h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most peole would redecorate thier computer by changing their display settings. Well, I'm sick of being limited to changing the color of my 'desktop' while trying to make my computer happy looking.

I want people to look at my computer and say 'Good , what the did you do to that sorry old thing?!?'

Can anyone help me determine what type of paint and what sort of surface preparations would be best for making my computer look unlike any computer has ever looked before.

Thanks to SetupWeasel and his article 'How to Prevent Computer Obsolescence' ( http://www.h2g2.com/A189407 ) for reminding me that this might be a possibility for the old pile.

Excuse me, but something got seriously goofed on that message. Damn text parsers.

When these messages were written, PCs were beige boxes, and I can understand the impulse to brighten them up a bit.

It's interesting to me that pro-gamers (for there are indeed now such things) and even enthusiastic amateurs pay at least as much attention nowadays to how their gaming PC *looks* as to how many polygons it can throw around per second. Neon-lit cases are very much the thing.

When did this happen? And why? I'm depressingly utilitarian when it comes to this sort of thing - I'm ALL about what's inside the case, and care little for how it looks. This applies to most things in my life (with the exception of my wife - she is very much beautiful on the inside, which is why I married her, but it certainly doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous too...)

When it comes to electronic devices, performance is more important to me than looks. I say 'more', because looks are not entirely irrelevent to me. My primary concern where looks are concerned, is that the device looks at least as expensive as it is

Hi-end audio is one of my hobbies, and whilst minilism is rife in the hi-end audio word (very few lights or buttons at all in most <£500 audio components), I will seriously consider not buying something which doesn't at least look well engineered and designed, no matter how good it sounds. And some very expensive kit can look surprisingly flimsy. They will claim - probably truthfully - that the budget has been spent where it counts - under the hood.

But some manufacturers have cottoned onto the importance of looks in setting expectations. Especially where amplifiers are concerned, it is possible to buy some very inexpensive and poor quality (in terms of sound quality) units, where almost all the budget has been spent on the weighty metal, beautifully finished and case with solid looking controls. But open them up, and inside it looks like a high-school electonics class project on breadboard