The importance of learning to hack...

The thing which taught me most about how to use my PC was learning how to hack. To the geeks out there, this will seem obvious, but I can imagine the general population to be aghast at this suggestion. For those of you out there who don't understand why hacking can be helpful to the average computer user, let me say this: Learning to hack helps you understand entirely how your computer works, and most particularly, how to prevent it from being hacked into! I am by no means a computer expert. Everything I do know has been self-taught, but for some strange reason, I am the one my friends and family turn to for help when their PC crashes or dies. Most people I know don't even have anti-virus software installed! So for those of you who don't, here is a free anti-virus program which works just as well as Norton (and doesn't eat all your pocket money either!). Aside from helping you learn all about your PC, hacking is actually quite fun! And no, you don't need to do anything illegal to learn all about it! Hacking isn't (nescessarily) about getting into the computer systems of major organisations and messing everything up! It can be as simple as changing the start-up screen on your computer, or the look and layout of your website. Carolyn Meinel's Happy Hacker series is a great place to start learning. And if you already have problems with your PC, try Castlecops for free advice to help you get things right. Believe me, its far better to learn how to do this stuff yourself than pay a small fortune for someone else to do it for you!