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View Poll Results: How much computer training do you have?
Grad school comp sci or similar 4 14.81%
Undergrad comp sci or similar 5 18.52%
Trade school or other non-college training 4 14.81%
None, just a hobby 14 51.85%
Voters: 27. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 1st June 2010
rpindy rpindy is offline
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Default How much computer training do you have?

I wrote this poll to see how many people here are IT pros or programmers and how many are just enthusiasts. Sometimes I wonder if I am one of the few without a computer science degree or a job in computers. I am going to be a sophomore in college in the fall and am not comp sci or anything similar.

I joined this forum since I like free alternatives to Windows and Mac and the expensive software that goes with it. I used Linux Mint to start out with but its parent, Ubuntu, consistently releases unstable versions of its OS and Mint inherits that. Therefore I looked and found OpenBSD and saw it was widely regarded as the most secure operating system in the world and very stable and clean. I even like the songs and artwork that go with the releases, even though it's a bit cheesy.

Since it was command line by default, it took a while to figure out. I bought the CDs for 4.7 and after playing around with it, Googling, and posting on this forum, I just this morning finally got the full GNOME GUI working on the box. I was very excited. I'm thankful that the gnome-session package has a good readme that tells me what other packages I need.

Anyway, I'd like to see if there are many others that use BSD as a desktop and aren't specifically trained in computer science, programming and related fields.
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Old 2nd June 2010
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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I have no formal training, I simply enjoy science and technology as a hobby.. and Unix-like operating systems (..especially OpenBSD) really peak my interest.

Learn at your own pace for your own reasons, you can spend all the money in the world on a "proper" education, but you'll retain none of it if you're not passionate or interested.

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." - Albert Einstein.
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Old 2nd June 2010
Mr-Biscuit Mr-Biscuit is offline
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It's a hobby that I thoroughly enjoy.
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Old 2nd June 2010
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Just an addiction for me too. Maybe 2 or 3 courses (long forgotten) in high skewl and as an undergrad, all told.
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Old 2nd June 2010
rpindy rpindy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IdOp View Post
Just an addiction for me too. Maybe 2 or 3 courses (long forgotten) in high skewl and as an undergrad, all told.
I took AP Comp Sci in high school. The Java and math stuff was over my head but with more applied things like how to make BSD work as a desktop system I both understand better and enjoy much more. I like the challenge of figuring things out.
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Old 2nd June 2010
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I'm not sure which option to choose; my degree is in Mechanical Engineering, but I've been in IT full-time for nearly eleven years now. During this time, I've taken classes on a handful of occasions, received a few certifications, but nothing close to a degree in the field. If my life circumstances were to change, I might consider getting a computer science degree.
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Old 2nd June 2010
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I reckon hobby, since "Just a lifeless geek" isn't on the list :-P.

No education what so ever, in fact most of my schooling stopped at long division, and I'm not even sure if I remember that :-o. However I had a PC to play with since I was a child and eventually found myself intellectually interested in computer science, software engineering, and computer systems in general . Spent a lot of time teaching myself about it, and very much enjoy designing things and solving problems.


The major drag is having no one to share it with, since everyone for miles and miles around is barely computer literate.
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Old 2nd June 2010
Mr-Biscuit Mr-Biscuit is offline
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How long ago did they discover electricity? Last week?
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Old 3rd June 2010
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I answered Just A Hobby, since I started programming at 10 (I'm 41 now) after being sent to computer camp by my mom where all we did was learn to use the computer - the TRS CoCo - and play games. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering that I have never used and for the last 12 years I have been a programmer in a Windows IT shop currently programming in C# and Python. But all my *BSD stuff is for me as that is what I use at home on my desktop and servers I run. I have been able to apply some stuff to my job - like switching our web server to Apache from IIS and using Python for batch jobs.

