I'm Bruce Gendron, a.k.a. Occam. I chose my web name as a nod to Occam's Razor and a reminder to myself to keep my posts to the point. (I apologize for the indulgence that follows.)
I am a 43 year old recovering engineer, and currently a radiologist. In between the two careers, I was US Senate staffer, a legislative analyst in Washington, a technical editor of computer books, a programmer of sorts for A.D.A.M. Software (to help out a friend), and author of “How to Use Microsoft Works,” published by Ziff Davis Press in 1994 and later updated by another author. You can still find used copies on Amazon.com in “very good” condition for $0.01!
My first real contact with computers was in 1983 using IBM and DEC mainframes. I've been using PCs since then, starting with the original IBM PC and DOS 1.0. In college we used to hustle to the computer lab so we could sit behind the ones with TWO floppy drives (no hard drive). That way we wouldn't have to continually swap between the DOS floppy and the program/data floppy.
My first computer of my own was a Mac SE/30 in 1989 which I lent to my sister in 1993 and she still won't give back. I switched back to PCs at home between 1991 and 1993 for my editing work, and I've been stuck with them ever since.
I've long been frustrated with Windows' stability in that it took me about 40 hours to install windows, all of the software I was using, and get everything configured the way I wanted. After that I was tortured by watching the slow, relentless decline as software updated itself and slowly stopped working. If I was lucky, I could go 6 months without reinstalling. I had long lists of instructions to myself on how to tweak all of the programs and settings just right.
I had been looking at linux for a long time as a solution, but every distro I tried had some large hurdles to overcome before I could rely on it. School, then residency, then work obligations kept me from really digging in. Besides that, part of me wanted to dig in, and part of me wanted to go live life away from the computer. Mepis 6.0 and 6.5 worked pretty well, but I didn't like the Ubuntu base. When Mepis 7.0 came out, I switched over immediately, and within a few days I was off of Windows at home!
Many thanks to John and the other friendly folk at MepisLovers who helped. I'm glad to have my life back, but work, family, and a desire for life away from the CRT keep me from digging in more. I hope to pitch in to the Mepis packages effort at some point, but I can't right now. I try to pitch in in small ways like through the torrent team and answering questions on MepisLovers when I can.
