When I first started college, I had to write research papers with an actual typewriter. I was pretty technologically advanced, however, because I had a a Smith-Corona electric typewriter with ink cartridges that popped in and out, and even better, I had a white correcting cartridge that also popped in and out -- much easier and looked nicer than the brush on white-out. The biggest drawback to a typewriter was when you wanted to have footnotes, as opposed to end notes. I had to make a template that numbered the lines, which was put behind the sheet being typed, and I had to keep track of every footnote and how many lines it was, and subtract that from the numbered template and remember to stop at the proper line, if not I would have to retype the whole page. Furthermore, in my particular field, sometimes I needed special characters, and typing a transcription of a cuneiform tablet was a pain in the ass.

Therefore, when computers became common and affordable, I jumped all over that, because even the very crude word processors with DOS were a million times better than typewriters. My first computer, was an IBM 8086 with 512 KB of ram and 2 floppy drives, with one of those green monochrome monitors. Shortly thereafter I bought an IBM clone with 640 KB memory, a single floppy drive and a 40MB hard drive, with a yellow VGA monitor. Both of these computers had DOS on them, and I used a word processing program called Finalword, which was bought by Borland and became Sprint. After my IBM clone crashed and I lost everything because I sucked at backing up (which I still do!), I bought a used 386 and then a 486, both of which had Windows 3.1. On both of those machines I used early versions of MS Word.

Word processing was my main activity on computers until I discovered the Linux operating system. The earliest Linux versions required manual configuration for a hardware, including monitors, and it was usually quite a challenge to get monitors to work correctly, not to mention modems and printers. My first Linux was Mandrake Linux, then I tried Red Hat, and Suse Linux, and Debian, but I truly fell in love with Slackware Linux. I started with Slackware 3.0 and have stayed with Slackware ever since, although I have experimented with just about every distribution available, but I always go back to Slackware.

I really like the freedom that comes with using Open Source software. I never have to worry about buying software, dealing with licenses and all that sort of nonsense. Open Source software gets better all the time, and I can do everything I need to do on my Linux -- I don't even need a Windows computer any more. I have to admit, however, that I do used Logic on my Mac, because it is just plain better than anything else. I have Open Source apps that do similar things, but not as good as Logic. Oh well! Of course I didn't pay for Logic, I downloaded a recent version from a .torrent site.

I like Slackware because it is simple. The file structure makes sense, all the apps use config files that are kept in the same place, and can be read and edited. Software is installed from source files, originally using ./configure, make, and make install -- which is super easy -- although Slackware does have its own package manager using .tgz files. The best thing about Slackware is that it just plain works with a minimum of problems and fuss.

Slackware will install on old small computers with limited hard drive space and memory, so I started picking up cheap old computers and installing the OS on them, I then started buying motherboards and CPUs and building my own computers. At the time the winders version was Windows 98, which I learned and began duel booting with Linux because there were a few things Windows, at the time, still did a little better than Linux.

So for a while I was all into computers, and when I had the opportunity to buy a small computer repair shop in Washougal, WA, I did, which I named Silver Star Computers, so for a few years I fixed people's computers, mostly Windows computers -- starting with Windows 95 and then Windows 98SE, then the crappy Millennium Edition came out, and finally XP, which was way better than the previous versions. I fixed viruses, and I built computers, and sold used computers and new and used parts, and I fixed all manners of weird little computer issues that people couldn't figure out. I studied for for the A+ hardware and OS certification tests, and I was ready to take them, but never did, because most importantly I had the knowledge, and not a single person ever asked me if I was A+ certified, so I chose not to spend the $500 bucks or however much it was, for the little pieces of paper to hang on my wall.

After a few years computers changed and people's problems differed, and it was hard to compete with the super-cheap Dell computers, so I got tired of it and sold my business and moved on, but even now I usually have 5 or 6 computers, laying around -- I haven't needed a Windows computer in years -- but now along with my Linux computers I have a Mac, which is just a Unix computer which Apple bastardized and turned into something hideous.

Apart from the hardware and operating systems, over the years I have tried my hand at computer programming: years ago I messed around with a little Basic, did some very rudimentary C and Java, and a little Python, before I realized that programming probably wasn't for me. However, I do know HTML and CSS fairly well, and I know the basics of PHP and Javascript. Although I'm definitely a bit of a hack, I do enjoy writing my own websites (such as this one). I've tried Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and numerous others, and I just don't like them, it is just so much easier to use something like the open source Bluefish editor on my Linux computer and mark the pages up directly.