If it wasn't for find FreeBSD I would have become bored long ago with computers and probably would have no use for them and stayed a drummer in a punk band.
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Old 3rd June 2010
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I bought my first computer when I was 10 years old for 25 Dutch guilder on some junk market.
It came with MS-DOS.
It stopped booting in 4 days, was in pieces in 7 days, and was completely dead in 14 days.
I never stopped tinkering since. Although I have become a bit better at it
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Old 4th June 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roddierod View Post
ow) after being sent to computer camp by my mom where all we did was learn to use the computer - the TRS CoCo - and play games.
Hey, I grew up playing with one of those! But we never had any software for it.
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Old 4th June 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TerryP View Post
Hey, I grew up playing with one of those! But we never had any software for it.
The game I played was an oil drilling game. I've no idea why I liked it so much since thinking back on it, it was really dumb. The local news interviewed our class at the computer camp because it was the first of it kind or something. They ask us what we thought of the future of computers. Of course I said that there is no future and I can't see why anyone would need one.....guess I was wrong on that one but it was 1978/9.
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Old 4th June 2010
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I didn't answer the poll, since training and degrees can be very different things. Formally, I have had one two-unit course in FORTRAN (on punched cards!) as University-based computer training. That's it.

However, in graduate school my lab group put together an intense one-year seminar on numerical methods, primarily finite difference, finite element, orthogonal collocation and the like. BSD was everywhere (this was Berkeley in the late 1970s/early 1980s, after all) and everyone was using it and teaching each other. A friend in the department wrote drivers in assembly for a leading S100 company at the time, so I picked up some assembly from him. I picked up three or four new languages, teaching myself. None of this was for credit.

So is it a hobby for me? Well, I do support all of the hardware, software, networking and web sites for my little company. So I do get paid (indirectly) for that effort. All of it is self-taught.

There are lots of ways of learning that are not necessarily for college credit.
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Old 6th July 2010
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I have a long history with computers. My first one was back in the early 80's starting with the TRS-80 Color, where I was playing games and teaching myself basic programming which I remember very little of. After that in 1987 my old man had a 286 that I was never allowed to touch unless it broke or he needed the main menu that he had created to make it easier for him to use DOS changed. When he took it in to get upgraded the store was so busy the owner asked if i could do it so it was the first system I ever built and have been building my own since. It was an on again off again relationship until I was introduced by a friend deeper into the world of the command line and what it held. I took over for him as System Administrator at the dealership I once worked at and held the position for 7 years. After being released, and being unable to get work, I had to go back to school to get certifications. I am currently still in school and looking to get back into the IT field when I am done in Sept.
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Old 7th July 2010
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I have an undergrad degree in CS...but I was coding some 20 years before I started on my degree. I answered "undergrad" in the poll, but if I'd been asked the same question 2 years ago I'd have answered differently heh.
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Old 1st August 2010
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My experience dates back to the ZX81 and and some odd CP/M machines at the same time, something Fortran, lots of Pascal (including Turbo Pascal), some Siemens Sinix, SGI Irix in the 90s etc. It's a mixture of formal education and hobby.
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Old 27th August 2010
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mostly a hobby for me. I've been "good at" computers since I was a kid. I got into Linux/BSD stuff about eight years ago, and it taught me a lot about the concepts behind how computers and operating systems work: disk partitioning, hardware, a little bit of networking, etc.

I had a job doing Windows sysadmin for about a year and a half, and that taught me a little bit more, but mostly just taught me how to do things on Windows. but it was a good job, and at this point I kind of wish I still had it :/.
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Old 27th August 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roddierod View Post
If it wasn't for find FreeBSD I would have become bored long ago with computers and probably would have no use for them and stayed a drummer in a punk band.
post recordings!
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Old 27th August 2010
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Well since you asked...almost 20 years old recorded before our first gig on boom box!

http://www.rodperson.com/DL/Satan.mp3
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Old 27th August 2010
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If I had a cell phone, that would probably be my ring tone.
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