Computer Expert

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Hi, my name is Jacob Allen, and I am an 11 year old computer expert with Asperger Syndrome. I have helped kids and teachers at my school with electronics, and whatever advice you have, I'd love to help.

And in case you were thinking, I have no preference over Windows, Macintosh, Linux, or any other OS! I like them all! I have saved several webpages on my flash drive, which were tutorials on how to operate personal computers internally, externally, and inside the OS. It was my textbook on computers.

I have been using computers since I was 1 and a half, and I have acquirred two vintage Macs. I have a video of my Power Macintosh 5400 right here!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFqaoGQkUYA[/youtube]

All the operating systems have there uses, I currently have a linux machine and a windows machine. I'm hoping to get another linux machine as soon as the monetary resources are available

Hey,

I've only used Windows and Linux extensively, I tried OS/2 once, never had an extra machine to much around on so never used it greatly. I've also used FreeBSD, BeOS, DOS, Solaris, Minix and VMS.

Each OS has its own area where it performs best than others. I like to use Linux/OpenBSD on security matters, as they're open source and have much more useful security/pen-testing utilities than Windows or Mac, beyond having less bugs and vulnerabilities than a default Windows. As my preferred area is security, I feel quite comfortable on Linux. However, Windows is better in some other domestic appliances, at least for the majority of users.

Well done Jacob. I was pretty much the same as you - though not at 11 since computers weren't so easily obtained when I was little.

Advice;

1. Get some work experience in workplace computing, as early as you can. (though you still have plenty of time). It's not that you need computing experience but that you need to expose your skills to big companies. They'll remember you and hire you straight out of school.

2. When you do actually get to school leaving age, consider working with computers full time and studying part-time. That way, you'll improve your work/social experience - since academically you're not going to have much difficulty with a computing degree.

3. Look after your hands. Mine are stuffed. Get up ONCE EVERY HOUR, stretch and move about. RSI won't kick in while you're young, but the conditions for it will be created then.

I`ve been one of the Youngest Tech Coorinaters for a Secondary School in the State i live in. [ I was at a Charter School with only 70 Students.]

I like Microsoft Windows [Preferably Win2000 Pro and XP.] due to severals factors.

1. VBScripts are so easy to make and are so handy for making my life easier.[I even written a Disk Defrag script over the server so all computers defrag at the same time automatically.]

2. I can just use CCleaner to clean out all the registry junk.[ With Macintosh and Linux i have to pay for a lot of the registry cleaners for them and they are memory-hogs.]

3. Many people fimiliar with Windows which makes my life easier when it comes to fixing tech issues wth a teacher or student.[ Example- Fixing a printer is a lot easier under Windows.]

4. I use Symantec/ Norton Antivirus and with all of its liberties i can`t stand using anything else. I can scan anytime. Scans are easy to set up the way you want the computer to do. I also like the fact the Symantec may make you computer take a little longer to load.[ About 3 Seconds on an Old 300Mhz Celeron w/ Win2K and 256MB Ram.]However after that it is not noticable and i can actually do things on that old rig like watch Youtube Videos.[ Can`t with NOD32, Kasperky and others due to so much memory is eaten up its killing the 300Mhz box to the point i can`t even watch Youtube videos.]

5. Unlike Macs[Most notably the IBook] I don`t get problems with getting the CD`s out of the things.[Why can`t the CD-Drives on Macs be more like IBM-Compatable PC`s.]

I might Dual-Boot between Edubuntu but i`ll have to start getting the students trained to do that 1st.[I`m thinking of doing that this fall.]

my Operating systems of Choice are not listed.

My first UNIX was FreeBSD and I eventually moved over to Solaris most of everything I do these days is based on Solaris. aside from a combo NFS/Samba Fileserver and vmware server that runs on linux.

I also have working copies of IRIX and OpenVMS

I would say though that out of everything UNIX in general has been the most useful operating environment for me
because it makes custom scripting and rapid development of software so easy. I find I do a lot of text processing under UNIX and being able to make custom filters to put into pipes to do complex text manipulation is something i would not give up. sure I can run Perl and ports of unix tools on other platforms but why move off of a system that
already does everything I need right out of the box?

if you are talking about operating systems that I found useful in the past I found Microware's OS-9 on the tandy color computer 2 very useful. along with apple prodos and CP/M, and later DOS 5.x on my first IBM PC.
on the same system I had a nice GUI multitasking OS called Geoworks Pro. which worked quite impressively on a 4.77 Mhz 8088 with 640kb of ram and a CGA card. it had a great integrated suite of office programs.

I found early versions of MacOS very useful and cute but I always missed the command line and the ability to write batch scripts. I never got much into things like applescript which can be very powerful but still until MacOS X came along with UNIX under the hood most of the things I would want to do with MacOS I had to do with 3rd party tools that weren't all there and the development tools were too expensive to write my own.

I only wish I had gotten ahold UNIX sooner instead of wasting my time with lame PC operating systems in the late 80s and early 90s. having a system with great development tools out of the box was really liberating, it was also my first exposure to the internet (using a dialup dumb text-only terminal to execute text based UNIX network applications like usenet readers, the popular lynx browser etc, I basically stopped using my PC at home as anythign but a dumb terminal at that point because even with text only the dialup shell was much mroe powerful than anything I had at home and a lot mroe flexible and easier to use than plain old DOS.)

Eventually I built my own FreeBSD 2.2.1 system from trash bin parts and learned how to run my own system instead of just being a timesharing user, I eventually had an opportunity to make use of the skills I learned doing this and got a job with the school district I was going to and I have been working with computers ever since.

I like to see others collecting and learning old computer systems. keep it up as you will learn a lot that way.