Please rate how knowledgable you feel you are as a computer user. If you wish, you can also leave a comment on how you arrived at your rating.

Use this as a guide ...

Guru: I know everything about computers and can figure out everything on my own. I never have to ask anyone for help. I can learn anything on my own.

Expert: I know a lot, and can figure out most things on my own. I seldom have to ask anyone for help. I can learn most things on my own, but occassionally need to seek clarification from others.

Power User: I know more than most users, but still have a lot to learn. I can solve most problems on my own, but occassionally have to ask for help. I can learn most things on my own, but sometimes need to get a little help from others.

Experienced User: I know enough for my purpose, and will pick up new skills when I need to. I can fix common problems on my own, and know where to find answers for problems that are not common. I can learn most things on my own, and will seek assistance when required.

Beginner: I don't know a lot yet, but I am learning more each day. I can fix simple problems on my own, but need assistance for problems that are not obvious. I can learn some things on my own, but won't tackle things that are too technical, and will seek assistance when required.

Dumb ***: I know absolutely nothing about computers and need to ask for help very often. Other's get frustrated at my lack of understanding.

One Power User here! I seldom ask for help, but that's not enough to make me an Expert; got a while until I get there ;) !

Interesting thread Nic, it will be interesting to see what others' think of their skills on computers.

I chose expert. 95% of the time I can figure it out on my own, but like all levels of users (other than those that are too good for help) I do need to ask questions at times. Lots of times if I think asking a questions will get the answer to me quicker I'll do that instead of waiting on myself to figure something out hehe. If knowledge is abundant and easily accessible as it seems to be here, I find myself asking a LOT of questions. I'm pretty hungry for knowledge. After all, the more questions you ask, the quicker you become smarter :P

I am A Power Dumb ***;)

Well.. I don't know much about IBM z/OS.e, for example. Does that make me a beginner? :giddy:

Power user.

with some modesty ;) looks at some people around ...

Somewhere between power user and experienced user! Thats what i think.

There should be a rating called, "God" for myself. ;)

I know everything about everything everywhere. :p

hehe, follows the normal gaussian distribution so far ;) all seems correct :p

I voted for Dumb ***.

The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know.

I am ashamed that I don't know more about cisco networking, various types of programming like bash shell scripting, python, perl, etc. I should know more about relational database managment systems like Oracle, and it goes without saying that I should know MUCH MORE about UNIX.

There's so much I want to know and I reckon I will be spending my whole life learning it. So therefore, dubbing myself anything other than a ******* is wrong. Because I am a *******.

Oh, and if ANYONE calls themselves a guru, I will torment you until the end of time!

so the normal progression should be ******* > beginner > experienced > power user > back to ******* ;)

Probably power user, although sometimes feel like a dumb ***. All I want is for my puter to do as I ask it all the time, is that too much to ask?

Originally posted by DigitAlex ...
so the normal progression should be ******* > beginner > experienced > power user > back to *******
I guess once you're getting close to becoming a Guru, you reach that moment of enlightenment/realisation, and make a sharp drop back down to the bottom, and start all over again (looks like some members will be making their first iteration/loop pretty soon).

Just like P66 said, the more you learn, the less you feel you know, and that probably comes with a growing awareness of all the things you didn't realise you didn't know. :confused:

Originally posted by Rick ...
There should be a rating called, "God" for myself.
Again, if we look at the votes so far, we can see that even God doesn't know everything. :D

Something I noticed, and that DigitAlex pointed out, is the Guassian distribution (bell curve) of the votes so far. Seeing as this is kind of a technical forum, we can see that most users are distributed towards the more experienced end of the curve. Surprisingly, we have no Gurus yet. Thats right, not even me. After P66's comment, I feel we are unlikely to see any Gurus (or large egos that think they are Gurus) here at Techspot. :cool:

Originally posted by Rick
There should be a rating called, "God" for myself. ;)

I know everything about everything everywhere. :p
I beleive we call those 15 year olds :grinthumb

I would consider myself a power user. Like others I don't know everything, but I can probably figure most things out on my own, before I have to ask someone. And usually when I do ask, it is just for self assurance to my own thoughts.

still follows gaussian :)

I had to choose Guru because when people call me to fix their computer....all I have to do is lay my hands on it and it's fixed.

I can figure out most anything and what I can't, I can find by searching so I've never had to ask.

Google is your friend.

Nice poll... well, Power User for me, you can never learn enough neither know it all.

Hehe Tarkus let's just now wait for Phant to read your Guru explanation hehehhee


Oh, and if ANYONE calls themselves a guru, I will torment you until the end of time!

