My name is Greg, and this is my story:

I have always had a curious mind, and I have always been fascinated with technology and how things work. As a child, I took apart many things to see how they worked, and often I couldn't re-assemble them, much to the chagrin of my parents. I loved transistor radios and I was always playing with one. One of my early memories of doing some tech work was when I figured out how to boost the antenna on my radio, so that I could receive WLS radio station from Chicago better on the radio (I lived in the South, and this was when AM radio was king.)

My first introduction to anything resembling computer technology was with Atari and Amiga games. This was very interesting to me, and I spent countless hours playing new, wonderful, and fantastic games. It was difficult for me to go and play pinball with my friends, after being introduced to electronic, graphical games. Gaming will be a common thread in all of this technological history.

In the early 1980s, my family had a Timex Sinclair computer. This was a small device that hooked to the television for a monitor, and it used cassette tapes for the programs. I didn't do a lot with the computer, other than to play a flight simulator game, but this was my introduction into computers.

In 1986, I received a Commodore 64 computer as a gift from my parents. At the time I was in my early to mid 20s, and I was more interested in girls and partying than I was in computers, but spent time with the computer, when I could tear myself away from life's other distractions. I mostly played games on the computer, but I also learned to do some drawing and graphics. It was shortly after this that I made a tech discovery that was probably a very big factor in continuing my love for technology for the remainder of my life. That discovery was the game: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was amazed, and from that point forward, I was hooked on gaming.

My first real foray into computers was in the early 1990s, with a Windows 3.1 computer. I was shocked to see the difference between this and the previous things that were called computers. I spent much time with this machine, and I found many things to do with it. I learned how the file system worked, and I figured out how to create documents and to print out things. This was in the very early days of the internet, and I spent much time on a slow dial-up connection reading and learning about things on the internet. I spent hours on Usenet reading and learning, and I remember a major breakthrough when I figured out how to combine several downloaded binary files to make a photo that I could view on the computer and print out (it's probably better that I don't say what the photo was.)

Next for me was a 386 computer with Windows 95 - wow a real computer! I spent as much time as possible on the computer, mostly playing on the newer internet with America Online. I learned how to connect with AOL and then get away from their chat rooms and to go and get on the real internet. I found wonderful adventure games to play, information that was never before available, except from a library or encyclopedias, and much to learn for a curious mind. Of course, I also learned how to find the best places on AOL, and I spent pretty much all of my free time on the computer.

In the late 1990s, I was working for a business that was owned by my Uncle, and I worked with my Uncle and cousins. We were doing all of our business on pen and paper, combined with old DOS computers. Invoices and receipts were written by hand, and then entered into the DOS computers (Peachtree Accounting). We had over 1500 customers, and we realized that we needed to start doing more of our business on computers, and we needed to network the computers, so that we did not have to backup each transaction and then take the floppy to the main computer. My Uncle was nearing retirement age, and while he knew that we needed to switch to a more modern computer system, he was hesitant to spend the money, because he might retire soon. He finally agreed to buy new computers, but there was no way he was going to spend the money for technicians to be there constantly for networking and troubleshooting. If we were to have this, then we had to do it, so I taught myself about computer networking, the operating system (Windows 98), and how to fix the problems that we had with the computers. I figured out how to setup a tape backup system and how to maintain it.

We sold merchandise to our customers, and we used a catalog of our merchandise to sell the items. Previously, we had always cut photos from our suppliers' catalogs, pasted them on paper, and taken a photo of the pasted pages to use for our catalog. I figured that since we had computers, it was time to have a better catalog. Somehow, we acquired a disk with Adobe Pagemaker. I taught myself how to use the program, and I began to layout a catalog in Pagemaker. The Pagemaker disk also came with Adobe Photoshop LE, and I also taught myself how to use this program, and I began to edit photos for the catalog. Part of our business was selling Advertising Specialties (promotional items with a business name printed on them), and it was useful for us to be able to scan a photo of our customer's logo, so we acquired a scanner. Now I was able to scan the pages from our suppliers' catalogs and edit the photos for our catalog, rather than cutting them out and pasting them on something else.

We were spending money to hire graphic artists to reproduce scanned logos and other art for our customers, which we would the send to our suppliers to print the Advertising Specialties that we sold. I knew that I could do the same thing, if I was given the tools to do it, so I talked my Uncle into buying a copy of Adobe Illustrator. I again learned the program by myself, and I began to do the art for our customers, which saved our company money, and helped us to make more profit from our sales.

With the knowledge of Pagemaker, Photoshop, and Illustrator, I completely built our next catalog, which I was able to give to the printing company, and all they had to do was to print the catalog straight from my file. And, all of this was done on a low memory, Windows machine, when everyone else in the graphics business was using Apple products.

Shortly after the year 2000, our company realized that we needed a website. Again, my Uncle understood this, but he was reluctant to hire a web design company for thousands of dollars to make a website for us. I again knew that I could do it, so I set about trying to figure it out. I downloaded a trial version of Macromedia's Dreamweaver software. The trial was good for only 30 days. I had to completely learn the program and complete the website in that 30 day period. It was going to be a challenge, but I love challenges, and I managed to complete the website with 3 days remaining in the trial period of the software. I also did all the graphics for the website, using the Adobe programs that I had learned previously.

Our business shipped packages to our customers using United Parcel Service. During that time, UPS changed from a hand written shipping book to a software system. They did not have a networking component to their software. We were used to each person making a shipping label from their desk. The problem with that, was that we had to each have our own end of the day shipping report and our own address book. So we had to use floppy disks to transfer things to each others copy of the UPS software every day. I figured out how to network the software, even though this was not something that it was intended to do. I remember having to call UPS software support for a problem, and when I explained that the database was centralized and networked, they said that it was impossible, but I showed them that it was not.

