What's Your Story

[Legion]

I was really sick growing up and spent a lot of time at home. My mother worked from home as an accountant so when she wasn't using her PC I would use it to play Total Annihilation and Starcraft and truely fell in love with gaming (i'd had consoles before but never the passion).

Eventually I got my own PC and become interested in PCs in general how they work what can I do how can I mod them ect...

I took a couple of years off to play Gears competitively and then Epic released the abomination that was Gears 3 so I switched back to PC.

[piggykid1]

I was really sick growing up and spent a lot of time at home. My mother worked from home as an accountant so when she wasn't using her PC I would use it to play Total Annihilation and Starcraft and truely fell in love with gaming (i'd had consoles before but never the passion).

Eventually I got my own PC and become interested in PCs in general how they work what can I do how can I mod them ect...

I took a couple of years off to play Gears competitively and then Epic released the abomination that was Gears 3 so I switched back to PC.

What illness did you have

[piggykid1]

I always loved video games and such, and I needed a new computer for school. My dad bought me my first desktop (well the first new PC anyway) and I used that for a while. I never really considered using it for games until a friend of mine (who had a pretty horrid laptop, but we'll get to that later) introduced me to TF2 and therefore Steam. TF2 ran abysmally on my new desktop but I couldn't stop playing on it - especially since Steam was so awesome.

 

I looked in to why my computer was running TF2 so poorly and found that the only way I could really make it better was by ditching my crappy PC in favour of a brand-spanking-new one. I found some good looking PCs from the likes of Lenovo, Dell, HP and Alienware (shudder) but I was shocked by the insane prices (at least in Australia).

 

So I decided the best option was to build my own PC. I was so excited to be able to run my fancy new Steam games and in fact, I was able to beat my friends in TF2 games because of the greater FPS. They wanted to know how I became so much better from before when I would lag on the lowest settings @ lowest res. I told them about the greatness of the custom PC and I was able to get that friend with the horrid laptop to get a custom PC too. He was just as amazed as I was. We told everyone about it and lo and behold another friend buys a PC, and another... I now have a couple of different people asking me for recommendations for new PCs and such. Around a third of my IT class now has, or is planning to get a custom PC (with varying levels of knowledge).

 

I learned everything I know by myself by watching videos and reading articles and such - and I owe it all to NCIX, LTT, NewEgg etc. and of course you guys, the tech community.

Nice story

[Legion]

What illness did you have

 

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddISeases/pubs/cvs/

 

Except I could be sick for months rather than days. Wasn't diagnosed until I was 12.

[Toxic Tom]

Oh you don't wanna know my story! Reading it would make you "gouge out your eyes and mail them to YouTube’s main office in San Bruno".

 

[lachyman]

Well my story in tech is fundamentally connected to my gaming story. When I was a kid, our family got our first PC and a few games for kids, like Zoo Tycoon. I remember playing it was a thousand times more fun than toys. A year or two later GTA Vice City came out and my sis brought it home from her boyfriend. That was the next era, violent games. Parents were, of course, against it at first, but then they realized it doesn't really have impact on my personality and behaviour, so they let it be. Two years later San Andreas came out and that game melted the GPU in our old PC. That's when I got my first custom build, my father had a friend who built me my first gaming PC, with an Athlon64 X2 2.9GHz, 3GB RAM and a 9600GT. The rig crushed all games at first, but as years came it was slowly being beaten. 2011 came with the game that probably had the most impact on me, I had most hours in and more importantly, started my tech life. That game was Battlefield 3. My PC could get 30FPS at max in that game with usually sitting around 20 and of course dropping below 10 in firefights. That was pretty bad, so I started looking up things about computers, what parts it is built from, what works with what. When I learned all the stuff I needed I proceeded to plan what parts am I going to get for my new computer. First I got my 660 for Christmas in 2012, followed by the rest of the build in my sig in the next couple of months. I could finally experience newest games in 60FPS. But then I asked myself what next. I had all this great tech wisdom on my palm, but I didn't want it to become useless or forget it all. Then a good friend of mine pointed me to this forum, saying I can be helpful, learn a lot of new stuff and if I happen to have a question, have it answered in a matter of minutes. That's when we pretty much reach present.

[FireofDestruction]

i got into tech back in 09 when one of my moms co-workers did some super secret work and he knew how to build computers so he built one for us @600 USD and of course back then i

 

was only in 5th grade or something like that you get the point right i was little.... so after the computer was built several months later they moved away and my interest in tech went too

 

because well i had no way of doing anything so...flash forward to Christmas of 2012 when on the same day as getting this laptop i'm on now, my cat that i had for 8 years died....R.I.P

 

flyer now that laptop the one i'm on now is well not so suited for hard to run games the thing sounds like a jet plane when i'm playing simcity or WOW and flash forward to two months ago

 

i saw my first LTT video it was the $1500 build guide then i watch the $2000 build guide and that renewed my interest into computers since that day i have watch every single LTT

 

video on every single channel  as well as some tek syndicate and some others so yup thats my story and i'm sticking to it  

[TheMarius97]

I grew up a mac kid (don't hate me please). My dad used a mac from his office (as a heating system designer (i think it's called that)).

So the first computer I remeber using was one of the Candy iMacs (G3 I think). I still have it, now as a lamp.

Next was a 17 inch macbook (i also shared it with my family). It broke eventually due to some mobo issue.

