OK Computer and the Trousers of Time

I am currently studying a 1 year top-up degree at Bournemouth University, entitled BSc(Hons) Computing and Internet Technology. A question I sometimes find asking myself is 'how did I end up here?'

This probably all started with my first computer bought back in 1991 - the Amiga 500. What a fine machine it was! It had a very good games collection, (Lucasarts adventures have always been my favourite) and there were many magazines for the format at the time which I enjoyed reading. I also had my first go at programming about 1993 using AMOS, (a Basic derivative). The Amiga continued to be used up to 1998, as I can remember using the 'Deluxe Music Construction Set' for my Music GCSE.

We joined the PC bandwagon in 1994 with a Compaq Presario CDS 520, although I still remember my Dad brining home an Amstrad PC in 1993 destined for his work. Still the Presario brought with it some exciting developments, noteably the PC CDROM format. The Encarta encylopedia provided hours of browsing and I also had some good games too, (I rember having to go and get a big box full of them!). The PC also brought with it Windows 3.1, although Compaq provided their own interface called Tabworks which was slightly better. Windows was never as good as the Amiga OS, infact Microsoft have only arguably just caught up with Windows 7.

Very quickly there was a need to upgrade the RAM on the Presario. So my Dad bought an extra 4MB at around £100 or so. I later upgraded to Windows 98. Although eventually it was unable to play any games, even when upgraded with a P133MHz Overdrive Processor.

Anyway. The Trousers of Time.. Up until 1998 I had wanted to do Marine Engineering or Naval Architecture, even though never very good at art. Fate dictated that there would be no Engineering GNVQ that year at the college, as only 4 others wanted to do it and probably some of us failed the aptitude test. So I ended up doing an IT GNVQ.

In the GNVQ ('98-'00) we learnt Pascal and later Java. At this time I also taught myself HTML and Dynamic HTML using Javascript.

At the beginning of 2001 I started a career with the States of Guernsey. Very enthusiastic at this stage. My first project was to code an events diary website using ASP 3.0 (JScript). This was eventually completed in 2002, but never used. (Unfortunately I have now lost all the events diary source code after a catastrophic disc failure last year). I began reading the Inquirer and then the Register, and still do so regularly today.

My placement finished in 2003 and I was relocated, becoming more involved in Project Management. My interest and enthusiasm for computing waned at this point.

Meanwhile, I have always been interested in my family history. My Maternal side has been researched back to the 10th Century by my Uncle, (although the notes need tidying up). I started to research my Paternal side in 2007, getting back as far as the mid 18th century.

Since 2004 I had been studying for the BCS Professional Examinations and achieved my Diploma in 2007, enabling me to join my course last year.

I am now working on my project codenamed, as it were, 'GenPACK'. This can be found at Sourceforge here. I am writing a research paper about my project in relation to the GEDCOM format that is available here.

The enthusiasm for computing seems to have returned with the advent of the Web 2.0 revolution. I have thus recently decided to create this blog, partly because there does not seem to be room for all these thoughts in my head!