Heard about it on Tech Guy been watching since Tech TV like one of the callers watch all the shows my week is shot : )
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Hello everyone! Been listening, now watching TWiT network since its inception. I dearly LOVE this stuff. I’m one of those geeks that just HAS to know what makes everything work, even if I don’t need to know.
My professional background has always been Sales, with my last 30 years in Mortgage origination Wherever I worked, I was always the guy everyone went to whenever there was a tech problem. I got so inundated the last 5 years I stopped telling people I know anything about this stuff.
I’m semi-retired now, just repairing PC’s and selling on ebay to supplement. I’ve built every computer I have ever owned except for the Laptops. I just repair those. My current collection includes a 68TB Media Server, a HTPC, and several other special duty PC’s and Laptops. Currently working on upgrading all those to more modern components and building a new PFSense Firewall/Router.
So glad to be here, having anxiously awaited its intro from the day Leo announced it. I love what Leo does! He is so unique in this arena, a wonderful Host/Creator/Owner. And a terrific guy!
GDog
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Hi. Long time listener and watcher. I like to stay up to date on tech but seldom buy the newest stuff.
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Hello TWiT Army,
I am a Software QA Analyst living in Torrance CA. I have been listening to/ following TWiT since 2005 and have had the fortune of vising the Brickhouse twice, once in 2012 and again in 2014/2015 for the 24 hours of 2015 when Leo got his infamous tattoo. When I am in the chatroom I my handle is Mr_Fusion. Hope to get to know a good number of you on here.
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Wow. This got pinned globally. Very cool. In my original post I pointed to my “About Me” section for my introduction, but it looks like everyone is putting their introductions here in the thread, so I’ll do the same. (In retrospect, clicking through to read each profile’s “About” probably wasn’t realistic anyways.)
I’m glad to be here! Like many of you, I first started watching Leo in the ZDTV days. Before Leo and the extended TechTV community, I found my technology community in 2600, DOS Resource Guide magazine, and few geeky friends here and there. I’ve been in the TWiT IRC pretty regularly since its creation, but this new forum is nice and I’m glad to see it launching as a new community hub.
Here are way too many anecdotes and a good bit of nostalgia that help “define” me.
- My technology background starts with a 286SX.
- I miss the days of Stunt Island and
SHELL=4DOS.COM - I coded my first HTML by hand in 1994, using a Mac.
- I beta tested AOL releases in the 90s and was a DMOZ Open Directory category editor.
- When we were in junior high, I taught a current YouTube/Patreon “celebrity” how to program QBASIC and we competed in team programming competitions. It’s kinda weird seeing where he is now.
- I miss the days of shooting SVHS on a Panasonic AG-456 and editing linearly on AG-1960s.
- I left one high school for a “better” one, but was kicked out for concerns over “hacking.” I went back to my original county school and graduated in the top 3% and spoke at graduation.
- I really miss high school and college days, and the virtually unlimited number of friends that came with them. I hope the younger folks here never take that for granted.
- I remember when Adrian Lamo called into The Screen Savers while on the run, and when Woz and Emmanuel gave Kevin Mitnick a computer and he got on the Internet for the first time in 8 years.
- Thanks largely to Leo, I created Alabama’s first podcast, a syndication of a “tech talk” radio show I co-hosted on terrestrial FM radio. Thanks to Darren Kitchens, I’ve been quoted by the New York Times on using a vacuum cleaner to fix computers.
- I remember when TWiT’s video was exclusively broadcast on Stickam…
- I’ve had mutual friends on Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, not counting Robert Scoble.
- I was on Twitter in 2007. Today, not so much.
- Snapchat and TikTok.
I worked for a non-profit from 2009-2012, doing web development, radio production, product writing, video post-production, and database administration. I was hired for “data entry.” 
Today, I work a variety of jobs in an effort to become a successful entrepreneur. I’m concerned about politics, policy, and philosophy.
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Hello my TWIT family,
I’ve been into tech since 1991 or so when my dad bought our first home computer. I was 10yrs old. I was born legally blind with 20/400 vision out of only the right eye. Tech meant I could use a word processor and increase the font to be able to complete assignments for school with less strain on my one good eye.
