Forget GHz and MHz, forget RAM amount and how large your storage is. To measure the abilities of the user, there’s only a few numbers that we can easily refer to. Since geekiness is an unsubstantial quantity at best, we’ll settle for something more concrete, like typing speed.

                                             Where's the boost gauge?
 

As I labor my way through this entry using my four-finger technique (plus a thumb on occasion), I’m glad I don’t own the USB Typing Speedometer, or else I’d be cringing at my abysmal typing abilities right at this moment. This particularly nifty device looks like it got ripped out of an early 90’s automobile, but this instrument pod doesn’t measure kilometers per hour or how much juice you have left before you need to pull into a Petron, but rather words per minute, or WPM.

                                             A setup like this would be perfect for the typing gauge...only he's not typing at the moment..

With a maximum speed reading of 260 WPM, this gauge will surely be more than adequate for your typing-speed-measuring requirements, unless of course you’ve broken the Guinness book of world records sometime in the last decade or so. (212 WPM set in 1985 by Barbara Blackburn in Missouri, US, on a Dvorak keyboard). A Dvorak keyboard has consonants on one side, vowels on the other, with often-used letters in the middle, making it possible to type quickly once you get used to it.

                                             The world typing speed record was accomplished on this type of keyboard.

If geekiness is something you can’t measure, then typing speed is surely something that can be applied to anyone with access to a computer, and if you’re intending to measure your typing speed with this device, you’re going to look quite geeky anyhow. Plug it into a USB slot, install the included softare, and know immediately how productive you are, as long as you’re actually typing something useful that is. It also measure the total number of words typed in a day. Random typing of "The quick brown fox..." does not count, mind you.