During that time, I bought a top of the line computer for myself, and I spent much time learning how to find the entertainment I desired. I played games on the computer quite a lot, and I spent countless thousands of hours reading, learning, and playing on the computer. Prior to this, most of my gaming was done on consoles, rather than computers, but now I had a good computer, and I began to play more computer games, though consoles were still better in my mind.

After I left my Uncle's business, I continued to do computer graphics for a living for a few years. I bought a very powerful computer because of the heavy burden that is placed on the computer doing graphics work. I did graphics and web design for clients, and page layout for their promotional flyers and business cards. During this time, I continued to play games on a console, but I still spent most of my time on the computer. About the only time I watched television was to watch a fantastic old program called "TechTV". That show pushed me further into the computer, and gave me a boost to learn more and more about computers.

In 2002, I saw a segment on TechTV for a game called The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. I can still remember Adam Sessler (TechTV presenter) saying that the first time he saw the graphics of water in the game, he almost cried, because that was the first time that water had actually looked like water in a game. Loving games the way I did(do), I bought the game when it came out, but as usual, I bought it for the XBox console, rather than the computer. I played though the game on the XBox, and I loved it, but I spent much time on the computer, on the internet reading about the game, and trying to find a hint when I was stuck at a point in the game. During all of this, I read about modding games, and about all of the fantastic things that the people with the computer version of the game could do, that I could not do on my console version.

Usually, I would play through a game I had purchased many times, if it was a good game, but after, completing the Morrowind for the first time on the console, I decided to buy the game for the computer, and to play it again on the computer version. This was my first real introduction to high-end computer gaming, and I loved every minute of it. I played through the game again on the computer, and then I played more using mods that were made by other people. The company that made the game (Bethesda Softworks) had released a Construction Set that allowed people to pretty much make the game be exactly the game that they wanted it to be. This was amazing to me, being a life-long console gamer, and I quickly jumped into the Construction Set, and I began trying to figure out how modify the game to be the way I wanted it to be. I read much on the forums and I played for hours and hours in the Construction Set. Soon, I had mastered the Construction Set, and there was not much that I could not do. I learned scripting and how to do all of the dialog for the game, and I became one of the people teaching others how to do it on the forums. Then I made a large quest mod, which I released for other people to play, and which received very high reviews. I also worked with other individual modders and teams of modders to produce more content for the game. I spent thousands of hours with that one game, and I learned more about computers during that time, than I could have ever learned in 50 years of college classes.

Playing computer games several years ago required that you upgrade your computer components often to be able to play the latest games, and it also required that the system was tweaked in a way to make the games run better on the system. In addition, the graphics programs that I use for my work are also very taxing on the system, so the upgrading and tweaking was also necessary for this. I quickly decided that it would be good for me to learn how to do these things myself, as opposed to taking my computer to a repair shop every time I needed an upgrade or some tweaking. This was much better for me than to have my computer gone for a few days at time, and I couldn't work or play. So, I learned how to do the technical stuff with computers. I always enjoyed doing the computer graphics, as it is a good challenge for me, but after learning the technical part of computers, I had much more fun fixing, tweaking, and upgrading computers than I did with graphics.

In 2005 I began to work in a computer shop as a technician, and I continued to to my graphics work as a side job. I love this work! I take everything as a challenge. Who will win? Me or the computer? Me, or the guy that wrote the virus? And I think that is the reason I am so good at this work. I have not been defeated by a virus in several years. I remember the guy I worked with always asking me why I was spending so much time trying to clean a virus, when I couldn't actually bill the customer for all the time I spent. He always told me I should just format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and I wouldn't have to spend so many hours working on the computer. My reply was always "if I always take the easy way, then I won't learn anything." I also pointed out that I may be spending a lot of time the first time I face something, but once I have figured it out, then the next time, I will be able to do it quicker than if I had formatted the hard drive and re-setup the computer. It is the same with Windows system errors. Often, it would be much easier to reinstall the system than to fix the problem, but I want to learn how to fix the problem, and to better understand everything about the Windows system, so that these problems become easier to fix in the future. I have to look up things on an internet search all the time, and I always shake my head, when someone replies on a forum that the best thing to do is to format the drive and reinstall the operating system. It is true that a system can be so badly messed up that rе-installation is the best method, and most certainly the quickest method, but there is almost no way to make the system exactly as it was before, and in my mind, that is always the least desirable way to solve the problem.

Recently, I was working with a client's accounting software, which was having a problem with MySQL. After having talked to two techs, who couldn't figure out the problem with their own software, I asked to speak to a senior tech. While on hold for the tech, I figured out the problem, which their own techs could not do. After the senior tech came on the phone, I explained to him how to fix his own software.

To kind of sum up all of this: I have taught myself how to do all of the things I do on a computer. I have asked questions of other people, and I have leaned on Google search quite a bit, but I have never had any formal training for any of this work. Computers are purely logical. If this happens, then this is the result. This is the way my brain works, and that combined with hardheadedness about not wanting to be beaten by a computer, are why I excel at computing skills. I also enjoy everything about computing and technology, and this makes me always eager to learn new skills and improve the skills that I currently have. I truly believe that there is nothing that I can't do on a computer, given the time and resources to do it. There are many people who are better than me at all of the things I do on the computer, but there are very few who are so good at so many different things.

I am not as young as most computer "geeks", but my mind is sharp and young, and I will be happy to take on any of the youngsters in a gaming session! Set me a task, give me the time and resources to do it, and you will find that I can be very beneficial to your business! I love a challenge!