What can you do with a computer without Internet?

I’m now in one of those ‘imposed’ breaks at work, sitting in front of the computer with no Internet connection. It’s terrible, as I begin to understand how dependent on Internet we are now. Every piece of software need at some point an Internet connection and we use on a regular basis websites, so we forget how to use the computer with no Internet.

I grew up with computers from the time where Internet was just a dream in my country and had my first email account in 2000, so imagine that I used computers without Internet for a long time, so far away in my past that I almost forgot that you can do stuff with computers, not Internet related. In this post I’ll try and make a list of things you could do with a PC when not connected to a network.

I’ll begin with the following assumptions: you have the needed software installed and your computer is working properly (doesn’t need updates or drivers). Plus I’ll assume you have all your media files on your hard drive. It seems fair to me that a normal computer is in this state after you plug it off the network.

What a computer can do for you without connection?

• You can entertain yourself in a single player game
• Watch movies and catch up with the latest TV shows you got through Torrents (I know you do that)
• Listen to your favorite tunes
• Write articles for your blog (assuming you did your research before or don’t need research for what you’re writing) or plan a list of future articles to do
• Do some work (programming, CAM/CAD, 3D modeling and animation, Photoshop some pictures or whatever your work implies)
• Backup your data on DVDs or on an external HDD
• Organize your files like you should have done a long time ago
• Defragment your disk in order to maintain the same level of performance longer
• Check all files with your antivirus via a thorough system scan

Many of those actions can be done simultaneously, of course, because now we’re not bound by performance anymore. But wait, my internet connection is back, so enough with those meaningful tasks, I’ll upload this post now.

Do you have other things to do when your Internet connection is down?