I've been thinking recently about why I'm so good at computers... I'm going to talk about why it isn't then I'll explain why I think it is.

I'm not smarter, I've met quite a few "smart" people who aren't very good at computers.

It isn't because I've always had a computer, I can't say it hasn't helped, there have been several times when I haven't had a computer of my own. I enjoy computers and so (as with any hobby) I have several, and spend a considerable amount of time using them.

It isn't because I've had some special training that most people haven't, I took a summer school class way back in 5th grade where we took computers apart and put them back together, but those computers were almost as old as I was.

I suppose I first got interested in computers when I was in third grade. We had an old Macintosh IIe in the classroom. It didn't have any games on it that I recall, but I enjoyed using it, it was an exciting new world for me. I used to sit inside on the computer during recess spending hours playing with it, luckily I had one of those truly great teachers. You know the ones, the teachers that truly enjoy teaching, who care about their students. At any rate, I can't say that anything I learned there would have given me a headstart, though it definitely sparked an interest.

I remember when we got our first computer at home; my Dad bought a Packard Bell for work. I remember it had Windows 3.1 and I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. I used to come home from school and play Tetris, Minesweeper, and Solitare. I suppose Dad didn't want me playing on his work computer so he changed it so that instead of booting into windows it stopped at the command prompt. I just turned the computer one day and I thought I broke it, I didn't want to get in trouble so I turned it off. When Dad came home he got on the computer with no problem, so I tried to see what he did to make it work but couldn't catch him. I played with the DOS prompt trying to figure it out and eventually found a file called win.exe, I had figured it out. Emboldened by my success I continued to play with varying aspects of Windows 3.1.

So I guess working with computers requires intuition.

I remember and Acer we used to have, I remember thinking that since I'd learned how to take computers apart at school, that I could upgrade the RAM in the computer. I took the computer apart and put the new RAM in it, cleaned out the case and put it back together. I turned on the computer and to my surprise it didn't work. It wouldn't do anything. I took it apart to take the new RAM out of it, and realize I'd forgotten to mark the RAM chip; I tried swapping them around and it still wouldn't work. Dad wasn't very happy about it, we ended up having to take it to get it fixed. When we picked it up, we got a $50 repair bill for mismatched RAM, all he did was take out the new RAM.

So I guess working with computers requires knowledge as well. I'm happy to report that I've learned something from all of my mistakes.

I often help people with their computers, and I'll admit that sometimes I don't actually know how to fix it, I usually look for a setting that looks like it might be right and try it. If it doesn't fix the problem I change it back to what it was. If I still can't fix it, I'll usually just look it up online. When people come to me I usually wonder if they tried to help themselves. That isn't to say that I don't want to help them, I just take for granted what I know sometimes.

P.S.  That doesn't mean I don't want to help you, just call me.

P.P.S. Stop using the time difference as an excuse, if I'm sleeping or busy I'll tell you, if I don't answer leave me a voicemail.