Originally posted by Tarkus
I had to choose Guru because when people call me to fix their computer....all I have to do is lay my hands on it and it's fixed.

I can figure out most anything and what I can't, I can find by searching so I've never had to ask.

Google is your friend.


get a grip. no one is a guru. I am not, and I am sure you are not either. Just because you know some things doesn't make you a guru.

A guru knows a hell of a lot more than anyone on this site.

Wooteh, I was right :)

He's started tormenting our new guru :D

hehe. I saw the Guru section with a 1 .... was like "uh oh!"

and yea, you are NOT a guru because you can fix your friends 'puters. If you were a guru you would be making about at LEAST $200,000 year, and would probably be working along side Bill Gates.

Yeah, fixing your friend's computer does not make you a guru. Sorry.

Too bad i can't take my vote back and vote for guru, I can fix computers too !

Why do you look at me like that, guys ? :D

:p

That wasn't even a good attempt at pretending to be a guru.

I would have attempted to back that claim up with some colorful evidence about something pretty mad, like a server farm or writing some device driver code or being a CCIE or something, that would have been at least a credable start.

But "I fix computers like for my pals" is pretty off the mark. About as off the mark as you can get.

"Hey, I know how to connect a HDD up to some cables and select a setting in a BIOS that it autodetects - I must be a guru!"

Please, go on. Amaze us all with the legendary tale of the time you fitted a DIMM module or reinstalled Windows XP.

:evil:
;)
:evil:

Anyway, enough said on the matter. No sense in me going all badass - maybe he missed my warnings.

LOL Phant, you sure know how to make people feel at home ;) . I am pretty comfortable as a power user, although I guess I could be a guru too, I have fixed and built a few computers ;) :) ! But as Phant quite rightly put it:

The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know

LoL you guys are funny. That was a good read after a long day at work. Things like this just put you back in that relaxed mood. Thanks fellas.

Heh, I don't actually do anything to fix them. I just touch them and they start working.

Originally posted by Phantasm66
I would have attempted to back that claim up with some colorful evidence about something pretty mad, like a server farm or writing some device driver code or being a CCIE or something, that would have been at least a credable start.

But "I fix computers like for my pals" is pretty off the mark. About as off the mark as you can get.

I disagree that to be a guru you have to run a serverfarm/write device drivers/being CCIE...

And I think it's possible to be a guru with computers, as long as it is within one field...

Just because you don't know everything there is to know about computers...

I know a couple of Cisco guru's, they know more or less everything cisco, but put them infront of a Novell network, and they'll have a hard time...

If you can fix any problem with your friends computers, yes you are a guru to them...

Where Phantasm is basing his definition on what the smartest man in greek said, I have a more pragmatic approach...

There is nothing wrong with either definition of guru, as long as you explain the context in which it is used...

.02$

Of sort its impossible to know everything about computers - no one ever will.

I just object to the use of the word guru in general.

And you did contradict yourself a little, because someone who knows EVERYTHING cisco would be a CCIE.

Certainly as far as some kid popping on here and telling me he thinks he is a guru because he can fix his mates PC is ridiculous.

All I am saying is, if you want to call yourself a guru, then you better be ready to back that up with something pretty impressive.

If you can do that, I will give you that title, but I warn you I don't impress easily.

Originally posted by Phantasm66
Of sort its impossible to know everything about computers - no one ever will.

I just object to the use of the word guru in general.


I can agree that coming onto this board and saying you're a computer guru without anything impressive to back it up isn't too good an idea, but if the person states that (s)he's a guru to his friends/company/whoever and goes on telling why, then I don't have a problem...
Though I might refrain from calling him/her a guru myself..

Originally posted by Phantasm66
And you did contradict yourself a little, because someone who knows EVERYTHING cisco would be a CCIE.


Quite correct :)
But you still got my point, even if I did manage to contradict myself...

Originally posted by Phantasm66
Certainly as far as some kid popping on here and telling me he thinks he is a guru because he can fix his mates PC is ridiculous.

hehe... See above...
Anyways, lighten up Phantasm!
Go out on the town and enjoy yourself!
That nightclub we went to (with 2 floors of rock) had a lot of goodlooking girls... Maybe take a trip back there? :)
(and thank you for showing me around... I had a great time!)

EDIT: just fixed some formatting

Originally posted by Phantasm66

If you can do that, I will give you that title, but I warn you I don't impress easily.

