Any other Tech geeks?

Well, I've got a confession. I'm not really that big a tech geek. Maybe just a bit of a nerd but same difference.

I used to be really into PCs, like over 10 years ago when I first got my desktop PC. Always fiddling around with stuff.

I guess when I stopped being a big PC gamer a few years ago, that gradually fell by the wayside but I'm still handy with computers!

Anyway...

I've applied for a computing tech support course at my local college as a means to getting me fully back on the road to recovery since jobs are out the picture for a few months at least. I guess it'll act as a step to getting myself out & about as well as updating my CV if nothing else.

Sort of reinvigorated my interest in tech stuff!

I've just tried my first Linux distro (Mint) via a bootable USB flash drive. Very new & shiny! I like how customizable everything is but of course right I lose any changes when I restart my laptop.

Right now I am just making a Windows 10 bootable flash drive for recovery purposes. I always thought it was strange laptops stopped coming with discs for the OS but now I guess I know why!

I'm thinking of putting Linux Mint on my laptop too so I can dual boot. Ever so slightly wary in case I screw up my laptop but I'm doing as much research as I can to make sure that doesn't happen.

So, what tickles the fancy of any of you who are technophiles?

I am not very tech savvy and I think technology is a double edged sword.
Sadly in this day and age there is not an option.

I'm getting very interested in virtual reality (the Vive, for example) and artificial intelligence lately, especially after AlphaGo (a Go computer program) beat Lee Sedol, who's one of the strongest Go players in the world. With VR I'm mainly interested in how it could be used as an educational/wellness tool. I would like to learn C# so I can program for VR.

I'm a software engineer, so I really like techie stuff. I do coding and software infrastructure design on a daily basis.

Word of advice: be careful with Linux Mint. Make sure it isn't a huge battery suck. (Some linux flavors aren't designed with battery/power in mind; they just assume you'll be using a desktop, where battery doesn't matter.) You don't want to end up with a laptop that only lasts 2 hours on a full charge.

But on the topic of linux... favorite Linux OS is Fedora... but you have to be able to use a terminal comfortably. It's not really geared at beginners. (The learning curve is high for beginners, but it's definitely possible to learn it if you have patience.)

Fedora doesn't kill your laptop battery from my experience... and I have 3 laptops with 3 different OSes (OS X El Capitan, Windows, Fedora).

Edit: Ubuntu is very beginner friendly and might work out well for you if Mint doesn't.

Watched the promo video about the vive and I'm seriously intrigued.

I'm not big on OS flavors be it OSX, Linux or Windows. I've long since given up on the idea that any OS will overtake Windows even if some are better in many ways, at least not in main stream use. I game a lot so Windows is an important factor for keeping my computers running the best and work with all the games.

I'm mostly into keeping my hardware as high end as possible without breaking the bank. I also do digital art using a Cintiq which is Wacom's display tablet. Plan to upgrade from the 13" cintiq to 22 or 27" in the near future. I run all of this on a home built, liquid cooled Core i7 6700K, with a GTX 970 gpu and 16 gb ddr4 3000mhz ram. I have a 32" 1440p, a 27" HD 1080 monitor and the cintiq (smaller monitors and tablet on ergotron arms that are movable, but off the desk. )

yeah so, hardware excites me :P

Yeah, I used to be something of a tech geek, too, before my illness symptoms became so severe I had to quit my job and drop out of school.

I worked for years in academic research and a big part of my job was programming Access using Visual Basic to make aps that helped the primary investigators, and their research assistants, manage their studies and the research data.

Later on, I cut my work hours a bit to go back to school to study cognitive engineering--that's using what we know about how people think to help design/engineer tools of any kind.

While I was in graduate school, I was part of the Cognitive Science Initiative, which was a special, interdisciplinary graduate study group (it was too small to call it a department) that focused on anything having to do with Cognitive Science. I loved it there, but it had a high attrition rate as most of the graduate students that enrolled just didn't understand cognitive science.

About this time, I started doing computer animation which I loved because it allowed me to use both my computer programming skills and artistic skills/abilities.

While in grad school, I got a job at a very, very large tech company based in my city. I was an engineer in their cognitive engineering labs and worked on all kinds of products (PCs, mobile devices, printers, etc.) but mostly on their massive website. I loved the work, but it was my first time working at a tech company and I hated the cut-throat culture as I was used to team work.

