I know I have a self-destructive streak in me. For whatever reason I’m unable to stop dicking around with the registry. Even though I sometimes make things better and faster, it really isn’t worth the pain and anguish when I seriously bork my computer.
I also must have the new and “improved” version of every browser, right now dammit! Nevermind that the older version ran perfectly and that chances are greater than 50% that something will seriously hose my system with the newer version.
I didn’t know that preferring keyboard shortcuts is a bad habit. Huh. To me, they make perfect sense if saving time and being efficient is your goal (but then, I’m a video game player from back in the seventies, so I’m used to rapidly tap-tap-tapping along. I’ve seen people using the mouse who are just as quick, so it’s merely a matter of preference).
One thing I do, again not a bad habit, is put icons on my desktop so I can ctrl-alt-shortcut key to open the program. Word is C-A-W, Calculator is C-A-= (this is always the first one I set up… always), Excel is C-A-X, etc etc etc.
I have a backup scheme and I even have a computer on my home network which I bought, upgraded, and installed fully intending to use as a backup server.
I’m still gnawing away at doing it regularly the way I designed it to work, mainly because I loaded up my backup server with video files off my main computer, which is also my DVR and got a bad case of no more hard drive space a while back.
Posture - I practically lay down in my chair while my legs are on my ottoman. I actually don’t suffer from any pain but in the long run I’m sure this is eating me up.
File Organization - My system always changes but never lasts more than a month. This often results in loss of important/semi-important files should I ever need to back-up my pc and reformat/
Bookmarking - I often find cool stuff but usually forget to bookmark and have to run through “the routine” in order to find a certain page again
System Health - Let’s just say 2 hour daily virus scans and 6 hour weekly defrags aren’t on my list of priorities.
Power/Hardware - My computer is always on. I like being able to continue from the state I was at last.
Software - I hardly clean-up my installed programs so my computer usually gets cluttered with tons of unused progs.
Wireless (battery-powered) mouse - It’s nice, but costs me quote a few bucks per year to operate. I think I’ll be getting a corded mouse for my next purchase, or at least something rechargeable.
Sleep/Insomnia - My sleep patterns are often disrupted due to too much time spent online. Perception of time while on the internet doesn’t seem to really exist for me. I can spend what seems like an hour online and 4-5 hours will pass. “I’ll just check the Dope then sleep” turns into posting 5 new threads and reading all the new content on the entire web (this is a never-ending process but it takes me 4-5 hours to realize it before convincing myself to sleep).
Health - Besides posture, my active live style isn’t very, uhh, active… Now, if I were to ever gain weight this might change, but my weight doesn’t seem to shift much, ever.
Diet - Similar to sleep/insomnia, I often forget to eat and/or drink regularly throughout the day, should I be working on a time-consuming project. I often go 12+ hours without moving out of my chair.
Minor Chores/Errands - I don’t forget to do these. Nope. Never. Laundry? Always done. Never in a pile 3 feet high. I’d never let that happen.
I think maybe it’s time I give up using a computer once and for all… Seems the cons outweigh the pros by a good stretch, for me at least… Eh, who am I fooling… I’m not going anywhere.
Get a rechargeable one.
Best mouse ever, and I’ve gone through a lot of mice.
Drinking beer at my computer.
So schedule them to run in the wee hours.
I over-archive my work emails. I make sure to save every one of them, but then I have to put them in a complicated hierarchy of folders that may or may not completely apply to the email in question. So I know I have the email you’re talking about, just give me an hour to sift through the 120 folders I have in the archive instead of just having them all in one folder where I can use ctrl-F to search for the text.
I don’t use an always-running or scheduled virus scanner. I’m cautious enough about where I go and what I do that I haven’t had any incidents. I do use Windows’ built-in firewall, keep a router between myself and the Big Bad World, and occasionally run a manual virus scan. Internet Explorer is forbidden in my house.
I keep my WiFi network open, as a kind of public service. One of my neighbors has told me that he occasionally connects to it. When my cable connection was out recently, I connected to a different neighbor’s open network.
My digital photos are stored in a stupid folder, waaay into the directory tree.
