What Can You Do While You’re Bored?
September 23, 2009 by Clair Ching
Filed under Geeky Fun
Well, if you have your computer I could give you a few things to try. After all, sometimes, watching a tv series could get boring. Or it could be that you’ve seen your videos over and over and over again. You need to do something new. In that case, you might want to try doing these things that I do. It might not be the most adventurous thing at first but who knows what you might be learning along the way.
Tux, the mascot (heart brushes from free-brushes.com)
- Search for a new application to try.
For me, this never gets old. I love looking for new applications to try, just because I can. Most Linux distributions have package managers that help users search for particular applications and install them. There are also times when friends ask me for certain types of applications so I get curious if I’ve never heard of them. I look for articles and blog entries about them, then I search for the package if ever it’s in the repository. If it is, it’s my lucky day because I could easily install it. At least I have an idea of other tools I could use. If the application turns out to be something not really useful for me, I could just uninstall it and file the additional information as something I might be able to pass on to someone else. - Tweak your desktop settings.
Seriously, this could eat up so much time. If you want a certain behavior to happen in your desktop environment or window manager, sometimes you have to do a lot of tweaking. Even just changing the background image could take forever, especially if you have so much artwork to choose from. And if you want a certain theme, you might have to customize everything. Another factor is that you could actually tweak so many things like default applications, applet configurations, etc. I could take a half a day doing this when the mood strikes me. - Check out Easter eggs in various applications.
When you search for Easter eggs on the internet, you’d get all sorts of things. It could be something that you see on the command line or a particular application. Could it be the code for Contra? Or is it something else entirely? Whatever it is, I am sure it will make you smile or chuckle. Sometimes I just laugh out loud because of how funny some of them could be.
These suggestions may or may not appeal to you. But if they do, at least you’ve got something to do. ; )
These are exactly the things that I do, but really what we should be doing, if we’re bored and are interested in becoming un-bored with the computer, is picking up a book or digging out a HowTo and learning more about our systems
I for one don’t know how to program and every day I think about it a little, and even if I don’t ever master a language it would be time better spent than some of the more frivolous activities I seem to rather spend my time doing. Or, reading and working my way through a MySQL tutorial, or learning about the command line (for those who don’t feel comfortable there), or reading RFCs for email, or learning about networking…
So, yes, when bored we can play with our systems to make them look good, or perhaps we can spend some time learning to make ourselves better.
That being said, I have about 15 tabs of news to read before I get ready for work, and likely none of them involve learning
Easier said than done eh?
Well, being un-bored is something that each person has to deal with every so often. These are just a few of the things I noticed I often do or what my co-workers do. I guess that some of these activities are quick enough to get over with at times and some of these may take a while. At least you learn something along the way even if it’s not a tutorial. It’s just a short list after all.
If you’re the type who prefers to be make your system look good and help you become more productive my suggestion applies. If you know you have something else better to spend your time on, then going through a tutorial or short course will be the better deal. Each of us have different attention spans and interests.
As for your 15 tabs, a lot of us could probably relate XD But lately I noticed cutting down from 15 to 10 tabs on the average. Then again, I have my DSi right beside me so you know what else could get my attention.