Computer
Things I have done with computers or electronics in my personal life, for fun, not necessarily as part of my career or professional life.
High School Spark
In my youth, I never had a home computer. Home computers did not come into the economy until the 1980s when I had just graduated from public high school. In fact, I don't think I owned my own computer until the early 1990s.
In 1978, thanks to my science teacher, Luck Public High School had a computer terminal installed in a small glass room in the library. It was connected an HP3000 computer to the University of River Falls through a time-sharing network connection. There was no monitor. Anything you typed was printed out on continuous green-bar paper. Any response from the computer was also printed.
In the beginning, a lot of us used a social chat program to communicate with students at other schools who also had a time-share network connection. One feature was being able to code in BASIC programming. My teachers enthusiasm to share some simple programs with us was the spark that started my love of coding and eventually led to my career in Information Technology.
In 1979, my senior year in high school, I earned extra credit by coding a class attendance program. Toward the end of first period, the girl gathering attendance would give me the list and I would get out of my Math IV class early to enter the data and print out a tardy list that was given to all teachers. I also created my own 4-H project called Computer Programming. My project entry to the Polk County Fair was a booklet I put together showing off all the BASIC programs I created that year. (Blue ribbon!)
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Installing and Upgrading Electronics
While visiting my sister in Wisconsin in June, she pointed out a number of computer upgrades and installations that needed to be done. Her currently computer had a virus and was running Windows XP. She had a wireless printer that needed to be installed and configured. She was given a cell phone signal booster that needed to be installed in various rooms in the house.
Upgrade Computer
I reviewed the content of the current computer running Windows XP. No problem with disk space usage, but the CPU and operating system were out-dated. I spent a few hours locating personal files such as photos, music, and custom documents. I backed it up to a thumb drive. Next I swapped out the old Dell computer with a Dell Optiplex 3010 running Windows 7. It came with a newer keyboard that was more pleasant to use. The old CRT display was replaced with a flat-screen monitor. I brought the software versions of operating system and web browsers up-to-date. I wiped down the computer stand and rearranged all accessories.
Install Wireless Printer/ Copier
I had never worked with a wireless printer before. Luckily the instructions were pretty good. I had to turn on the ability of the network router to broadcast its availability before I could establish a connection with the printer. It required some installation of software drivers on both the desktop computer and my sister's laptop.
Install Cell Phone Signal Booster
My sister's two-story house is in a rural environment surrounded by trees. Her carrier is T-Mobile. She was getting a very weak cell phone signal in one corner of the house. She was given a signal booster kit, but had not implemented it. Instructions were simple. One transmitter unit would sit in a window where the satellite's signal was strongest; the receiver would go in the house where the signal was weakest. Plug in power for both, let them 'discover' each other, then monitor the signal strength over time. My sister tried it out and she was getting a reasonable signal strength in the rooms that needed it.
This web page shows examples of how I have used visualization in my personal life. Why? Because it's cool!
Examples
In the early 1990s, I had an interest in riding my mountain bike around the St. Louis area. Most of the time I would jump on the bike after work and hop curbs around the housing complexes where I lived. Using the old-fashioned wheel odometer, I collected times, mileage, terrain, and the mood I was in during the ride. I put the data in an Access database and created some graphs, just for the heck of it.
I sure do not miss having satellite TV, what with the response lag on the internet and outages due to 'rain fade'. We now receive DSL and u-Verse TV from AT&T and are mostly happy.
When we first moved into our house in Eureka, Missouri, the former owner already had a DirecTV installation. But it required tuning for best reception throughout the signal spectrum. While I stood in the back yard with my wrench, my wife was inside the house in the living room yelling back and forth, "... HOW IS THAT?" " ... BETTER".
For whatever reason, I graphed the strength results which helped point out what transponders were not working.
Without giving away too much detail, I put together a graph showing my annual salaries from my first professional job in 1983 until the accumulation reached $1 million in the year 2001. My first job was as a COBOL programmer in Detroit, Michigan for an annual salary of $9,000. That's about as entry-level as you can get. Starting in 1993, I went into consulting where they pay was good. In general, the 1990s were good for programmers trying to prevent applications from crashing as a result of the 'Y2K' bug. The peak in 1998 was due to a lot of overtime hours I put in.
Using a handheld GPS receiver, I collected tracking data points and geocache coordinates and overlaid them on maps. In some cases it was just to get an overall view of where I hiked. Sometimes it was used to plan where to place a geocache that would be fun to find in the woods.
Click on an image to see it in a light box
Our family never had a good overhead map of their property. We took a handheld GPS and marked the official acre corners. Then was got coordinates for various landmarks on the property.