Laments of a Lonely Geek

This is my first blog/article at HardwareLogic. I’m pretty long-winded, and was advised in the forums that I should use lots of pictures. I try to please.

I guess that this is somewhat of an explanation of why I like hardware forums, part of why I write long, rambling posts, and a little bit of a rant at the level of computer knowledge that the people in my day-to-day life have…or lack thereof.

I have been around and owned computers since before many of you reading this were born. I first operated one before most of you were born, one that used IBM punch cards for data input. So why am I still amazed at the fact that most people don’t know anything about them? Even people that “work” on them! I have no idea.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an ubergeek. Actually, I have a hard time considering myself a geek at all. Most of you would probably impress me greatly with your knowledge. I’m basically a hardware guy, I don’t program, don’t use a helluva lot of software, and have a fairly limited knowledge of networking. I’ve done some modding, but I’d rather look at someone else’s work than do it myself. I overclock, but I’m really not into the extreme stuff, I mainly do it to get some “bang for the buck” from my CPU. I occasionally overclock my video cards, but mostly for reviews.

I’ve done some digital recording, and know a fair amount about it, but that is a separate world that few geeks know about…actually, most people that do it know little to nothing about their computers. That’s obvious because most of them use Macs. LOL I’ve actually used a hex editor to mod a video card BIOS, but had exact instructions on how to do it. I plod around a little in PhotoShop, but am too lazy to really learn the finer details of it.


But we all know so much more than the average Joe that it scares them. Ours is a world that they don’t understand…the few of them that even know it exists. You can tell by the blank stare you get when you even mention hardware sites, overclocking, hell…even gaming...other than solitaire or online poker. Why would they need PhotoShop when they got a free photo editor with their $80 digital camera? They don’t have the slightest clue why you would need a website about computer parts…their knowledge stops at HP, Dell, or Emachines.


I am proud of the fact that I am a hardware reviewer. I consider it one of the major accomplishments of mine in the past 15 or so years, since I left the US Army. (yeah, I know, I don’t have much of a life) Yet, here I am, with this cool thing I do, and no one to talk to about it. The one geek I know, I never see…we now are on opposite shifts at work, and I haven’t seen him in months. And even he really isn’t into the hardware sites…he is more into the PC magazines, and he never overclocks. I have to satisfy my technical loneliness by forums, chat, and email.

Though I do know some people that don’t have a computer and don’t want one, most everyone I know has one. But out of those literally hundreds of people, I only know three that actually have built one, and really only one of those know enough to be considered a geek, the guy I already mentioned. I cross paths with one of the other two occasionally, and the third I haven’t seen in nearly a year. The remainder range from having to read the owner’s manual to turn the rig on, to knowing but not really understanding why they need to worry about spyware. I guess I really only know one other guy that knows any more than that…and he is the person that inspired this article. More on him in a minute.

All of these people know I am a geek. Well…let me rephrase…they know I know about computers…most of them don’t even know what geek means. Many of them think that I know so much that they are afraid to talk to me about computers, and would rather talk to someone more at their level for questions and problems. Which is actually fine with me, but pretty stupid, because I am by nature a nice guy, and purposely go out of my way trying not to make people feel dumb. I am really a teacher at heart, and enjoy showing people how to do stuff, especially if they are interested in learning.

I don’t work on their computers, for several reasons. First, I’d have a hard time charging someone for it, and if I did, I wouldn’t charge the going rates, which is why I couldn’t own my own business. To be honest, when I hear what “The Geek Squad” charges for what I know is simple stuff, I wonder how they sleep nights.


I guess though that the main reason is the answers I get to the first questions I ask when approached with a computer problem: “How old is your computer?” The answer is nearly always: “I dunno…maybe five or six years old…uhhh….maybe older….I think I bought it in 1998 or 1999.” Then I ask: “What operating system do you have?” I usually ask that as much to help determine the computer’s age as much as what needs to be done. The answer is usually: “Windows.” The person that can tell me which version is in the top few percent of knowledgeable people I know.


Which brings me to another primary reason…though I have used every version of Windows prior to Vista, I really don’t remember much before XP, I have been using it exclusively since not long after it’s release. Yeah, if I had the rig in front of me, I’d quickly remember exact details, but I’d much rather just tell them what to do, so they might learn a little more about their computer.

By this time, I am thinking, but too nice of a guy to say it, why in the world do you want to fix a computer that isn’t worth the cost of the gasoline you’d burn bringing it to my house? Yeah, they may have paid $1200-$1500 bucks for it then, but have no concept of the fact that it isn’t worth anything now. Actually, I was totally shocked a few weeks ago when a guy that was asking me about his computer problems asked if I thought that the computer was worth repairing. He admittedly knows zilch about computers…but he does have some common sense.


A guy I work with, and have known for a decade, called me at home last week. He has a full time job, but does many odd jobs for extra cash, including occasionally cleaning spyware and viruses from peoples’ computers, and doing the occasional clean install. This amount of knowledge puts him toward the top of the list, just under the three aforementioned “builders”. Which isn’t saying much.

He was “working” on a computer that “the hard drive crashed”, and the owner had bought another hard drive for him to install. When he told me that he couldn’t figure out how to connect the hard drive, I instantly knew all, but didn’t want to believe that he knew so little. A couple of questions confirmed that this guy that “works on computers”, didn’t have a clue what an SATA drive was. So I have to spend 10 minutes trying to explain what it is, that with an adapter he can use the drive, and that I had such adapter several years ago that came with a motherboard, but I’m sure I don’t have it anymore because I never used it.

I didn’t think much else about it until the next day, when I find out that I work with, and speak to every day, the computer’s owner. We talk about the problem for a short while, and after I start back working, it hits me…the guy “repairing” his computer doesn’t even have a clue that he could actually look at the original hard drive on his own computer to see if it still works, and if the problem is actually with the MBR, or something similar…hell, since the hard drive was removed before he got the computer (someone else looked at it first), he doesn’t really even know if it is the hard drive or some other problem. All he knows is that the computer won’t boot up with the original hard drive. Of course, since he owns an “off the shelf” computer, with only one IDE channel, he has no concept of connecting more than one hard drive to a computer, except an external USB hard drive.

I’m on vacation from work this week, but happened to see the “repair” guy the other night. I told him that I was going to look at the original drive on my rig, to see if I could extract some photos that the owner would really like to have. As we parted, my wife laughed…”Did you notice the blank stare he gave you when you told him what you were going to do?” I didn’t have to notice…I already knew it was there.

I’m sure that I will be the one repairing the computer, whatever ends up having to be done. It will be a favor to the owner, who will undoubtedly now give me all of his computer problems. And undoubtedly, the “repair” guy will call me with many more problems. This was the first time he had called.

So, please forgive me if my posts are a little too long, if I sound a little like a “know-it-all” at times, or if I jump in on a thread where I’m really not needed. I’m sorry…I’m just about to pop because I have no one to talk computers with.