The Hive is (realy) Dead! Long Live the Hive Mind!

[Mycanid]

I don't wear hats.

I was talking metaphorically. As the owner, customer service rep, salesman, sole employee. I have a lot of job titles.

Oh ... DUH!

Sorry.

 

[Mycanid]

Ayup, back when I moved from the Call Center to the office portion, it was determined that I had self taught myself more about the computer systems than the two programmers combined. I was volunteered...with the carrot of the company's first Windows 95 machine. That was 11 years ago, out of my slightly over 12 with the company.

My first machine was built for me back in 1997. So lets see ... about 10 years ago. We had all Win 95 machines at the time. I had a little pizza box desktop with a Pentium 120mhz cpu! (Which , if you remember, was considered FAST back then ... I was quite surprised.)

I worked in the shipping department for years and then volunteered to set up a web site (why not give it a go after all - it would be something a little different). The machine I was given, though, was primarily for a database I was managing at the time. Nothing fancy at all. It was more canon fodder for me to sorta get the idea how things worked.

My first laptop was a 486 running Win 3.11 for workstations made by a company called iNex. Man I loved that little laptop. I had WordPerfect 5.1 on it and it was a nice little word processor.

In 1999 I purchased my own little laptop (a Pentium 133mhz made by Compaq with Win98se) off of eBay and in 2000 I was made the "head tech", inheriting a disastrous situation. The previous tech had left 6 months earlier and the interim choice just couldn't spare the time and focus amidst all his other tasks.

To be honest I am more of a hardware tech sort, who sets things up and maintains things. I'm not a programmer at all. I love building machines for people is the main thing.

 

[Mycanid]

You know, I'm sure I need to game and sleep less...I miss all the good posts in this thread.

Say ... warlock ... what do you enjoy gaming?

 

[The_Warlock]

To be honest I am more of a hardware tech sort, who sets things up and maintains things. I'm not a programmer at all. I love building machines for people is the main thing.

Same here. I prefer the building, maintaining, identifying and installing software. Programming is RIGHT OUT. I leave that to people who enjoy reading gibberish. That said, I'm a fair hand at troubleshooting software, registry entries, ini files and such, but my head has almost imploded the couple of times attempts were made to cross train me on visual basic programming.

Ah yes, metaphorical hats. Though, I have to admit, I got a sudden image of a Hindu God with 3 or 4 faces standing behind a receiving counter, spinning in place as customers came up specifying preferences for different shipping providers...

 

[Mycanid]

Yeah ... who wants to actually go into the MS registry? But it has to be done sometimes.

I have done a VERY little bit with cgi scripts. A little html too.

Actually I am kinda curious about flash script and javascript ... but I have no time to do so. :\

 

[The_Warlock]

Say ... warlock ... what do you enjoy gaming?

I'm a D&Der at heart, I run myweekly FR based Campaign in 3.Houserule that's been going for the last 12...um...13 years...though when the campign ends this year most likely (the final battle is arriving), I'll probably switch to True20 for my personal gaming at the table for the forseeable future.

Occasionally entertain myself and friends with the CoC cardgame or stuff from CheapAss games, traditional board games, and such.

And computer games of various stripes - RTS, Turn-based Strategy, CRPGs (Computer, not Console, haven't been as impressed over the years with the console based ones), and FPS.

Currently I meet up roughly weekly with some scattered friends for some Magic the Gathering Online (Friendly play, non of this tournament nuttiness), and twice weekly with some more local folks on Lord of the Rings Online, which most of us have really taken a shine too.

I rarely have the chance to place in regular tabletop, but my friends in Rochester NY have a twice yearly get together where we all descend on their house and take vacation and play D&D, Rolemaster, Serenity, Star Trek, and anything else that fits the mood.

 

[Mycanid]

I'm a D&Der at heart ...

I rarely have the chance to place in regular tabletop, but my friends in Rochester NY have a twice yearly get together where we all descend on their house and take vacation and play D&D, Rolemaster, Serenity, Star Trek, and anything else that fits the mood.

Now that's nice. Most of my old rp'ing friends are in upstate NY. I haven't been able to visit them in 5 years or so.

 

[The_Warlock]

It's hoot really - it's the same group I MtGO with, and there are currently 3 FR D&D campaigns, a Serenity, A Middle Earth Rolemaster, and a Star Trek campaign that happen during the get together.

I've been in various runs more locally, but they either peter out, or they play weeknights, which just doesn't seem to work - too large groups needing too much decompression after work time and too little focus. Give me a Saturday or Sunday game, and you've got my attention.

 

[Mycanid]

So Warlock ... what does the company you work for do?

 

[The_Warlock]

So Warlock ... what does the company you work for do?

Are you with the CIA? FBI? Stalkers anonymous?
(Stalk...Mushroom! Get it? Eh, phooey) Chuckle.

Marketing Research, actually. Custom surveys for clients doing marketing awareness, current client satisfaction, needs awareness, quality control, etc. Never selling anything, just asking people the burning questions their service/product/content providers want to know so they can keep doing good. We primarily work with banks, hospitals, insurance companies, school systems, non-profits, and various service agencies.