I can make Pentium 4 based systems from Cereal boxes and sticky back plastic!!! :p

Originally posted by acidosmosis
hehe. I saw the Guru section with a 1 .... was like "uh oh!"

and yea, you are NOT a guru because you can fix your friends 'puters. If you were a guru you would be making about at LEAST $200,000 year, and would probably be working along side Bill Gates.

From Acidosmosis' web site (http://www.casualconsulting.com/bio.html):
I am a 20 year old computer "guru". In the last 11+ years I have been studying computers in my spare time. The first PC I used was a 386SX 40MHz with 1MB of RAM, and a 40 meg hard drive running on DOS 5.x. Since then I have used DOS 5x, DOS 6x, Windows 3.1/95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, and Linux.
At the moment I work for an Internet Service Provider in North Carolina as a technical support rep., billing rep., pc technician, and other positions.


LMAO :haha:

LOL !

(i know it's a lame post, but I HAD to do that, bc it's always the kinda stuff you run into with Acid :D)

hehhehehehehehe :evil:

I would consider myself an expert, as I have knowledge of Hardware, Software, Windows Internals (Registry, System Files etc.), Linux, 3D modelling and Mapping, medium skills in Programming (VB, Delphi, Java, C, C++ & Asm), medium Web design skills (HTML4, XHTML1, CSS, Javascript & DHTML). Not to mention my inevitable skill of fixing PCs :D

As for someone mentioning Bill Gates as being a guru, somehow I think not, anyone with a bit of Cash can buy other software and remarket it, he probably doesn't know any more about how windows works than I do.

LOL Arris, that's great! Another wasted post, but this one really did make me fall off my chair :haha: !

Th3M1ghtyD8, I think you are giving Billy a little less credit than he deserves, after all; he did design his first OS with a group with something like five members - read this somewhere, there is a possibility it is incorrect.

Arris: That was a good piece of research you posted, and boy was it funny. :D

I guess you can call yourself anything you like when you're not around others that know you better, after all if you don't actually state what your definition of a *guru* is, who can argue. :blush:

Edit: I just noticed that we now have *2* Gurus amoungst us. P66, where are you?

P66 voted Dumb *** nic! A little bit of an understatement IMO, but the statement he made was perfectly valid.

I don't think we have any guru's here to be honest, that's taking the word by its real meaning, and not what your friends think of you. I mean really, if my friends thought of me as a guru, I would probably slap them for insulting the REAL guru's out there; however few there may be ;) .

Tarkus also has the new CPU Cooling System where the Water turns into Wine.

:D

Tarkus also has the new CPU Cooling System where the Water turns into Wine.
In that case, he is a 'God', and not a 'Guru', so maybe he should get his facts straight. ;)

<sarcasm>

maybe I'd better put my <humor> </humor> tags if bold for some of you.

</sarcasm>

sheesh! You guys take things way too seriously around here.

<humor>

Oh, and BTW Phant, I've been in the industry since you've been in diapers.

</humor>

Since you are only a handful of years older than me, I doubt it.

I DO know people who have been in the industry longer than I have been in diapers, and they wouldn't hang around in a site like this. They've got more important things to do like spend every last free minute of time with their families because they are working all of the time to learn their big $$$.

I'm starting to think now that you only posted "guru" to incurr my wrath, perhaps as a means of amusing yourself.

Please don't bother. I've already been as sarcastic and funny as I am likely to be, and anything else will probably be nasty cheap shots, probably more demeaning for myself than anything else as I beat you in a series of below-the-belt verbal punches. I am too stoned and tired for that. ;)

Originally posted by Phantasm66
I voted for Dumb ***.

The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know.

I am ashamed that I don't know more about cisco networking, various types of programming like bash shell scripting, python, perl, etc. I should know more about relational database managment systems like Oracle, and it goes without saying that I should know MUCH MORE about UNIX.

There's so much I want to know and I reckon I will be spending my whole life learning it. So therefore, dubbing myself anything other than a ******* is wrong. Because I am a *******.


OK, on reflection, I will accept a promotion to "Beginner" , if you will accept a demotion from "Guru" to the ever humble "Expert" ???

Is it a deal?


There's so much I want to know and I reckon I will be spending my whole life learning it. So therefore, dubbing myself anything other than a beginner is wrong. Because I am a beginner.

All of you you creeping humans are really pathetic !!

Why don't you believe in me any more ???

:D :D :D

All of you just need to calm down and recognize one thing. I am your master. Your just lucky I let you be and do what you want. Don't make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. So be good and hug each other :D




lol :-) j/k

We're not worthy! We're not worthy!

hehehehe aoj145.. get off the floor man, these guys are dirty, they never clean the floors here.