, 2007, 09:54 AM »

Quote from: f0dder on January 09, 2007, 09:49 AM

... doing excel charts of our power consumption and calculating how much we'll have to pay for it.

thanks f0dder - first good laugh in a couple of day

(reminds me of me doing Excel charts of all my shortcuts ...

)

zridling · « **Reply #9 on:** January 10, 2007, 05:51 AM »

nudone for a minute I thought you were going to say your computer had you pinned and bent over the desk... but that's just Microsoft's latest EULA I was thinking of.

zridling · « **Reply #10 on:** January 10, 2007, 05:54 AM »

I should add that I spend an inordinate amount of computer time collecting (great/free) crap — ebooks, music, videos, porn (yes I'll admit it, even if it offends), photos. It's obsessive, as if I'm thinking, "Well someday when I'm in a nursing home, I'll have something to do and lots of stuff to review and finally get around to reading." And to which I'm sure it will take me only a couple of hours to delete most of it.

Deozaan · « **Reply #11 on:** January 10, 2007, 05:58 AM »

Quote from: zridling on January 10, 2007, 05:54 AM

It's obsessive, as if I'm thinking, "Well someday when I'm in a nursing home, I'll have something to do and lots of stuff to review and finally get around to reading."

I tend to be that way about downloads. I have a downloads directory that I've tried to organize everything I've downloaded and don't often delete anything from it. As if the programs I save won't be outdated in a couple of months. . . I was even saving each version of Firefox (back to when it was still called Firebird).

Silly me.

nudone · « **Reply #12 on:** January 10, 2007, 09:19 AM »

zaine, i think your nursing home idea is brilliant. now i can feel good about collecting for the sake of collecting (well, now it has a purpose).

as for my pc bending me over - all in good time my dear fellow, all in good time. i'm sure it will happen in my lifetime.

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** January 10, 2007, 09:25 AM »

My time spent on computer:

Programming
Spending far too much time reading political blogs and watching c-span.
Working on DC website

What I should be spending more time on:

Writing academic papers

brotherS · « **Reply #14 on:** January 10, 2007, 01:35 PM »

Quote from: mouser on January 10, 2007, 09:25 AM

My time spent on computer:
Spending far too much time reading political blogs and watching c-span.

That one sounds like the perfect thing to do less of in 2007. Instead, be more productive and send $50 to your favorite organisation so that *they* can fight for you!

Benefits: more time, less stress, more positivity

I used to follow the news at least twice every day, until I finally figured it out: reading only an abstract once a week gives me good knowledge about the important things, and if something isn't worth being discussed after a week I shouldn't try to know it in the first place.

vegas · « **Reply #15 on:** January 11, 2007, 10:52 AM »

Quote from: mouser on January 10, 2007, 09:25 AM

My time spent on computer:
Programming
Spending far too much time reading political blogs and watching c-span.
Working on DC website

oh ok, you don't play games! shuuuuure ya don't.

f0dder · « **Reply #16 on:** January 11, 2007, 01:41 PM »

Quote from: tomos on January 09, 2007, 09:54 AM

Quote from: f0dder on January 09, 2007, 09:49 AM
... doing excel charts of our power consumption and calculating how much we'll have to pay for it.

thanks f0dder - first good laugh in a couple of day
(reminds me of me doing Excel charts of all my shortcuts ... )

It sounds a bit silly, but it actually IS useful

- I live in cold&dark old scandinavia, so it was pretty relevant to figure out how much more power we use in the winter compared to the summer. Fortunately (and a bit surprising), it's been pretty linear over the whole year

I collect stuff as well, and lots of it. I think my downloads folder is 4-8 gigs (or more? not at home right now). And there isn't any pr0n, MP3s (except for a few odd random ones - but no pirated full albums or the like), gamez or similar in there. At least I only collect virtual stuff, you should see the amount of physical junk my mother collects

app103 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 12, 2007, 05:28 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on January 10, 2007, 05:58 AM

Quote from: zridling on January 10, 2007, 05:54 AM
It's obsessive, as if I'm thinking, "Well someday when I'm in a nursing home, I'll have something to do and lots of stuff to review and finally get around to reading."

