Post by Rob on Mar 1, 2013 23:11:11 GMT
I've just joined this forum having been listening to Will's nested digressions on the Mac Show for a while and recently finding his distressingly infrequent podcasts on iTunes.
Actually I don't live very far away from Will, probably a couple of miles at the most.
As far as my computing history is concerned, I worked for a large Govt Department, starting in 1974 and moving over to the IT side of things (sideways promotion) to avoid a 'proper' promotion that involved a move to London
I have worked with most types of computers from mainframes to PCs, via Unix and minis. Initially I was a programmer, working with COBOL, then Informix. Oracle, C and Unix scripting. I then moved onto the Dark Side, working with NT4, XP and various flavours of Winders Server mostly working on integration of the Dept's applications onto the Windows platform, mostly specialising in database apps with my SQL and Oracle experience. Then Oracle went all funny using Java and things like that and I rapidly started losing interest.
Fortunately the IT Conglomerate who had purchased me from Her Majesty in an outsourcing agreement decided that they wanted to get rid of what they considered all the dead wood on their payroll (i.e. ex-Civil Servants) and they made me an offer to take early retirement that I couldn't refuse (cue tyre smoke in the office car park ;D)
Although I was working with Winders for the last 8 or 9 years of my career I couldn't stand the hassles I was involved with on a daily basis, so I acquired an ancient G3 Power PC from Ebay for (literally) pennies to see what Macs had to offer. I was immediately hooked, stuck a load more RAM into the G3 and (ahem) acquired a copy of Tiger to replace the OX 9.1 it came with.
I've never looked back since and I now have a 21.5" iMac, and my wife has inherited the G5 17" 1.9 iMac that replaced the G3. She is now a very happy Mac user having been dubious at first (even though I'd replaced the XP installation on her previous PC with a KDE Linux distro and it took her several weeks to notice...)
I'm moving horribly towards being an Apple Fanboi I have an iPod Touch which I use for listening to audiobooks and podcasts mostly, as I have a slight eyesight problem that makes reading books difficult and was lucky enough to get an Apple TV for Xmas this year which is an amazing piece of kit and has transformed the way I listen to music and watch videos. In my defence against being a total Apple geek, I do have an Android phone. I wanted something cheap on PAYG that offered GPS to track how far I walk the dogs and a sub-£100 Samsung Galaxy Ace fitted the bill perfectly.
I have a Significant Birthday coming up shortly and SWMBO is buying me an iPad and I'm looking forward to trying out Airplay on Real Racing and similar apps via the ATV. I'll still use the Touch for listening to stuff as I don't think the iPad will fit into my shirt pocket
OK, so that's me
Actually I don't live very far away from Will, probably a couple of miles at the most.
As far as my computing history is concerned, I worked for a large Govt Department, starting in 1974 and moving over to the IT side of things (sideways promotion) to avoid a 'proper' promotion that involved a move to London
I have worked with most types of computers from mainframes to PCs, via Unix and minis. Initially I was a programmer, working with COBOL, then Informix. Oracle, C and Unix scripting. I then moved onto the Dark Side, working with NT4, XP and various flavours of Winders Server mostly working on integration of the Dept's applications onto the Windows platform, mostly specialising in database apps with my SQL and Oracle experience. Then Oracle went all funny using Java and things like that and I rapidly started losing interest.
Fortunately the IT Conglomerate who had purchased me from Her Majesty in an outsourcing agreement decided that they wanted to get rid of what they considered all the dead wood on their payroll (i.e. ex-Civil Servants) and they made me an offer to take early retirement that I couldn't refuse (cue tyre smoke in the office car park ;D)
Although I was working with Winders for the last 8 or 9 years of my career I couldn't stand the hassles I was involved with on a daily basis, so I acquired an ancient G3 Power PC from Ebay for (literally) pennies to see what Macs had to offer. I was immediately hooked, stuck a load more RAM into the G3 and (ahem) acquired a copy of Tiger to replace the OX 9.1 it came with.
I've never looked back since and I now have a 21.5" iMac, and my wife has inherited the G5 17" 1.9 iMac that replaced the G3. She is now a very happy Mac user having been dubious at first (even though I'd replaced the XP installation on her previous PC with a KDE Linux distro and it took her several weeks to notice...)
I'm moving horribly towards being an Apple Fanboi I have an iPod Touch which I use for listening to audiobooks and podcasts mostly, as I have a slight eyesight problem that makes reading books difficult and was lucky enough to get an Apple TV for Xmas this year which is an amazing piece of kit and has transformed the way I listen to music and watch videos. In my defence against being a total Apple geek, I do have an Android phone. I wanted something cheap on PAYG that offered GPS to track how far I walk the dogs and a sub-£100 Samsung Galaxy Ace fitted the bill perfectly.
I have a Significant Birthday coming up shortly and SWMBO is buying me an iPad and I'm looking forward to trying out Airplay on Real Racing and similar apps via the ATV. I'll still use the Touch for listening to stuff as I don't think the iPad will fit into my shirt pocket
OK, so that's me