Computersight -

Games

Games is probably the biggest thing on a computer. When either it be a simple 5kb online flash game or a CD-ROM 10GB sized FPS game, games is sure to take a lot of time. You might be occupied several hours a day just for having a little fun. A little reminder though: Don’t play too much, it can hurt you.

Video

Watching video is a huge, huge thing on the internet. There is probably over 100 video sites with video of anything you like. The best video site is probably YouTube , But also MetaCafe, Stage 6 (DivX video), and Google Video (includes a lot of YouTube).

Graphics

Staring at pictures, taking pictures, editing pictures, uploading, downloading, blogging, watching, almost everything you can think uses graphics and pictures.

If you’re a website manager you might want to spiff up the site with some exciting pictures and icons.

If you’re a photographer you might want to take your SD card, pop into your computer and upload your pictures. Then you can clean you SD card again, as the backup is on the computer, and then take more pictures. You save money on developing pictures too.

Music

Face it, music makes everything more elaborate. What if you went to a concert, and all you heard was nothing. Or watching a movie, a horror movie, wouldn’t be anything without the sound. But now you don’t have to go to a concert or watch a horror movie, just to hear your favorite soundtrack. The computer is here for you. On the internet there is tons of sites who offers great musical enchantment like Musicovery , and outside the internet, if you got a CD-ROM with your favorites on, press it into the computer and put it on your computer. It’s easy, either you rip it with a software, or goto your drive and copy the sound.

Editing

Ever wanted to edit anything that just isn’t perfect yet? How about video special effects, drums and bass, masking pictures, creating your own Mario level? All you have to do is edit it.

For example, video effects, can be made quite good with FXHome VisionLab Pro, you can add laser sabers, fog, interference and lots of other stuff. But how about the sound? A sound editor that adds bass and drum and a lot of other stuff is available on the web, just search? How about VirtualDJ or FL Studio?

But you want to make pictures look better? Photoshop is the tool for you. Although there is a lot of other image editors from MS Paint to Photoshop, Photoshop is the ultimate. How about erasing the background and make it look like you are wounded, bleeding and on the moon? That would be cool. But lets say, you’re more into games. You liked Super Mario 3 right? How about Super Mario Improvement 3? Where you can edit a existing SM3 rom and make your own levels. Sounds really entertaining (Note: Roms are not provided by Super Mario Improvement 3).

There is gigatons of equipment for all your need out there. Just search.

Socializing

Social life is best when outside traveling around with friends. But it is not all dead on the computer. There is a lot of places where you can make new world wide friends. These includes forums, blogs, guestbooks, chat rooms, IRC, internet phone, instant messaging, e-mails or other online activity.

Popular software includes MSN, AIM, ICQ, Skype, mIRC, AOL and Yahoo. These are chat programs which sends instant messages or e-mail to all your friends for free (with the exception of Skype which is an online telephone that costs for anything else than other skype users). Making accounts is usually free and you have the chance to make an special name which could be world wide someday.

When it comes to forums however, these are mostly online based. And there is a huge collection of forums just waiting for you out there. You can even make your own forum. Just search the web for free forums or something.

Development and Productivity

Sitting around the computer all day isn’t always just a waste of time. You can do things that will cover up the time lost. Many people sit all day at the computer and earn a lot of money. Just look at Bill Gates, making the Windows system, he is one of the richest guys on the Earth. And to make the system, you don’t think he sat all day with his DOS lines?

Now, development doesn’t always bring in cash, but can be enjoyed by others. Take New Grounds for example. This site is almost fully dedicated to Adobe Flash users publishing their content which took around 6 weeks to complete, just to get credit and to be known world wide.

If you’r a grown person you might work with computers. Develop programs all day and such. You might have a major breakthrough and start producing something revolutionary. Now, this doesn’t happen to everybody, but it is fun to create stuff, getting it published, and enjoyed by others.

Knowledge

Ah, considered our prime function, learning is what differs us from single celled organisms. Learning is obtained by books, documentations, movies, audio, and by watching others. However, all this is easily obtained by the internet. If you have a question, search for it, and the answer might pop up. Half my brain is from things I learned from the web. Like scripting, tricks, history, math, development and science. Wikipedia is considered the biggest source of information (however, being editable by anyone, everything is not always 100% accurate), and it is also make in a huge selection of Languages (not tied together so everything may not be display the same at each language).. You have the power of knowledge in your browser. Use it.

Creating and Design

Tied together with editing, development and productivity, creating and designing your own thing from scratch is one seriously huge thing on the computer. Think about it, many things you do, are created by you. If we take away text based stuff like forum posts and e-mail, have you ever though of all the videos, pictures, audio and such on the web? Many of those are made from scratch.

Take Photoshop, you can make a universe with stars, planets, twirls, waves, blasts and meteors just from scratch, without anything.

Creating a video might take some raw footage, but all the editing, titles, special effects and that things are made from scratch by you.

And audio, every piece of sound must have been made from scratch at some point. And they are created every second, many by software on a computer. And the web? The whole web was made from scratch, every site is made from scratch, html files that are made from scratch by someone, maybe you? Then hosted at an computer for viewing by everyone. My point is, most the time, many people are creating random stuff, when either it be games, graphics, video, audio, html, software or flash.

Speaking of flash, did you know, that almost every ad, banner and online video is made with flash? Of course YouTube videos are made with a camera and some editing, but in general, they are converted to flash video (flv).

Rainy Days

The final, and probably a very used reason to sit at the computer, is rainy days. When the weather is cloudy and rainy, the TV is broken, you have just sold your game boy, the fridge is empty, you’re sealed inside your computer room and the computer is on, you will most likely jump into your chair and grab that mouse as if it were the end of the world.