In middle school, the school district bought a Toshiba 486 laptop running Windows 95. This laptop had a detachable trackball that connected on the side. I used ZoomText to magnify the screen.
As of January 2013, I lost the little vision I had. This completely changed my ability to use tech like most people. Tech, apps, and the internet became something that I could only listen to.
I’ve been listening to the TWIT network since 2014. The problem with listening to knowledgeable tech journalists is that I want to implement recommendations, however, being completely blind, the application, website, or security procautions are often not accessible via a screen reader. Windows, Mac or Linux, IOS or Android, NVDA, Jaws, or Voice Over doesn’t matter if devs and tech companies don’t understand how to show compassion and care for those who have limited or no vision in a visual world.
If 50% of those over 65 will experience loss of visual acuity, shouldn’t we be asking the question “Where is love” when designing any website or software.
I hope to be able to provide a unique voice that provides insights that are not just for accessibility, but that are beneficial for many more people. Unabridged audio books were not really a thing until Audible came along, and don’t we all LOVE the right to unabridged books. The only place I could get unabridged books was Talking Books for the Blind through the Library of Congress, and these books were not new releases, but at least 2-3yrs old.
Pinch to zoom, audio description for movies and shows, and high contrast or dark mode are just a few technologies that were for accessibility, and are now mainstream.
When designing any type of tech, do you see users as people, or are they just “users” and therefore just objects to you? Where is love.
Start a conversation by showing love, and listen carefully to those that aren’t like you. Lets talk!!!
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Hey guys! Brian here, in Albuquerque, NM, originally from Dallas/Ft Worth, Texas. I’m a 44 year old project manager, currently in grad school to become a mental health counselor for kids. I dabble in tech on the side (who am I kidding? I’m a huge techie, and have been watching Leo since the 80’s on my local PBS station, and again about 5 years ago on The Tech Guy.) My favorite TWiT shows are: Windows Weekly, The Tech Guy and the old Giz Whiz show. I also like iOS Today. I dabble in both Mac and Apple worlds… use an iPhone 11 and switch between my MacBook Pro and Surface devices. A huge thank you to Leo and crew for fueling my tech love, and I’m glad to be here 
-BB
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I’m just a guy from the PNW. Been a fan since the early TechTV days. Have tried to follow most of the things that Leo has done. As the years have gone by I find myself watching more of the shows on the network. I really got hooked when Know How start and found myself doing a lot of the project right along with the show.
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So, I started with zdTv, then tech TV, then that went away so I live streamed the radio show from kfi website, 2004ish then Leo had Adam Curry on talking about this thing called podcasting, MindBlown lol it’s been a wild ride since. I went from subscribing to so many where there wasn’t enough time in the day to now, a declutter phase, a handful, TWiT, No Agenda show, a some others like Kevin Rose’s podcast. In the 18 years I went from Western NY to Las Vegas back to WNY. Currently working in IT support, with a little web design, and a few blogs. 
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Niiiice. Welcome, Chris
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You’re on a big team for IT support or solo? Such a fascinating role 
. Welcome
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Awesome. Another “sand lapper” around here. 
Welcome
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good to see ya
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Shout out to you for wanting to aid in mental health of today. Welcome
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Welcome. So you’re saying a TWiT Eastside Studio visit is next on your list? 
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The tech in some respects doesn’t force you to buy the newest as often as the tech of yore. At least that’s my opinion. WELCOME
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Only 68TB??? Lol! JK. NICE! Welcome
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I feel like I have written my “about me” poorly so many times, I don’t want to bore anyone with my extreme nerdiness, but I will cover a few highlights:
I got introduced to my first computer, the Commodore Vic-20, by my aunt. She took me to work with her one Saturday afternoon to give my mom a break. It was the summer between grade 6 and grade 7. I probably spent more than 4 hours there that day, mostly playing games on cartridges, like Gorf, but I did type in a few small programs from the Vic-20 owners manual. For those who don’t know, the Commodore Vic-20 and later the C-64 owners manuals were somewhat exceptional… they could actually teach you to program if you let them. And they taught me… but I am getting ahead of myself.
