Introduction - NerdyDad

My oldest and best friend has joined TE, NerdyDad, and I am forcing him out of hiding. This is the guy who introduced me to Linux and encouraged me to get my MCSE when I had set my goals at just the MCDST! We spent many nights with our hands in ancient Pentium systems and other dinosaurs trying to get them to work and run Slackware. Fun times!

Currently he is studying for the ICND1 and is getting to know Windows Server systems. Very cool guy, even though he converted to the religion that is Mac.

He's been lurking for at least a month now...

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earweed

Welcome to nerdydad. I'm sure he's loving the thread http://www.techexams.net/forums/off-topic/57799-there-anybody-else-really-cant-stand-mac-end-users.html lol

Hope he doesn't get offended too easily or some users here may be too much for him.

TheShadow

Nerdydad get out here and say hello. If you are as nice a guy as Robert then there is no need to lurk even if you do use a Mac.

cablegod

TheShadow wrote: »

Nerdydad get out here and say hello. If you are as nice a guy as Robert then there is no need to lurk even if you do use a Mac.

Welcome aboard! I think anyone new would be gunshy to admit to using a Mac on this forum after that thread.

erpadmin

RobertKaucher wrote: »

We spent many nights with our hands in ancient Pentium systems and other dinosaurs trying to get them to work and run Slackware. Fun times!

Currently he is studying for the ICND1 and is getting to know Windows Server systems. Very cool guy, even though he converted to the religion that is Mac. He's been lurking for at least a month now...

Oh my, you guys must be young! My first machine was a 386sx/16......though I did use a 286 and even an IBM 8086 and 8088.

I even remember Commodore 64s, though I was too poor to own those....lol.

Since he's a Mac fan boy, and I don't might incurring the wrath of Linux fan boys, here's a couple of You Tube videos that hopefully will make him come out of hiding.....though I'm terribly partial to the Linux one.....lmao

YouTube - South Park Mac vs. PC

YouTube - South Park Mac vs. PC vs. Linux

Oh and BTW, welcome NerdyDad!

phantasm

erpadmin wrote: »

Oh my, you guys must be young! My first machine was a 386sx/16......though I did use a 286 and even an IBM 8086 and 8088.

I even remember Commodore 64s, though I was too poor to own those....lol.

Since he's a Mac fan boy, and I don't might incurring the wrath of Linux fan boys, here's a couple of You Tube videos that hopefully will make him come out of hiding.....though I'm terribly partial to the Linux one.....lmao

YouTube - South Park Mac vs. PC

YouTube - South Park Mac vs. PC vs. Linux

Lets see I had a Commodore 64, 286, 386 and then a 486 and then bought a Pentium II. lol.

Welcome to TE NerdyDad... wherever you're hiding.

earweed

I used an Apple II back in the day. Terribly noisy floppy drive.

tiersten

earweed wrote: »

I used an Apple II back in the day. Terribly noisy floppy drive.

It was cheaper that way. It left out the sensor to keep track of where the head is and instead relied on software to do it. When you initialise the drive however, you need to know exactly where it is so it would just seek towards the center 40 times and the head would bounce against the stop which made the noise. At this point you know its at track 0 and since you'd in theory be the only person sending it commands, it would know where the head was until you powered it off etc...

dynamik

Wow, you don't even let him introduce himself? Did you also register his account for him?

Bl8ckr0uter

tiersten wrote: »

It was cheaper that way. It left out the sensor to keep track of where the head is and instead relied on software to do it. When you initialise the drive however, you need to know exactly where it is so it would just seek towards the center 40 times and the head would bounce against the stop which made the noise. At this point you know its at track 0 and since you'd in theory be the only person sending it commands, it would know where the head was until you powered it off etc...

