Friday: 28 February 2003
Memories of me... » Confessions of a computer geek
When I was 10, our school got its first computer. A BBC-b with orange 'F' keys and a brown and taupeness that could only be openly associated with the 70s. This computer did the rounds, passing from class to class throughout the year and had one purpose...an adventure game, that was alledgedly eduational yet simultaneously entertaining. This initial brush with computers was brief. About 10 minutes in fact and the most exciting thing about it was missing half of the morning assembly and deciding to have a second sneaky go while no one was around.
However, it wasn't to be long before I faced a BBC-b once more. Unfortunately, my next taster of 'computing' no longer focussed on games, but on the dark art of programming. This was a slap in the face following the friendly but pointless interaction I'd encountered less than 12 months previously. In addition, growing up in a household where technology wasn't embraced upon invention, I hated every minute of those tedious lessons, which constantly revolved around the manual typing of code that began 'Line 10'...
From the age of 14 and for four whole years, I lived life in the relatively utopian and monitor-free world of technological ignorance/innocence* (*delete as appropriate). With the need to use a computer once more weighing heavily on my mind, I was pleasantly surprised to be introduced to a new 'breed' of computer, called the 'Archimedes' (RIP). These machines had the cantankerous qualities of the most upmarket PC, bolted together with the charismatic charm of a Mac. In their favour, they also had a nice GUI and didn't produce three lines of bright pink lego-graphic print-out text that took three days to code! This was the first word processor I used and even though I managed to crash the damn thing a few times before succeeding in creating my eternal 'Record of Acheivement' I agreed that it was 'fun'.
Moving into my academic years at University, I opted to take a lesson in Word Processing...maybe I just realised that I couldn't stay ignorant forever, or perhaps it was more the threat that I'd be expected to use a computer for all my assignments by the middle of my second year* (*again, delete as appropriate), who knows. This time however, I became quite uncharacteristically attracted to the dear little things, now incarnated as the common PC. Also, they gave me a sense of power and acheivement over those that still chose pen and paper above the keyboard and mouse, in an age where typed up assignments were a nicety rather than a necessity.
The following ten years were a whirlwind of computer use, where I was reassociated with both a BBC-b and an Archimedes once more and also had my first brush with an Apple Mac (but definitely not the last). As time inevitably passed, the bland, academic word processing documents and spreadsheets that established my symbiotic relationship with computers gave way to more creative practices with the advent of my blind leap into the world of desktop publishing.
By the age of 24, technology began to seriously take over my life. Email and the Internet were no longer the domain of academic institutions and had crept into the house. Soon I began to utter those fateful words, "I could do better than that!". And so with foot placed firmly in mouth, I embarked on the unknown and created the most basic of web pages using HTML code, Notepad and a reference book.
Now, as I reach the sunset years of my 20s, I am pleased to announce my geekiness in many things web related and the acquisition of a shiny Apple Mac (amongst other gadgets and technological toys). Having gone beyond Notepad in mastering the almost over-the-top complexities of Dreamweaver and incorporating the latest ideas in CSS, I have surprisingly started to learn and understand some programming once again - CGI, Perl and PHP, alongside the concept of online relational databases in the form of mySQL.
As you can imagine, all this is a very big shock and leap for myself and so I dedicate this web site to stand as testament to that which has been and is still yet to come...not that shabby for someone who grew up hating computers at school, eh?