It was said cut-throat culture that helped exacerbate my MI, and I eventually had to quit because I couldn’t handle both that and graduate school. Soon, graduate school had to go, too, because I became disabled.

That was ten years ago, and for much of that time I was able to stay at least a bit techy by building and maintaining my own website for many years. But eventually, that had to go too. So did gaming.

I no longer do any engineering or design, of any sort, and since I make no money, I’m relegated to using computers that I inherit from family members who have updated their equipment. So, I’m always using out-dated stuff. There's no money for new software. I don’t even have a smart phone, just a flip phone that I use for emergencies.

I miss being techy, and hope I can recover some parts of me that my MI has robbed, eventually. At the very least, I hope I can build another website and get back into gaming.

In the meantime, I live vicariously through the guys on Silicon Valley and their pain makes me not miss so much working for the Hooli-type company that illness forced me to leave, as I was not cut out for that kind of culture. (I would rather be a nice person. )

--Ceara1010

Working with email and web administration and support. Find programming more interesting though, and trying to learn Java atm. If my plan works out, i will start on a bachelor study in programming in a couple of years.

Been messing around a bit with Linux earlier, and would love to have a dual boot with Windows 8.1 and Debian on my gaming machine gaming machine, but only have Windows on it atm cause i struggle with getting Dual Boot to work with 64 bits windows :-(

This tech geek gut into programming back in the early& mid 70's when computers still took up huge buildings at the university campus I was on.

Even though my focus with my degree was on business applications & got my accounting degree with my comp sci minor, I ended up going into computer design engineering in the aerospace industry when it was huge in Calif. Mostly did firmware programming in assembly language & some micro programming languages. Did a lot of interface testing with the hardware the programmed chips were placed into.

I mostly was involved with programming data links. Have to laugh now...the first project I worked on was a hand held terminal for the marines. It weighed over 5 pounds & most of that weight was the huge stick lithium battery used to power it. It had GPS capability & data link communication. I look at my smart phone now I can hold in one hand & that is 100times more powerful & realize that we were the beginning of the technology that left the military deign in its dust. I also programmed one of the data links used to fly plains by that went into the shelters used in the gulf war. I had moved to another company by that time but it was thrilling when I heard about the successful testing of the link I programmed that the plane they were testing it with didn't crash into the ocean...meant I did a good job programming & testing my work.

I love seeing how in just the last 40 years technology has accelerated it's advancement so rapidly.

When the aerospace industry crashed around 1994 it was impossible to get hired by the business community. They refused to admit that you could learn their technology just as you learned what you knew where you came from....they didn't want to pay for the learning time.

Depression hit....but it was mostly because my career was more than just a career, it was where I hid from my bad marriage & I could no longer find an escape from that. I went to UCLA & took extension courses but nothing turned into any positive career paths.

So now, I just am the most techy female around in my age group the over 60's & end up helping solve some of their tech problems with wiring & other things. I have an old desk top 9 years old that has serious problems with plug-in crashes but am afraid of making things worse than better if I attempt to fix it.

Love my smart phone but as a user, not a developer. I have dabbled with web site design but have never really gotten into it either.

I do appreciate all the design & development work that current technology takes.

Well, yes and no. I was but it got to the point at which I felt I had done all I needed to do to get what I wanted out of computers. I stopped needing to troubleshoot because barely any problems arise. I've built up computers, replaced parts, troubleshooted hardware and software issues in various computers and honestly just... it's a means to an end now, for me. Can't complain though, as I've amassed a good bit of knowledge over the years, which has helped me and others, so that's something.

I'm a gamer (albeit now somewhat casual) so I do get techie from time to time. I do find technology interesting. I've been obsessing over the GTX 1070 and 1080 recently. I'm curious about AMDs new card(s) too. Planning on getting the 1070, but we'll see.

I tried Linux Mint as well... really gave it a good shot, but I kept running into issues that would eventually or immediately render the OS useless unless I wanted to spend hours googling for a solution, which I sometimes had to anyway.

Modern Windows, however, in my experience, just works. I know the Linux vs Windows debate is hot as all balls, so I won't press on it.

