So, yesterday i was at my desk working on some code when my father(knows nothing of computers) sees me and tells me to stop playing games and do some work, I say "I'm not playing I'm working on code", but what he sees on my screen is a text window and a IM client in the backgrond(I *** Makebot). All this got me thinking, what is the best way to show of my "mad skills"? I already have web 2.0 stickers on my laptop and use keyboard commands; the problem is that when someone sees your screen the instantly see ordinary simple stuff, which begs the quetion, What is the Leetest thing you can do with whats on screen? I'm looking for your opinions on what the leetest screen looks like: - What backgrounds? - What themes? - What apps? - What fonts? that sorta thing.
i mean, what will make everyday people go "wow, he's a programer/hacker/computer god" just form the sight of your screen edit: think CTU form 24
That depends, you wanna look like what people percieve as what a "hacker" would put on their desktop? Download Zmatrix(basicly makes the matrix characters scrolling in green your desktop) and put a linux penguin behind it. Possibly wearing a dark coloured hat. You wanna actually be leet? Kill the desktop picture, run black, have a terminal maybe, integrated into the shell. Now that's kinda leet. IRC is also advisable, not 'cos its actually hacky or anything, but just cos its neat. It's quite easy to take windows to the point of little to no usability for anyone who's not familiar with your system. Just start by moving anything that can be moved, and sticking it somewhere abnormal(start bar on the roof for instance). Not that I do that, because frankly I don't care what people think my monitors look like, and overall I'd prefer people didn't see my PC, because it would mean they're not in my room about to touch my PC, but, I digress.
A theme, any one without the familiar windows colours and buttons then. Maybe use the old start bar mod, change it to something relevant. Get rid of everything on the desktop. Hide the taskbar, or make it double stacked? I've seen a lot of n00bs with that too though, they have it at the side to look cool and then move it back a week later when they realise it's hideously impractical Basically I'd just change everything until it's unrecogniseable, and add all the power toys there are.
Do hackers even bother being special anymore? Im sure in such a digital age where more then afew people are computer literate and advanced know quite abit. would hackers really bother trying to be special? Personally i would think not and they would run their machines just like most of us on the forums with the added code/programs that they use...... desktop wise it would prob be the same as any joe bloke.
Not letting people know that you are better then them is the best way, just the knowledge that you are better then someone is more then enough. If you have to prove it, you have an inferiority complex and therefore are not good enough.
whilst i personally think linux is the best thing any screen can display, and that your knowledge and attitude is what makes you leet, i did have an idea.... open your screen, and remove the crt/lcd. take a picture. re-assemble screen. set picture of the inside of your monitor as your desktop. et viola, an 'invisible' screen (i.e. it looks like the icons are floating there, and you can see through into the inside of your screen) that would be pretty slick, methinks.
To take this idea one step further, get a small decent laptop camera, mount it on the back of the LCD panel and have it running in the background to look like your wallpaper. Make it look like you can see through the screen in real time. Or if your on a desktop or laptop that doesn't move. Take a picture of what's behind it. Like so If I had a better camera it could be alot nicer.
Now that is leet! What you are asking for isn't leet, it's just geeky. If you want to be a geek all you need to do is run linux, but dont use the gui, don't even bother with X (or whatever it's called), just use a terminal. Sorted.
I run kismet on my laptop all the time, and generally have few ssh windows open on my desktop. those are pretty nerdy/leet
If you wanna be real.. go linux If you wanna stick with windows.. just use a different shell.. one with different 'desktops' for example.. then you can put your IM and other plain stuff on one desktop and your coding on another. Some shells offer a really different look.. non-windows like. I guess that would help for your 'goal'. Honestly.. I think it's a bit 14-yrld L
i agree with lovah.. you dont have to proove yourself to anyone.. i think in this age teh only thing hackers want to do is stay out of the picture. The coolest thing i could think of, is putting a box over your keyboard.. and no peaking at your fingers..
I'd have to disagree with the whole Linux thing, unless you're running sans X, in which case, that's probabily the 'leetest' thing you can do. Good luck writing code with Vi then. If Linux isn't an option then just run a terminal in the background or something. (Oh, Gentoo, Slackware, LFS are all good Linux options. Anything else is jsut wussy, especially Ubuntu/SuSE.)
i used to have a matrix screenasaver, the one where all the numbers came roling down. one day one of the neighbours came by and when they saw it there first reaction was "i think you have a virus.." pretty funny other thing you can try is running a mac styled theme, looks fun