When I bought my first digital camera, its image management software’s default location for pictures was in a subfolder of its “Program Files” directory.
Then I bought a new camera, and stopped using that program, but kept storing pictures in the same place.
Then I came back from a vacation in Hawaii, and wanted to be able to access my vacation pics through my network, so I created a new “Hawaii” folder within the old one for those pictures, and shared it.
By this point, I was using Windows’ built-in image-upload utility, so the images all went into folders under “Hawaii” named for the date they were taken.
Then I bought a new computer, and the old one was relegated to the role of file server/kids’ computer. I started uploading my images using the new computer, but sending them through the network to the old one. When I did this for the first time, I accidentally pointed the utility at one of the dated folders, so they’re going into dated folders inside that older dated folder.
The end result is that new photos go somewhere like “E:\Program Files\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Image Library One\Hawaii\9-18-08\4-27-09”. (However, I normally access them through the network at “\DADDYPC\Hawaii\9-18-08\4-27-09”.)
I also never permanently delete e-mails at home. I still have ten-year-old spam that I received through a now-defunct ISP, living in a three-room cottage. (It would be different if spammers knew about my current e-mail address. The closest thing to spam that I get now is Classmates.com trying to get my wife to upgrade her membership.)
Get yourself a copy of Windows Home Server and Power Pack 2. It’s the business and will solve both your backup and video problems.
Oh yeah. Me too and with all software, not just the browser. So much so, that my tired desktop just can’t handle the newest bloated versions of the software wrt the versions that came out 5 years ago. 
Just be careful, there’s a limit to how long the path can be and still have Windows access it properly. We’ve got some honking deep file structures and long filenames at work (over 256? is that the limit?) and Word (e.g.) can’t open the file anymore…
NB
My posture is awful as well. One of my coworkers openly cringes every time he walks in my office and sees me using my laptop. In my defense, these desks are designed for desktops with proper monitors and we don’t have the budget to procure either of those for me.
Ok, I have no defense - I could just put a couple of phone books under my laptop, maybe?
And I’ve gotten better about this, but I sometimes still minimize one window at a time to get to my desktop rather than click the handy Show Desktop taskbar icon. Again, in my shoddy defense, the laptop they assigned to me at my old job didn’t have that icon and I didn’t bother to configure it, so I just plain wasn’t used to using it until more recently. Still, duuuuhhhhh!
Sir, I would like to shake your hand. I cannot possibly express how much watching people mess with zoom vexes me. “JUST USE THE SCROLL WHEEL!”
You can also just hit the windows key and D at the same time.
Mr. Neville does that too. I’m pretty sure he does it to annoy me. Some people build Total Perspective Vortices to annoy their wives, some highlight stuff for no reason in web pages, I guess.
He also flicks the mouse wheel back and forth, so the text moves up and down. Maybe he figures he can justify a new computer if I get motion sick and hork all over his.
I’ve got almost 3700 email messages at work, about 100 at home. I was down to about 1,000 before I got busy. I’m not counting the ones in folders, which are actually useful.
a new one - I don’t file my bookmarks. Even worse, when I moved to a new computer and copied the old ones, I did it twice, so new bookmarks are at the bottom of a large stack.
When I want to do some data analysis, it never seems to fit exactly with what canned tools can do, so I write my own apps to either do the analysis or get the data into a format where the canned tools can work on it. I’m not sure this is actually a bad habit, since it keeps me employed.
I also save all my old emails. If I ever need to know what spam I got in 2003… oh dear lord what am I saying. I’m scared to go all the way back in my email.
I have a bad habit of right clicking for no reason, followed by left clicking to get rid of the menu that pops up.
Mostly harmless, except several years back, I had Windows ME, and after a year of usage, the OS would slowly bork itself so badly that even a right-click would blue screen the desktop.
It’s annoying me to this day, because Ubuntu doesn’t handle right-clicking quite like Windows. Windows won’t activate the right click menu until the menu has fully rendered, but Ubuntu will, meaning there will be times I right-click on the page, and I suddenly find myself “back” one page, or staring at the page souce.
Wow, I didn’t think most computers could handle that.
And, I don’t think the weekly defrags are necessary. Also, you forgot spyware and adware scans!