I wanted a computer long before my family could afford one.
The decades between then and now have seen the genesis of cellular phones, the birth of the Internet, the bursting of the .com bubble, and ever-increasing expectations of always-on communications and computing service. It’s been quite a ride!
Off in my own little corner of this frenetic tech explosion, I quietly appropriated some of my college student loan money to finally buy my own personal computer. I “needed it for school” was the justification, of course. The following few years taught me that swapping in certain new components could get you a functionally new computer much more cheaply than buying a whole new computer. Those were the first toddling steps on the path to IT.
It’s been over twenty years since then, and I’ve seen enough of the IT industry to know that there’s one thing I’ll never call myself: an expert. There’s simply too much to know about too many different things, and no matter how skilled you become there will always be someone who knows more than you.
Nevertheless, it’s time to crawl out of the shell and share some things. Maybe someone out there will find some use in it.