Hijinks Inc.

Category: Aaron Nelsen

  • Death and Taxes


    In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
    – Benjamin Franklin

    It’s tax season, kids! And you know what that means, right? Yeah, me neither. Anyhow, I’ve been rocking the tax scene for the past four hours and it has been pretty painful, I knew going in that I was going to have to pay in of course, and that it was going to be a lot… but it still hurts.

    So, a mere six cups of coffee and $11,237 of deductions later and I think I’m in business. I now only have to pay in several grand and the world is a much happier place, I will take the time to try and lower that figure further before I actually file, especially since I’m in no hurry to pay the feds any of my hard earned money.

    What about you? Are you getting money back, or paying in? Worse yet, have you not even started your taxes?!

  • Eee PC

    I just purchased an Eee PC from Newegg.com and I’m pretty excited to see what a budget Linux laptop is capable of. I’d also really like to replace the screen with a touch screen, but since the computer is meant for my girlfriend I’m not sure she’ll exactly support that idea. Oh well.

    Now I started writing this post on Monday but I didn’t finish it, and since I just got the computer today (Wednesday) this is going to be more of a review, as opposed to a “oh man, this is gonna be sweet” post.

    Like I said, I just got the computer. Obvious first impression is “holy crap! It’s small!”, because frankly it is… Moving on to a more technical note, I clocked the boot time at 33.7 seconds, just over double the claimed 15 second boot time, still not bad. This is the 2G Surf model, so it has a slightly slower processor which might explain the slower boot time. When compared to the 31 second boot time of my Macbook Pro it truly is an impressive feat.

    More random thoughts on the Eee PC after the jump
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  • Prolonging the Life of Your Laptop

    Spending a large amount of time in various coffee shops has given me the opportunity to observe quite a few people breaking basic rules of laptop care, probably due to the fact that no one ever told them that what they were doing was stupid.

    Here are five tips for prolonging the lifespan of your laptop computer. Please note, this list is merely in the order I thought of them and not necessarily ranked by severity.

    [ 1 ] Don’t put your computer in standby, or worse leave it on, and then put it in your carrying case/messenger bag! Even if it’s only a five minute drive to your local coffee shop.

    [ 2 ] Don’t close the lid while the laptop is still on. Planning on leaving your laptop on all night to finish that illegal BitTorrent download? Take the time to turn the screen off in your power prefs (or using the functions keys on your laptop to dim the screen) and leave the lid open. Closing the lid causes heat that would normally escape through the keyboard to build up and could damage your screen in the long run.

    [ 3 ] Don’t use your laptop on a bed, blanket, pillow, or any surface that your laptop is going to sink into. This blocks the airflow to cooling vents on most laptops, leading to heat issues.

    [ 4 ] Don’t eat or drink around your laptop. Pretty obvious, right? Yeah, but I still break it almost every day (in fact, I’m breaking it right now!). And because I ignored this rule my laptop was killed a few months ago by a poorly placed glass of iced coffee *sniff*

    [ 5 ] Don’t run with scissors, right? Same applies to laptops 😛

  • Typing Skills

    How many words per minute can you type? I’m currently averaging around 65 90 WPM, with a top speed of 160. But before this last week I had no idea how fast I could type, and that’s where Keybr.com comes into play, not only can it tell you how many WPM you type, it can actually help you improve your typing skills. Yay!

    So head on over to Keybr.com and try it out, feel free to post your WPM score in the comments section when you’re done.

  • Passive Income – January 2008

    My passive income for January was slightly lower than December, mostly because I had to pay for classes, my speeding ticket, and the bank cut my interest rate. Ah well, still not a bad start to the new year.

    • Interest: $30.58
    • Dividends: $11.53
    • Credit Card Rewards: $13
    • AdSense: $9.93
    • Text Ads: $16.02
    • Misc website income: $15

    That rings up to a fairly respectable $96.06 for the month, I’m hoping to see an average of $100+ per month this year, we’ll see how that works.

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