After 500-odd posts, I just realized that I never introduced myself-----bad dog!!!
I am approaching retirement from NASA after almost 40 years building cameras and other sensors to fly in space. I am a long-time user of computers and--time permitting--a dabbler in the innards. While I learned assy language on our Apple-II, it was my son who had the thing playing music on almost day 1. Then, with the first Mac, I decided to learn programming. At one point, I could almost write something in C. In the same era, I cracked a program to allow it to run on the very first Hyperdrive (10 **Mega** bytes!!) In the process, I cracked the copy protection for the program.
Many years later--still mostly a user---I dropped my PowerMac 7100 in favor of the more mainstream PC. (How anyone could move from ANYTHING to MS Windows 95 is still a mystery to me....
Maybe 5 years ago, I discovered Linux and it re-ignited all the intellectual curiousity and non-conformist spirit that surrounded the original Macs. It also resonated well with my spotty but favorable experience with Unix.
I am now almost completely transitioned to Linux---home and office---but I do keep one XP laptop as a crutch (had to use it just now to print a PDF doc 2-sided.)
I bought my last Microsoft product (Windows 2000) over 5 years ago. I will use their products if I have to, but they will never get any more of my money.
I'm here to learn and--occassionally--to help people.
Pasadena, CA, USA