How the **** do you know something like that? Why the **** do you know something like that? God you guys make me feel like I was born last night and started IT this morning

tiersten

knwminus wrote: »

How the **** do you know something like that? Why the **** do you know something like that? God you guys make me feel like I was born last night and started IT this morning

Simple. I had an Apple IIe :P

erpadmin

tiersten wrote: »

Simple. I had an Apple IIe :P

Seriously I am impressed, and I hate Apple! You get rep for that...just 'cause.

nerdydad

Well I actually started with the VIC20, the 64 was too expensive. The first computer I built myself was a 486 dx25, with 40 whole megs of hard drive space. I have had a digital VAX machine a few Sun sparcs, and an Apple IIe. I don't get too easily offended by the Mac coments, it's a tool not a religion, but it did cut the number of tech support calls from my mom once I gave her an old Mac.

Thanks for everyone's welcome, now I must also add I will be working at the Apple store while completing my studies, so I'm not so sure how welcome I will be now.

leefdaddy

Welcome to the boards...

Good luck with the studies.. Macs aren't too bad, I own one, but lots of PCs. Just don't become an elitist

bertieb

nerdydad wrote:

Thanks for everyone's welcome, now I must also add I will be working at the Apple store while completing my studies, so I'm not so sure how welcome I will be now.

If you get us lots of freebies from the Apple store, very welcome

Welcome to the forums

RobertKaucher

erpadmin wrote: »

Oh my, you guys must be young! My first machine was a 386sx/16......though I did use a 286 and even an IBM 8086 and 8088.

I even remember Commodore 64s, though I was too poor to own those....lol.

Nope, those days were just after I had gotten back from 6 or 7 years in Brazil. From 15 to 20 I was far too interested in girls to worry about computers, or much of anything else for that matter.

It was not until the mid 90s that I started getting into computer use and then it was mostly programming and scripting. I was pretty good with Perl adn had a decent understanding of using Java and could do some cool things with JavaScript and DHTML by the end of that phase. In 2003 I came back and moved into a giant house owned by a mutual friend from high school where NerdyDad and his wife were also living. And that's when we started collecting old junk and frankensteining systems we found out in the trash or given by friends whose companies were junking them.

I was already in my late 20s when I started getting into computers seriously. 29, to be exact. I could not make a good living as an EFL instructor in Ohio. So I needed a new career and thought IT would be the way to go. It was something I could be passionate about and found to be easy to understand the basics. I got my first cert book for the MCDST and set up my first lab using SBS 2003. I got a full time job at the Geek Squad, was not even a tech but within a month was working with the "agents." I then managed to find a small business willing to let me deploy SBS 2003 for them (no charge, they just paid my gas) and started studying for my MCSE. So, it's not that I'm young, just that I am a late bloommer. 20 cert exams later... here I am, livin' the dream!

nerdydad

Ah yes, coming back into the country and not being able to make a living in your previous career, I'm living it now. So I have chosen to follow Roberts advise and start pursuing first my CCNA, I have started studying and building my lab, I will start classes this month, I chose to take classes at a University so that I could use my G.I. Bill.

Bl8ckr0uter

nerdydad wrote: »

Ah yes, coming back into the country and not being able to make a living in your previous career, I'm living it now. So I have chosen to follow Roberts advise and start pursuing first my CCNA, I have started studying and building my lab, I will start classes this month, I chose to take classes at a University so that I could use my G.I. Bill.

What school are you going to? Cincy state?

Plantwiz

tiersten wrote: »

Simple. I had an Apple IIe :P

And did you convert it so you could run PC DOS so you could avoid driving out to the computer lab?

tiersten

Plantwiz wrote: »

And did you convert it so you could run PC DOS so you could avoid driving out to the computer lab?

LOL nope. I was a kid when we had the Apple so it was mainly for playing games. Stickybear Bop was awesome...

phantasm

tiersten wrote: »

LOL nope. I was a kid when we had the Apple so it was mainly for playing games. Stickybear Bop was awesome...

Not as cool as Oregon Trail!!

tiersten

phantasm wrote: »

Not as cool as Oregon Trail!!

