About

[sc:about-category ]Welcome to JumbleCat, where you get to hear all about my thoughts on technology, entertainment, politics, life and anything else I can think of.

As a brief background on myself, I’ve been a computer consultant in the Toronto area for over 20 years, starting with my first computer, a TI994a, progressing through multiple Commodore systems and eventually Amiga, Atari and finally PC’s.   I’ve worked with pretty much every OS out there from DOS 2, Linux 0.99 and Windows 3.1 to more modern systems like Windows 7, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Windows Server 2012.

All posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as anything else.  Welcome to the Jumble…

What follows is a more detailed account of my history in the various categories.

Hardware

This category will be for any hardware that seems to be interesting, mostly computers of course, but not limited to that.  GPS’s and other gadgets will fall in to this category as well.

In the past I’ve had many different computer hardware platforms:

  • TI 994A
  • Sinclair Spectrum
  • Commodore (Vic 20 and C64)
  • Colleco Adam
  • Atari ST
  • Amiga
  • PC (of course)

I tend to build my own systems instead of buying off the shelf, at the moment I’m running 2 home built servers based on AMD processors to host my e-mail, SQL and file needs.  For my main PC is another home built AMD system.

In fact my only “store bought” system is my laptop, an ASUS ZenBook Prime UX31A.  Which I must say I am very pleased with.

Linux

My background with Linux started long ago, with 40+ floppy disks and the 0.99 kernel.  We were hacking on a PC with an eight port serial card we had acquired with several serial terms.  Not knowing what to do with them we scoured the BBS’s for something that would support it.  We found Linux.

Since then I’ve used Linux where it makes the most sense, starting with Slackware (which I still like quite a bit) for a mail relay at a company I was working for to my current mail relay using OpenSUSE.  Ubuntu has been in the mix a couple of times as well as RedHat, but other than a brief experiment with an original Acer Aspire One Netbook, Linux has been absent from my desktop.

Mobile

These days mobile technology often refers to Smart Phones, but this category is going to be a little more inclusive than that. Systems like tablets, PDA’s portable game systems or anything else you might use on the go will be included here.

My past with mobile tech started at an early age while on vacation in Florida. I bought a Radio Shack portable TV, it was one of the first to use an LCD display and was black and white only. Since then some of my mobile tech has included:

  • Atari Lynx
  • Palm Pilot 1000, 5000
  • Handspring
  • Compaq iPaq (both BW and Colour models)
  • Sony PSP
  • Motorola Razr
  • Various flavours of Blackberries
  • HTC 6800 (Windows Mobile 5)
  • Samsung Omnia II (Windows Mobile 6.5)
  • Zune HD (not actually available in Canada, had to buy it in the US)
  • HTC HD7
  • HTC 8X

My current mobile devices include:

  • Nokia 925 (UK version with 32g)
  • Blackberry for work (still running OS7)