About
I
have been involved with computers as a hobby since 1978, this is prior
to the introduction of the first IBM PC. I was around for the original
wars in the hobbyist arena with command line and the now mostly utilized
Graphical User Interfaces, GUI's. Although a master of the command line
at the time, if I could see it and click it I was much happier than
using the keyboard.
Hobbyists, at the time, were worried they would loose their machines to the general public. Well they did and it has been nothing but a good thing for us as well. Cheaper more powerful hardware and software, even a new industry to play in.
Enough of that, getting back to the site and myself. Although a proponent of an alternative GUI at first, GeoWorks Ensemble, that eventually went under and I had to migrate to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. After that and over time I've played with Linux as dual boot or on a secondary system but have always had an OS designed by Mr. Gates. Over the years I have gained quite a bit of experience with the various incarnations of Windows. You can trust me not all of it was pleasant experience either.
The same being said generally of hardware for PC's. This was and is my primary forte. I have repaired, upgraded and/or custom built literally thousands of systems over time. Even well before the early days of PnP, Plug and Play, really meaning Poor New Peripheral.
Today systems are designed better and components compatibility issues have been reduced significantly. While problems still exist they are much fewer and further between. Systems today usually out power the software as well making what used to be a system failure now just a nagging slowdown. With all of this though, when it gets bad it can really go bad!
The idea then is not to let a system go bad in the first place. This can become both costly and time consuming. What I advise people is how to try and reduce the money spent and save some of their precious time. Try ignore the systems needs though and you can realize your worst nightmares with even a few twists you were not expecting.