I never played that actually.

I just noticed that I've been slowly hijacking NerdyDad's thread without even welcoming him! Oops!

Welcome to TechExams NerdyDad!

alan2308

tiersten wrote: »

I never played that actually.

And welcome to the forum nerdydad!

dynamik

tiersten wrote: »

I never played that actually.

So this is completely lost on you?

Remedy that situation: http://www.virtualapple.org/oregontraildisk.html

Bl8ckr0uter

tiersten wrote: »

I never played that actually.

I just noticed that I've been slowly hijacking NerdyDad's thread without even welcoming him! Oops!

Welcome to TechExams NerdyDad!

You never played Oregon Trail? That was like my very first RPG. Good times. Did any of you play super munchers?

rogue2shadow

phantasm wrote: »

Not as cool as Oregon Trail!!

You have died of dysentery.

tiersten

dynamik wrote: »

So this is completely lost on you?

Yup. No clue. It looks like most people started playing Oregon Trail at school and we didn't have Apple IIs at school here. We also didn't really learn much about American pioneer history.

erpadmin

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Nope, those days were just after I had gotten back from 6 or 7 years in Brazil. From 15 to 20 I was far too interested in girls to worry about computers, or much of anything else for that matter.

You know, so many POSITIVE things from my youth are coming back to me now! When it came to the girls, I was a late bloomer. I wouldn't start dating until I was 16 (she was a freshman). My initial beginning in learning about PCs came from reading PC Novice magazines (it is now Smart Computing). I had a whole year subscription. By that time, my mom felt she didn't need to renew the subscription. By that time, I was already heavily into BBSes and even ran one. In fact my BBS is in the BBS history list that you can still find today! (I had Fidonet and everything...of course, my parents were not pleased that I had run up the phone to $800 dollars......). When I got to college (actually shortly after my first year) an IT job actually opened up to me and that's where I would have the foundations of what I learned. Of course when you give a 19 year old a job where he's making a couple of grand less than his father, you start to imbibe a lot....and imbibe I did.....partying and women were pretty much all I did when I was in my twenties.

Now that I'm in my thirties, I can finally do what I should've done in my 20s...get certs and a degree. Oh and build a lab...but instead of spending thousands, I can just spend a few hundred....

Seriously, we all have experiences here (good and bad) that we can take from each other. It adds to the collective good.

Nerdydad, I look forward to seeing how you progress with your experiences. I personally plan on going to Robert's path as a certified DBA (should have gotten my MCDBA in 2000 a long time ago.......but I might as well just begin it with 2008...my lab will get me there). Seriously, you'll like it here, and many of the cool people I met here are Vets like yourself. (Thank you for serving my country, btw, and this goes out to all Vets.)

earweed

nerdydad wrote: »

Well I actually started with the VIC20, the 64 was too expensive. The first computer I built myself was a 486 dx25, with 40 whole megs of hard drive space. I have had a digital VAX machine a few Sun sparcs, and an Apple IIe. I don't get too easily offended by the Mac coments, it's a tool not a religion, but it did cut the number of tech support calls from my mom once I gave her an old Mac.

Thanks for everyone's welcome, now I must also add I will be working at the Apple store while completing my studies, so I'm not so sure how welcome I will be now.

I remember the VIC 20. I owned a RS Color Computer and a Commodore 64 while in college (dating myself

) and had a lot of fun on those.
Welcome at last to the forums!

tiersten

earweed wrote: »

dating myself

TMI. No need to share that.

dynamik

tiersten wrote: »

Yup. No clue. It looks like most people started playing Oregon Trail at school and we didn't have Apple IIs at school here. We also didn't really learn much about American pioneer history.

Alright guys, bring it!

attachment.php?attachmentid=630&stc=1&d=1283621128

That's a terrible score. I'm setting the bar low. Who can do better?

I got brave and sunk my wagon fording the first river and lost almost all my supplies. I'm surprised two people made it