How Do I Make My Netbook More Manly? 993
basementman writes "I recently purchased a 10 inch white MSI wind. As you can see it's a small computer and it's good for what I use it for. I get a lot of comments from women saying it is 'cute' or 'adorable.' Not the good kind of cute that will get me the attention I want though, the kind of cute that says they think I have a different presence than I actually want to portray. So how can I make my netbook more manly, or at least have some witty line to respond to the their comments?" Hopefully basementman didn't get a netbook with the hopes of it getting him some action, but what cool mods (or witty one-liners) have others used to salvage their dignity from hardware that is "a good size"?
easy (Score:2, Interesting)
There's this dog t-shirt ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... you can put the same on your White Wind. Go to a copyshop that also has those cut-plotters and get a set of decal lettering cut out in black saying "I'm his new Netbook and help him pick up chicks." That should fix both the 'manly' and 'whitty reply' part in one stroke. And it's quite funny aswell.
"Cute" gets the girls. "Cool" gets the boys. (Score:1, Interesting)
While stipulating that all generalizations are wrong, this one ain't.
I used to drive a supercharged (positive displacement, even) 302 Mustang convertible, with aftermarket exhaust and remote start. I could make it growl from across the parking lot.
Women didn't find that attractive at all. High school boys, on the other hand, thought it was great!
Were I the type of person who sought the companionship of high school boys, I would have been in very good shape.
Cougars, take note.
Hello kitty (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I'd make it pink and give it a Hello Kitty sticker. Keeps people on their toes ;)
Re:"Cute" gets the girls. "Cool" gets the boys. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Exactly, women love cute and adoreable. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was with my Dad and his dog and my Girlfriend at a rugby tournament this weekend. Every single woman that walked pass came up and started petting the dog. I told my girlfriend next year she wasn't invited and I was just going to bring the dog.
You sir are a dick. Mainly because you claim to have a girlfriend and then effectively tell her you're going to cheat on her to her face - unless that was in jest, in which case that was still a dickhead thing to do.
He was obviously kidding, and my girlfriend would laugh too if I said something like that in a scenario like that. If you think joking around is a dickhead thing to do, you must be really fucking boring, or date boring women.
-Taylor
Re:Obligatory Serious Answer (Score:5, Interesting)
No joke. A friend of mine is an electrician. He was tired of his yellow or orange extension cables going missing from job sites. What did he do? Started buying purple and pink ones. Instead of 2 or 3 going missing a year, he has had one "walk away" in the last 6.
a good utility for windows sub-notebooks (Score:3, Interesting)
I recommend that you get this little free utility called ZoomIt [snapfiles.com] and add its shortcut to your startup folder (assuming you're on Windows, and not Linux -- most Linux flavors can configure this with Compiz Fusion). It's not going to make your sub-netbook more manly, but it might just make it more useful.
I installed ZoomIt on my mom's sub-netbook which is even smaller than yours (its screen is 8.4 inches and it has Windows XP Home edition), and it definitely helped. Let's say you want to show someone something on your screen, you just press Ctrl-1 to zoom in (it uses the pointer of your mouse to know where to zoom in) and to come back to normal -- you just release those keys. This zooming effect is really smooth and gets even better if you hook up a mouse with a wheel on it. Also, as an added bonus, the program allows you to draw on the surface of your screen once you're zoomed in, which is useful if you want to call attention to a particular part of the screen.
And of course, it comes in really handy if you have to strain your eyes to read some of the stuff on that small screen. Some of the Internet browsers (like Opera) also have some decent zooming facilities, but it's better I think to get used to one zooming facility that you can use everywhere on any application that you might be working on, and it's definitely one of the most usable ones -- with one of the smallest memory footprints -- I've seen out there.
Re:My manhood isn't online (Score:5, Interesting)
sudo date-get-hot-girl (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a damn good start by any measure.
You must also live in a region where having a laptop or a iphone or whatever actually gets you attention, rather being a minimum requirement to not be outright ignored. (hmmm where do you live? what's real estate like there at the momment?)
Most girls do like geeky guys in actual fact. It's an observation of mine that only certain kinds of adolescent females that don't date geeky types, the kind of woman who is at that age rather concerned about her self image and social success (as we all are, infact it's a big measure of self-worth until we grow up a bit). In the real adult world the nice girls will end up with the geeky guys.
How about some paint? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to admit, I'm not sure how to make a netbook more macho but I did customize my netbook.
My EEE 900HA came with a really glossy finish on the cover which made it a fingerprint magnet. I tried to get around this with a can of spray paint, which surprisingly gives a fairly professional thinkpad-like finish.
I figured while I was at it, I'd decorate it with a painted pearljam-alive figure. It wasn't really my intention, but occasionally I do get a comment about Pearljam which is a bit of a conversation starter.
Pic here:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=51953 [eeeuser.com]
But if you're looking for something manlier still, maybe you can glue a gun to your netbook or something ;)
Re:My manhood isn't online (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't understand how women think. Read up on the subject from people who are experts, like David DeAngelo. These experts are geeks who had the same age-old problems many geeks do, and did something about it by researching the subject and doing lots of field experiments to verify their understanding.
Maybe then you'll realise that there's no need to be an asshole or a jerk, but neither should you be a nice guy who's constantly sucking up to women (like you are doing with your wonderful female friend).
Women see "nice guys" as manipulative, immature passive-aggressive little boys who do favours or lavish lots of money on them and expect sex in return. Most of the time, nice guys aren't actually so nice at all.