This week at Lifehacker: Crack open your PC and install a PCI card. Resuscitate the backlight on your dying LCD monitor. Find bomb tripwire with Silly String. Keep snoopers from undeleting the data on your hard drive. Finally, have your say about assy software design.
https://lifehacker.com/hack-attack-how-to-install-a-pci-card-135479
Yeah, I know – you’re a hardware badass who can assemble a server farm from spare parts in your sleep. In fact, you install hardware so often you don’t even use a case for your PC. You’ve just got a rack with an exposed motherboard, fan and a spinning disk on your desk. But if you happen to have a friend who could use some help installing that TV tuner card? We’ve got a basic primer on how to install a PCI card you can, ahem, pass on.
Your LCD monitor looking a litte dim these days? Don’t sell it and get a new one. Twenty bucks and some elbow grease’ll replace the backlight and your face can sport that healthy monitor burn glow again.
There’s a reason why God created Silly String – and it’s not to cover your little brother in it while he naps. Some advice from U.S. Marines: next time you’re tiptoeing into a dark room rigged with bomb tripwire, spray a bit of Silly String ahead of you to see where they’re at. Silly String saves lives. Don’t forget it.
Keep the 8-year-old who bought your old hard drive on Ebay from resurrecting your deleted pr0n collection. Wipe the data from your old drive clean with a delete program so secure the Department of Defense uses it. Try to undelete that, sucka.
Is it Microsoft Office’s annoying little animated help guy, Clippy? Focus-stealing apps that demand your attention? Ineffective pop-up blockers? Word’s auto-capitalize? Misery loves company: tell us your biggest computing pet peeves. It’ll make you feel better.
Lifehacker’s Power User column appears every Wednesday on Gizmodo.