My aunt’s place of work sold business computers and business copiers and the like. I asked her if I could make a copy of the Vic-20 owners manual so I could read and learn from it. She was very generous, and let me use some extraneous paper to do so. It was all bright yellow, but I didn’t care. I made the copy, it came out like 4 inches thick, and I read that thing from cover to cover at least a couple of times. I felt I had learned how to program from it, but I didn’t really understand arrays at first. That took more passes to really make sense. I decided I wanted a Vic-20, and started saving my money from my newspaper route while I wrote my first program on lined lose leaf paper in the school library over my lunch breaks.
It cost $399 plus taxes for a Vic-20 and a cassette player, and that was a lot of money for a newspaper boy who was earning less than $10 a week after tips. My parents helped me out, as a Christmas present when it happened to go on sale just before Christmas, and I had the agony of waiting until Christmas day to use my new toy. My first program actually mostly worked, surprisingly, and I was hooked. From that point I knew that my future was all about computers.
Since that time, I have become a professional programmer with a BSc in Computer Science and worked mostly on system security. Along the way I’ve owned a Vic-20, a C-64, a C-128, an Amiga 2000, an Amiga CDTV, an IBM XT Clone, and then have built literally hundreds of “white box” PC’s over the years. I’ve used DOS 3.22 through DOS 6.2, and Windows 1 through 10, Vax VMS and IBM TSO and too many flavours of Unix to list them all. I’ve programmed in COBOL and FORTRAN, 6502 assembly, AWK, C, C++, PL/1, Pascal, Modula-2, APL, Python, Lua, Perl, BASH, CSH and Java.
I remember watching “The Screen Savers” when it first started airing in Canada on Tech-TV. I watched less once it became G4 and “Attack Of The Show”. I’ve been a fairly loyal TWiT listener since about episode 30 or so of “Security Now”.
I remember paying way too many quarters to play PacMan in the arcades as a kid… where I also developed a genuine love of the feel of playing a real pinball game (poorly.) I generally suck at gaming, but I still love to play dual stick shooter games, especially on the PS4. (Resogun, Super Stardust HD and Alienation.) I also play a little League of Legends, but mostly only with one friend and we stick to playing against the AI levels because the PvP seems to get far too toxic to be fun.
I’m a bit of an amateur photographer, but to be honest these days most of my photos stay trapped in my Pixel 2XL.
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I get to blow my own horn once, with Leo’s permission. I woke up this morning to a sunny day in Oz, and an email from Leo with the link to the TWIT community. Two weeks ago, my Dalmation was surprised as I walked along yelling “yes, please do it” as Leo spoke to Jono Bacon about communities on Triangulation. I wrote to Leo asking he pursue adding a community based process for those of us who listen to TWIT programs through podcasts, as many have time lag issues, and some find the chat room to be challenging. Hey, he wrote back.
I’m a baby boomer, expat, septic (see note at end), sent down under by Uncle Sam during the Vietnam era, who after over 25 years working in Oz, stayed on. I am a self-professed hardcore user of technology, a wanna be geek, and one who loves helping others learn to use their high-tech devices and help keeping them running. I spent 10 years running a one person tech help clinic in a small town neighbourhood centre, which I enjoyed, but really missed talking to others interested in tech “stuff”.
I was first introduced to Leo and TWIT during regular visits to the LA area, and hearing him on KFI. I’m sad to say I missed out on his cable shows back in the 90s, as online and cable entertainment was sparse in the centre of Australia back then.
For those interested in geography, we live in a place called Baranduda, an area along the Murray River, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria (sort of midway between Sydney and Melbourne). Yes, there are literally kangaroos outside our front door sometimes (https://w3w.co/exports.disband.sprung).
I’m looking forward to reading inputs from other TWIT listeners and hopefully the show hosts. I also look forward to being able to provide some useful input. I’m also hopeful this form of community can become a place where listeners with tech problems can get assistance or advice.
(In case anyone got this far and wants to know why I called myself a “septic”, that’s a term of endearment used by a true blue, fair dinkum, ocker , for one of American origin. Americans are commonly known as “yanks” by the POHMs (another ocker term of endearment for those from England, Prisoners of His Majesty) and Aussie’s, and “yank” rhymes with “tank”, and a lot of aussies remember septic tanks fondly, so, a “yank” becomes a “septic”.)
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So glad you made it! Welcome! You get credit for spurring me on to set this place up. Cheers!
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