Messages

1

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« on: April 24, 2006, 04:07 PM »

Hi y'all; Johnny Bramham from Solihull, West Midlands, UK chipping in with my four pennyworth.
Now 58, I've been married 34 years, have four kids and three grandkids. 
I started off in the Royal Navy as a junior and left as a P.O eight years later.
I've been a motor mechanic in the trade ever since, working on construction plant, HGV's and cars .
Forced into having to use a PC to make my life easier in my part-time job as a local Councillor, I now refurb older PC's for re-use by disadvantaged kids in my area and generally try to get a better understanding of how they work and making them better.
I built this rig myself, only an XP athlon 2700, but it works well enough so I'm going for a dual Xeon system next with bits bought from eBay.
I'm looking forward now to getting to know more about the programming and software side of things.
Best of British to all of you!
JB.

2

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite computer game from when you were young?

« on: April 24, 2006, 03:41 PM »

Jeez, reading this lot really makes me feel old!
The only computers that were about when I were a nipper were in the CIA, the Kremlin and MI6!
The first PC I ever used was an Amstrad CPC464 with a green screen and a cassette drive; I bought it as a main Chrizzie prezzie for my kids back in, at a guess, 1989 and spent the best part of a week leaning how to get the thing to work!
I've still got it somewhere, I belive, complete with a dozen or so games that the nippers used to play.
The odd thing is that now they're householders and parents themselves, they don't even have a PC in the house between them - I'm the only family geek!
JB.

3

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Office Alternative

« on: April 24, 2006, 03:29 PM »

I've used Open Office and 602 Suite free edition, and they both work OK for me; the only problem is the nag screen that asks you to pay for the pro version - anyone know of a good registry hack that can get rid of this annoyance?