I tend to be that way about downloads. I have a downloads directory that I've tried to organize everything I've downloaded and don't often delete anything from it. As if the programs I save won't be outdated in a couple of months. . . I was even saving each version of Firefox (back to when it was still called Firebird).

Silly me.

That's not actually silly. I am the same way. And when I was stuck using an older pc that couldn't run the latest & greatest software, I was glad I had all those older versions to play around with.

Quote from: f0dder on January 11, 2007, 01:41 PM

I collect stuff as well, and lots of it. I think my downloads folder is 4-8 gigs (or more? not at home right now). And there isn't any pr0n, MP3s (except for a few odd random ones - but no pirated full albums or the like), gamez or similar in there. At least I only collect virtual stuff, you should see the amount of physical junk my mother collects

You guys actually have a downloads folder? I have download drives, each for a specific type of thing.

And I am not just a digital packrat, I am the kind that does it with physical junk too. And I am convinced that it's genetic, since I can't think of one member of my family that isn't a packrat...and I am talking about going back a few generations too.

As far as what I do with my pc, it's well documented in the biography section of my profile.

f0dder · « **Reply #18 on:** January 12, 2007, 01:23 PM »

Quote

You guys actually have a downloads folder? I have download drives, each for a specific type of thing.

Yeah, mounted at s:\downloads until I have the new partitioning layout all sorted, used to be e:\downloads. That's just all sorts of misc stuff - if I download something large (linux iso, the entire series of "welcome to the scene", whatever) it typically goes somewhere else. Specific partitions for downloading sounds like a bit of drive space waste... I do try to keep some sensible tree structure in that folder, though. Anyway:

Code

S:\>dir /s download
     ....................
     Total Files Listed:
           13849 File(s) 12.199.440.250 bytes
            5111 Dir(s)  23.790.870.528 bytes free

eek. Needs sorting and deletion and that kind of stuff.

dwbrant · « **Reply #19 on:** January 14, 2007, 10:06 AM »

When I'm not at work, I am busy processing photographs using Adobe Lightroom ( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/ ).

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** January 14, 2007, 10:28 AM »

Quote

oh ok, you don't play games! shuuuuure ya don't.

ok,ok you caught me, i play one once in a while

brotherS · « **Reply #21 on:** January 14, 2007, 01:49 PM »

Quote from: dwbrant on January 14, 2007, 10:06 AM

When I'm not at work, I am busy processing photographs using Adobe Lightroom ( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/ ).

Wow, thanks!! I was blown away by the videos on http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/gallery/ - the Doug Menuez and Sarah Silver vids are soooooo beautiful!

Could you please post a mini-review of Adobe Lightroom in the mini-review part of the forum? That includes your comments and maybe a before/after image or two of yours?

tinjaw · « **Reply #22 on:** January 23, 2007, 05:09 PM »

Wow. This is very difficult for me to answer. The reason being that there isn't enough hard drive space on the DonationCoder.com web server to handle it.

I live and breath computers. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spend 90% or more of my waking hours interacting with a computer an an average day. I have been a computer hobbyist since age 13 and at 39 I have been in the software profession for over 11 years. I live alone spend my off hours in front of the computer. And no, I don't think it's pathetic.

I love computer games. My tastes are wargames and strategy games. I like playing them as well as developing them. I develop software of all kinds from batch/shell scripts to multi-tiered MVC applications. I watch movies and listen to music on my computer. I read books on my computer. I shop online and chat with my friends via IRC and instant messengers. If it there is something I want or need to do and it can be done on the computer, I will probably do it on the computer.

mouser · « **Reply #23 on:** January 23, 2007, 06:27 PM »

Quote

I live alone spend my off hours in front of the computer. And no, I don't think it's pathetic.

Amen!

hamradio · « **Reply #24 on:** January 23, 2007, 07:10 PM »

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