Cool Blogging by Sheela

Top 10 Things I’ve Learned from Living with a Nerd

These days, nerds are everywhere. Twitter profiles proclaiming oneself as a nerd abound. Ironic nerd eyeglasses have been popularized by celebrities and adopted by the masses. There’s even a nerd dating website, and I swear at least one of your colleagues is on it. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Nerd candy made a comeback. Blue tongues for everyone!

No longer confined to dusty basement computer labs and all-night LAN parties, one would imagine that the great 21st century nerd outage would result in all of us getting a little smarter when it comes to all things techy. Right? Wrong. Here are 10 things I’ve learned from having my very own live-in nerd. These may sound basic, but they’ve eliminated 90% of my tech problems over the past seven years.

1. When there’s an update, do it. It sounds silly, but I used to think that those little updates that pop up on your computer were more suggestions than mandates. I’d always push them off until later, thinking “When I really need it, the computer will force me to do it.” Guess what? It turns out that’s not true!  Doing the basic updates makes a big difference in how well your computer works. Shocker.

2. When in doubt, restart. One of Scott’s colleagues gives the following default computer advice to family members who call for computer help: “Restart 3 times then call me if it’s still not working.” Ha! Three times sounds a bit excessive