If you want to build cool stuff and not just be a code monkey in a cubicle, then I recommend you start hacking today. This is my intro talk for Yahoo's HackU program.

1. How To Be A Hacker Paul Tarjan’s

2. What is a hacker

3. Dreamer

4. Coder

5. Hacker

6. Sign me up! Now that we’re on the same page, lets talk about hackers Many types of hackers. Lets talk computer hackers. (NOT CRACKERS). Many types of computer hackers : Hardware Security Software Web Specifically: Web hackers

7. Things you should be doing now

8. Buy a domain name 2 beers - $7.50 http://www.retailmenot.com/view/godaddy.com paulisageek.com Infinite Emails : amazon@paulisageek.com OpenID : http://paulisageek.com Project Hosting : http://paulisageek.com/ppp Google does mail forwarding : http://www.google.com/apps/

9. Build a homepage Learn HTML + CSS + JS Create your web presence Link to your other stuff rel=“me”

10. Run a *nix box Apache MySQL Samba / NFS Outbound SMTP to your domain Subdomain : home.paulisageek.com dyndns.org for dynamic ips

11. Learn lots of languages At least one of each type Ones I use everyday Scripting : python, bash Web : PHP, python, SQL Client Side : Javascript, CSS, HTML Speed : C, C++, Java Fun problems to learn : http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems

12. Opensource Give your code to the world Easy to link to Good for archiving Get known! Make friends! Better than a resume I use – github Others recommend - Google Code

13. Lets hack something Azeroth

14. Ok, that’s a bit big Who would win in a WoW duel? Many ways to architect. I’m doing it this way to teach Javascript and YQL Firefox YQL wowarmory 2 x character + server Fetch character info Return XML JSON

15. We’ll do it live! Git Linux Apache MySQL PHP http://paulisageek.com/hacku/

16. TCP/IP

17. DNS

18. HTTP

19. Linux

20. Apache

21. SQL

22. PHP

23. URL/URI

24. Free-ish Hosting App engine EC2 Find an old machine and run it in your dorm dyndns.org

25. Microformats microformats.org Use known classnames for known types <a class=“fn”>

26. REST

27. JSON + YAML

28. Ideas

29. Search Engine Crawler Indexer Webmap Ranking function Runtime system Web frontend

30. Games Client side – directx, opengl Web based – ikarium Flash – kongregate.com Great experience and people will actually use it

31. Opensource Find a opensource thing you use Join the mailing list Report some bugs Fix some bugs that bother you Add some features that you want

32. Other Find something you need and build it so others can use it too