Welcome to my first Blog

This is the first post of my first "real" blog. I'm afraid I'm not much of a writer, I sometimes lack the creative ability to write down exactly what I'm trying to say, so this blog will be in a simplistic language and will mainly focus on my daily misadventures in the fantastic world of IT.

My First PC - Amstrad 1640

Let me begin by telling you a bit about myself. I'm a 30 year old man-boy that is obsessed with any and all things that contain a microchip. I've been this way pretty much my entire life, I am interested in all aspects of computing including gaming. My first personal computer was a Commodore C64 (which I still have to this day) -I spent many nights writing programs in BASIC that hardly ever worked, but it was great fun, even then I was no programmer and this has not changed. It was 1993 that I got my first PC  which was a second-hand Amstrad 1640 HD30 with EGA graphics adaptor which was being thrown out from my mums old workplace, it couldn't do much but I used it to learn DOS, create simple programs and used my first GUI based OS called GEM. in 1995 I got my first laptop, I don't remember the exact model, but it was made by a company called Mitech and featured a monochrome screen, an amazing IBM DX2 66MHz processor, a huge 4MB of RAM, the best part was that it ran Windows 3.1 - this was my first exposure to MS Windows.

My First GUI - GEM

After leaving school in 1997 at 17 with next to no qualifications I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I somehow managed to find a job as an administrator working for a major medical company and during this time I learned a lot of office software skills. As there was no on-site IT support I became a go-to point for office workers IT related issues.

In 1998 I built my first custom computer with a mere £600 budget, which I was absolutely delighted with. It featured a AMD K6/2 350Mhz processor, 64MB RAM, S3 Savage3d & 3DFX Voodoo2 Video cards, 6.5GB HDD, Creative Soundblaster AWE32 and a FIC VA503+ motherboard. All of this was powered by Windows95 (which was just after 98 came out so 95 was far cheaper!). The most important aspect of this system was that it had a dedicated 56K modem! I had just joined the Internet revolution! I can't stress how much I learned on this little system, everything from Web design to home networking. It took a while, but eventually it finally clicked that I should have a job working in IT. It's amazing looking back now at how obvious this career choice was but seemed so unrealistic back then - I think I just lacked the confidence.

My 3DFX Voodoo 2 - Awesome

After two years of college doing my HNC and HND in Computer Support and Networking, I went on to university and successfully obtained a 2:1 honours degree in Networking and Computer Support. Following this I served my time working in Dell as a technical support representative, taking advantage of the free training on offer I gained many industry certifications, as a result was able to work my way from the desktop department to the Enterprise department. Eventually I got bored of taking calls about broken hardware and moved to my current company, William Grant Distillers where I initially joined as a Service Desk Analyst. After 2 years I became a Client Services Technical Analyst and began to focus much more on software/operational functions rather than being purely support oriented.

I still have a much to learn, but I really enjoy the challenge of learning new skills, the purpose for me of writing this blog is to keep some kind of record of that things I've been working on. In the fast moving world of IT it can be very difficult to remember to update you CV with all the new skills you've learned, so this will help me what that. If along the way I manage to make a few posts that clarify a few issues for other people working on similar projects and perhaps make a few new friends that will also be a good thing.

Tomorrow I will start adding my first "proper" post, but I hope you will welcome me into the Blogger community.


Andrew