I loved the layout of Linux, but the issues I ran into made it a chore and made me feel defeated. Also, I'm not comfortable trusting strangers online with code I don't understand.

So, great for some, just not for me at all... I hope for the day they solve all its problems so I can dive back into Linux, but until then, I'll (mostly) be happily using Windows.

I ran into a similar issue. It was that I have a convoluted UEFI setup and Windows 8.1 which complicated things. Just 64-bit with a standard BIOS I had no issues, although I think that was paired up with Windows 7 at the time. Wouldn't know what to suggest, but that is the nature of Linux... for some it works, for some it doesn't. :\ I miss the regular BIOS. x_x

My sister swears by it, whereas I've had almost nothing but problems with it. Even doing the most basic of things, like changing the color scheme using the system's own UI, resulted in a crash and the OS refusing to boot up.

I did manage to install Linux Mint.

I had two problems, both which I got work arounds for.

Firstly... my HDD already has 3 primary partitions courtesy of Windows. That meant I had to put Linux all on a single partition with no swap space. I've not found any issues having no swap space at the moment. I might create a swap file at some point though.

My other bigger issue was after installation, I restarted & it loaded straight to Mint with no boot menu. After I fixed the boot menu, it still wasn't showing an option for Windows. The application I had allowed me to restore the MBR though & I was then able to load Windows & add Mint to the Windows boot menu. Not quite motivated enough to research why Windows is not being recognised by Linux... not too much of an issue right now.

As far as I can tell, I have UEFI but for some inexplicable reason I can only run it in legacy mode. I just read something which makes me think that when my HDD got replaced, they installed Windows in legacy mode as opposed to booted in UEFI.

I believe there are some issues with some distros & UEFI, but it's just a case of disabling or enabling some options.

I had read that Ubuntu & Mint were the two basic options for beginners to Linux. I'd already tried the live version of Mint & was intending to try Ubuntu... but after viewing a review of the new version of Ubuntu, I just decided to opt for Mint.

The battery issue I haven't noticed yet, but on the whole I usually use my laptop plugged in.

I probably will try another distro at some point! I guess I shall add Fedora to my research list.

As it happens I have found a series of online tutorials for UNIX/Linux terminal.. so I've started working my way through those & have learned same basic commands.

Overall I like Linux but it's not going to replace Windows for me. I'm just too attached to Windows having used it since 3.1.(when I say used, I use that in the loosest terms with 3.1 since I was very young then... it is essentially true though)

Installing it & fiddling with partitions was a great thing to learn itself & now I've got the opportunity to see what I can do with Linux. Just something to keep me on my toes.

I haven't really followed VR that much, but I saw an article & preview video for Magic Leap AR... that just blew me away. ()

Some very interesting stories from some of you. I'm sorry to hear that life has somewhat got in the way though.

In a strange way for me, that is what is leading back down the road of computing, having only done any formal education in it at high school 12 years ago now! I mean I still had the interest due to gaming, mostly in hardware & of course have fixed most of my problems relating to software or Windows itself over the years.

The thing that stopped me pursuing computing for further at high school was I found programming boring. I think we just did some basic stuff in Visual Basic, although it's so long ago I can barely remember. I have a feeling the real problem was that it was just too easy for me at that level & I didn't have the bug to see what it could lead to.

If I get a place on the course I'll get to do a bit of everything. Modules include... installing software/hardware. Network design/implementation & testing. Some software development & cyber security. Really hope I get a place as I'm quite excited about it now.

Best of luck to you, OP.

Yeah, the computing problems you tend to get in school tend to be pretty easy and not very interesting. Still, I took a year of Basic back in the 80s because the professor made up his own assignments which were fun. (Plus, he was an engineer who was a refugee from U.S. Department of Defense labs, and he was a real hoot. )

I didn't really get back into programming until the mid-90s when I started working in research and was programming aps to solve real problems we had with managing these really long-term studies (decades long) with huge amounts of data. (Academics aren't known for their organization skills--a stereo-type, but a true one.) I enjoyed the work, but dealing with the professors kind of sucked because they don't like it when you know things they don't, such as how to program computers.

Besides the programming, the other upside was I got to participate in a number of these really cool studies about subjects I wouldn't have known much of anything about otherwise.

--Ceara1010