Hi,
My name is Ming-Li Wang and I'm new here. I came across the site while struggling to set up Vista 64 on my system a few weeks ago. I scoured the web for solutions, tips and tools--anything that might help me solve the various weird problems I encountered. Though I ended up giving up Vista 64 for now, I learned a lot in the meantime, for which I'm very grateful.
There were many tech forums I ran into during the time, some of them many times. One such forum left such impression on me that I thought to myself: I should come back. So here I am.
It's hard to pinpoint what exactly got me hooked. The software discounts was enticing: I remember lamenting for the savings I could have had should I learned of the site earlier. With a little hesitation I soon made my donation before buying Directory Opus 9. The little hesitation was because I knew by doing so I was going farer away from switching to Linux. But I told myself it's a site worth supporting, even if I decided to go Linux the next day, which was next to impossible anyway.
The collective knowledge in display was impressive. This was by no means unique. I had seen plenty, on some of which I was once active. There was more warmth in this space, however, with a touch of home-like coziness that couldn't be ignored even though I was mostly dashing in and out in no time.
What really earned my heart, nevertheless, was the simple and practical idea as laid out on the About page, and the genuine sincerity felt in many of the posts here. Oh, and the post by Mouser on "How to punish DonationCoder if you are angry at being nagged to donate" made me empty my Paypal account with a smile.
I'm not an avid coder, writing mostly scripts (VBA and Powerpro mostly) that fill small holes left by real software. (I'm from a social science background, though I started my college in Engineering and have used computers for 25 years.) Due to a very busy day job and other community obligations, I'm afraid I won't be able to contribute as much as I like, but I'll try my best.
One more thing: I'm from Taiwan. Am I the first? Ming-Li is my first name, or you may spell it Mingli. Some friends online just call me Ming, which is fine, as long as there's no confusion.
cheers,
Ming-Li