 Computers
You've been using computers for how long?
I've been using computers for a fairly long time now. Since I was about 9 years old I remember using computers, so that's over 16 years which is much more than half my life scarily enough :)
During that time I've used and enjoyed a number of different computers and I've compiled a brief history of my usage of computers.
What do you do with them?
It's such a broad question it's not very easy to know where to start. When I first started using computers the only thing you could do with them is program them, at least with the old home computers that sprang up at the start of the eighties. For home users, there wasn't really any word processing and certainly no graphics software, things that modern machines have in abundance.
These days I like doing many things. Graphics work, web pages, programming (in C etc.) and also playing games.
As for operating systems, I love using Linux for anything I can. I find it's stability and the way I know what is going on with the system and can change almost any aspect of it is just wonderful. I first used it in 1996 and before then I'd used other Unixes (Unices?). It's grown in popularity and recognition since then and who knows where it will continue to grow. For playing games, I use Windows - simply because that's what the games are available for - and also because playing games isn't exactly 'critical' operation. This may change in future if Linux gets more games and Linux's growing popularity can only help that.
I also use PGP too ... if there is a message you wish to send to only me, you can use my public PGP key to encrypt it.
What's in a name?
Why do people name their computers?
Maybe it's to make them seem more 'human' as it's nice to personify certain items that we deal with a lot. Some people name their cars too for that reason. Ask any serious computer user what they call their machines and they're bound to tell you. It makes it easy as well to identify the machines and is imperative if those machines are on a network (the internet or a private network) as the hostname is required.
In order to form these names a lot of people use conventions of one form or another to 'theme' their network (who says computer administrators aren't creative?) :) I myself have used Roman mythology and Latin names at one time or another to form the names of my computers.
The first computer I named was my Amiga 1200, which I called 'delphine' after the Latin name for a dolphin, delphinus delphis. This name came about because I was on a network for the first time. My first PC, a 486 was named 'galileo' merely because the name of the astronomer sounded good, nothing more :)
By the time my AMD K6-2/300 PC came along I had thought about mythology, namely Roman mythology. I liked the definition for 'genii' - 'in Roman mythology, the protecting spirits who were supposed to accompany every created thing from its origin to its final decay. They belonged not only to people, but to all things animate and inanimate, and especially to places.' and the name for my computer was set. A little later on I got a machine for my wife, Cindy, to use and I gave that the name 'ceres' as it was the Roman 'Goddess of the earth' (it's actually how we get the name 'cereal' for certain crops). This machine has since become 'delphis' (I went back to my favourite animal the dolphin for that one) although I plan to use 'ceres' again in future machines.
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