Why I love computers...

It's been about 12 years since I bought my first real computer. ( I'm not going to count my C64,  which I only knew as a games machine )

Even when my parents bought the first Windows PC had access to ( I was around 16yrs old), a Pentium 100 running Win95, I never really got the bug. It seemed pretty dull at the time. Bad games, dial-up internet, no excitng applications(programs) - only useful for office type stuff it seemed.

That was mid 80's - fastforward to 1997.

I decided to buy a new PC, because I had a purpose in mind for it.
I was going to use it to with the start a new business, cleaning windows - real windows, not virtual.
Client / calander management, as well as a sophisticated telephone logging system was what I had in mind for it.

But I never got the business going & the plans I had for the PC seemed at lot tougher to realise than I had figured.

So I was like most folk, doing basic things with it, but slowly got more interested in what it could do - I'm a curious fellow.
I surfed like crazy - on a 30Kbit dial-up modem ! Downloaded & installed hundreds of pieces of freeware and shareware and played some games, perhaps came across an odd rude photo or two (by accident - honest ! ).

Over the first year or so, the PC gradually became less reliable - until one day, it completely DIED !

A techie friend of mine looked at it & scratched his head . "It's really screwed mate - Won't boot at all."
"You need a new BIOS" (a small chip on the mainboard)
"But you can't replace the chip - it's soldered on."
"You need to buy a new mainboard !"

.....I had been hit by the Chernobyl virus !   

When I ran a virus scan on the repaired computer, there were literally hundreds of infected files on the Harddisk. I knew litle about computer viruses then & had done little or nothing to protect my PC from them.

That was my first major lesson in computing. Why do we seem to need learn the hard way, huh ?

Then...I got hit by the dance music bug ! That's a lot more fun to be infected by ;)
I wanted to try to make my own dance hits. On my computer.
Music making was becoming  easier and more versatile  via software, where previously it was mainly, if not completely  hardware based.

However, making music on a computer using multiple programs is fraught with technical issues. I had to figure how to get it all working out by trial & error, and in the process found it necessary to understand the hardware in the PC as well as the Windows Operating system.

I never did achieve any commercial success with my music, but I learned a whole lot about the PC by trying to make music.

So I guess my point is...computers are only exciting in themselves to the true geeks among us. However most of us will come across a "killer app" which is invaluable, useful or entertaining.
My parents who are extremely un-geekish use their computers everyday now, and love what it gives them.

The computer is "just another tool" - it's what we DO with it that counts !
And now in 2009, there is SO much to do on a computer, as more people (not geeks) are finding out.

Happy computing. 

Oh, and if you get a bit stuck, there's always a geek somewhere to help out 

Abby Khan