Topicless thread

[Bella]

Everyone I know with DSL complains about DSL.

Except for Stew.

But then again the Virginias seem to have an unusually good telecommunications infrastructure, so who the hell knows. The only DSL company we have up here is Fair Point, and I don't want to role the dice with THEM.

[Nichi]

All we have as far as DSL is CenturyLink. My grandma's office is under them, but the office is registered as a business; resulting in a connection about like what Kari has. At home, we have them, and we're apparently on an old line or something as the connection is shit (8MB/s @ Grandma's Office vs. 64KB/s @ Home)

There is cable internet, but mom's convinced it's more expensive and they'd make us cancel Dish Network and go back to cable (Which our local provider has changed names more than their channel lineup :\)

[winduko]

I know I'm lucky. I'm lucky that my mom's side of the family (particularly my mom and her estranged brother) have a good knowledge on computers, which is a part of the reason why my parents are inclined to upgrade our computers (not through CDs, but through buying new computers once every 3-4 years), in spite of the fact that my mom really really likes Windows XP, and that there's no Windows that could match it right now, even now that after its support is gone. Windows 7 has proven itself to be unstable when it comes to heavy use of graphics (and it's not one computer, it was, amusingly enough, seven of them), and while I quite like my Windows 8, my mom doesn't. I don't think my dad or my brother do either.

[Nichi]

That's good. My parents are slow to upgrade anything that still works in their eyes; we used the same desktop (75Mhz Pentium, 40MB RAM, Windows 95) from 1996 to 2003; the only reason they upgraded is because their tech guy convinced them that it was broken beyond repair and they needed to buy a crappy refurbished desktop from him.

That refurbished desktop died, yet the one it was to replace lives on today; I made a few upgrades and use it for older games. It's a tank -w-

[Krizonar]

My mom and dad are also knowledgeable about computers to some extent, though most of their knowledge is too old to be useful. My mom is very knowledgeable about pre OSX Macs and my dad is very knowledgeable about using Terminals.

[winduko]

@Pent: I honestly had no idea that my parents were that inclined until I got a Windows 7 computer for Christmas, though it does make sense that they skipped Vista. I think they upgraded to ME when it came out... and they weren't hesitant to upgrade to XP when that first came out to say the least, and they learned their lesson. The reason why we upgraded to 8 was because it was hard to get a computer with 7 for me, as by the time they could get me a new computer to replace the Windows 7s (plural because I had two die on me, and the two was the one I originally got, and the one that my mom originally got) that I had, Windows 8 was released.

Also, the Windows XP that I mentioned earlier? It still works. It doesn't work well, but it works. Not like those Windows 7s. Dx

@Kriz: My mom's most greater knowledge about computers is too old to be useful as well. She was a dual-major Accounting/Computer Science, she became an accountant,and she went to college from 1983-1987. I don't know exactly what she knew. All I know is that it's really old, and I might want to know myself.

[Nichi]

@Duko: My dad knows how to use a computer to do what he needs, and that's it ^^;
As for my mom, she might have taught me the basics and knew how to do basic maintenance on the Yeti (The desktop I mentioned earlier; that we used for ages), but she's not good when it comes to upgrades (She insisted the Yeti couldn't be upgraded; because it'd freak out when she upgraded the RAM. Meanwhile, I upgraded the RAM, changed the CD drive out for a DVD drive, and did a processor upgrade without issue).

Most of the advanced stuff I know, I learned from watching TechTV a lot as a kid (I miss that channel), things I picked up on from my great uncle, and reading every book on computers the library had (Although it took me a while to learn the ones on more recent stuff were kept in the adult section; the ones in the kids section were interesting from a historic standpoint, as I learned the term "microcomputer", as well as about BASIC, Apple II, Commodore PET, and other home computers predating the IBM-PC)

EDIT: That feel when you bought frames to display the art a friend sent you as a gift, and the frames end up being a tiny fraction too small (Like, maybe a 1mm difference) ;_;

[winduko]

My dad knows less, as I have helped him with his USB device and program installation/uninstallation.

I kinda taught myself via the internet. I wasn't always very knowledgeable, however. When I was younger, I thought that Windows 95 was the first Windows and that Windows ME was a myth, in spite of the fact that the latter was actually a part of my earliest memory. It took me until the age of ten before I learned that neither of these were true.

My first venue of learning was by doing the Windows XP Home Edition tutorial over and over again on that old computer that I mentioned earlier as a young kid, because I thought it was fun.

[Nichi]

Cool. TBH, I thought Windows 98 First Edition was an urban legend; as 10 times out of 10 if I found something that ran 98, it was always 98 Second Edition.

As for ME, I feel like the only person who genuinely liked it; I look back and have fond memories of it, as it worked great no matter what was thrown its way, with problems only cropping up when the hard drive began to die.
I actually have a couple of new-in-box upgrade editions of ME in storage, that I picked up a few years ago for next-to-nothing

[winduko]

That first memory was a very fond memory, I would have remembered if it crashed or anything. My parents both said that they disliked it more than any other Windows OS though.

I also find that ME is very stable as a virtual machine, moreso than any of the other 9xes. For one, it doesn't crash when I attempt to install a sound driver because it works after a fresh installation. I actually had to upgrade from Windows 3.1 to get sound working on the others (I have a working sound driver for Windows 3.1), and Windows 95 OSR 2.5 isn't an easy thing to upgrade to. >.>

[Krizonar]

I fondly remember playing games on Mac OS 8, though I did not know what it was at the time.

[winduko]

I remember using those old iMacs at school when I was in kindergarten/first grade. Then I moved between my first and second grade year to a school that had almost every computer be a Windows XP except for the computer lab in the media center, which had Windows 98 for some reason. I'm not kidding either. xD

On a semi-related note, for the next two weeks, thanks to statewide testing, my art class will be using the only computer lab in the school with Macs. I missed the multiple desktops thing. Dx

[Krizonar]

Speaking of schools, the first windows computers I encountered were in a computer lab at my school in third grade.

[Nichi]

I vaguely knew of a Mac when I was younger, but my first experience with them was with a Performa 5200 running OS7.5, which is what they used in the office at the museum my mom worked for. There was also a tangerine iMac G3 which came around a few months after mom started.

Fond memories of starting it up for the first time; hearing a sound come from its speakers that is best described as a gong being struck -w-

[Chocofreak13]

we had macs in the classroom in 4th and 5th grade, and that was my first exposure to macs.

my first exposure to computers was either 3.1 or 95; i say or because i can solidly remember using 95 when i was about 5 or 6, but i have vague memories of using another computer from that time, and i can only guess based off the graphics that it was 3.1. :0

my dad likes to think he knows a lot about computers. my mum admits she doesn't but doesn't accept true things as true (such as "things break down over time" ). both of these make it frustrating to deal with technology with them.
further frustrating me is that they tend to take my friends' words over mine, even when they're saying the exact same thing, simply because they're male. ><;