Other uses for your computer

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I would guess that 95% of the population use their PCs for about five or so common tasks:

Communication: E-mail, web browsing, etc.
Games
Typing documents
Office Work- spreadsheets, etc.
Audio/Visual- playing music, storing digital camera files, etc.

Does anyone out there use their computer for anything more out of the ordinary? Do you use your computer as an alarm clock, for example? Do you have one of those distributed-task programs as a screen saver? Are you a hardcore techophile who has their microwave and coffemaker networked to their PC?

#2

I watch TV shows on mine

#3

Categories listed in the OP

What else:

Designing / Troubleshooting / Supporting FileMaker databases 25 %
(that’s what they pay me for)

Personal Business - budgeting, calculating income tax, etc 1%

Supporting Other Folks’ Computers - 2%

Computing for Its Own Sake – Fixing File Corruption, Defragmenting, Organizing files, doing backups, installing new s/w, installing new h/w, etc - account for whatever’s left.

#4

I have an old 286 that I exclusively use to hold the door open when moving in or out of an apartment.

On my more modern computer, I have subdirectories in my start menu to keep phone numbers in.

#5

I sit in front of one to look busy.

#6

I’ve edited music on mine. I wish I was more of a musician, because then I wouldn’t have only other people’s music to edit.

Photo editing and manipulation.

Webpage work (although that sorta falls under the “Office Work” category).

Sometimes, when I get really bored, I use the voice synthesizer to say very weird things, and then play around with the ensuing recording with my SBLive software. I made Stephen Hawking sound like God.

Oh, and let’s not forget porn.

#7

I use my computer for 1) small amounts of programming 2) wasting my life doing usless stuff 3) playing games [see 2]. 4) Browsing the internet [see 2]. 5) Pretending to work on whle actually doing 3 and 4.

I also use it for heating my room.

#8

  1. Watch VCDs

  2. Design Mac icons

  3. Just enjoy the look of its tangerine clam-shaped loveliness sitting as an objet-d’art on my coffee table…

#9

My wife’s Algebra class has a lot of it’s assignments online, so she uses it for that. The most unusual thing I use mine for (and it’s not too unusual) is use it to keep notes, like phone numbers, reminders to do stuff, etc. basically use Notepad as scratch paper.