My parents then bought a 15 inch MacBook Pro which I also shared. From a friend of ours I then got a macbook which I used for ~5 years. That got me really interested in the tech field. I also used to do "program" with scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) and the lego mindstorms.

 

7th grade I've had my scriptkiddie phase, messing around with batch files, "hacking" and all that good stuff

 

This summer I started my IT apprentice (as effect of this, I'm doing support for family, relatives and friends) and found this whole "ecosystem" (Youtubechannels, Forum).

 

I got interested in getting to know all about hardware. Also I'm learning to program C++, and Java (android focused)

 

Thereafter I built my system and gave my mac to my sister (she treats it pretty horribly and doesn't know how to do basic googeling :angry:)

[Nicolas]

A long time ago I wanted to play GTA IV modded so I went out an bought it, not knowing that my PC was far from running it (lol) so I talked to my uncle (computer science degree) about what could I do, download more ram maybe? so he put me in the right path, I started caring about tech, but never got around to building a PC and playing my beloved GTA IV so I sold it to a friend, eventually I saw a video on DayZ and was like ERMAHGERD I need this, then I started reading up on the building computers topic, eventually ran into LTT and became literate on the topic and built my the rig in my sig, and everyone was happy ever after

[©D0n7H8M3™®]

THIS THREAD. WARNING MY STORY INBOUND! I was from a very young age very interested in electronics. I used to pull toys apart just to get into the wires the chipboards n shit. By the time I was 7 I was frequently bullied mentally and physically by students and teacher, I had fallen into a small pit of depression. I would alienate myself from other people. I read a book one day it had all cool looking electronics inside. I wanted to use them to see how they performed also this book was full of physics. so I really wanted to build stuff like all these people did. So my first tasks were fixing stuff like radios, tvs, the normal easy stuff. so later on when I was about 10 my dads friend was having problems with his computer. I found out that his cpu had fried and his HDD had corrupted. So I found some spare parts some place (can't remember) Luckly I found the right socket cpu by accident (didn't know about cpu sockets back then). So my parents saw that I was good at computers n shit. They got me to fix other peoples electronics it made a small income but also it kept me happy since I still had depression at the time. My brother had a xbox360 used to clean that shit out every month from dust (*facepalm* the fans in the xbox360 y u su huribul). I studied computer hardware and stuff (just basic shit like what's what and where they go. I eventually built my first system by myself. A year later built and other system. A year after that built 2 more systems. So till this day I build computers for myself, people, and my school, I am head student computer hardware manager, and vice student coding manager in my school. So yeah life is pretty good now. Just playing game doesn't do it for me I just want to build computers. I feel much better building computer than playing games and I know many people would agree with me.

[©D0n7H8M3™®]

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddISeases/pubs/cvs/

 

Except I could be sick for months rather than days. Wasn't diagnosed until I was 12.

daz a gg rite der m9. In all seriousness I too have illness'. I have athesma, hayfever, a hernia in my lower torso, plurecy, weak spinal disks, and kinda of an eating disorder 

[Recon-UK]

I got into tech th ehard way, i liked to err open things...

 

I opened up my Tube TV and got electrocuted pretty bad, it fucking hurt is all i can really say.

 

Opened up my PS2 and got a shock from that too.

 

I got into PC's after playing Black Hawk Down on a mates PC, i was simply god damned drooling everywhere at the controls and feel of it, my god i sware if i were alone, i would have spanked my monkey to dat shit, was orgasmic playing something so smooth and controllable.

 

And the rest i do not want to tell as i cannot be arsed.

[piggykid1]

I grew up a mac kid (don't hate me please). My dad used a mac from his office (as a heating system designer (i think it's called that)).

So the first computer I remeber using was one of the Candy iMacs (G3 I think). I still have it, now as a lamp.

Next was a 17 inch macbook (i also shared it with my family). It broke eventually due to some mobo issue.

My parents then bought a 15 inch MacBook Pro which I also shared. From a friend of ours I then got a macbook which I used for ~5 years. That got me really interested in the tech field. I also used to do "program" with scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) and the lego mindstorms.

 

7th grade I've had my scriptkiddie phase, messing around with batch files, "hacking" and all that good stuff

 

This summer I started my IT apprentice (as effect of this, I'm doing support for family, relatives and friends) and found this whole "ecosystem" (Youtubechannels, Forum).

 

I got interested in getting to know all about hardware. Also I'm learning to program C++, and Java (android focused)

 

Thereafter I built my system and gave my mac to my sister (she treats it pretty horribly and doesn't know how to do basic googeling :angry:)

Nice story and also how good are you at programming?

What types of projects have you done and do you think I could see some of them?

[TheMarius97]

I have, due to work mostly only done/taken part in web projects.

I did code an android app, but as a learning by doing project(the first one actually). Which was a huge mistake.

It's awful to debug, has no structure to it and performance is worse than a piece of rotten carrott.

Theres even code lines that look like this: "}{}{}{"

I have started rewriting it, but I don't have much time with finals comming up in 2 weeks for me.

I'll update this post once I got it done though.

[piggykid1]

I have, due to work mostly only done/taken part in web projects.

I did code an android app, but as a learning by doing project(the first one actually). Which was a huge mistake.

It's awful to debug, has no structure to it and performance is worse than a piece of rotten carrott.

Theres even code lines that look like this: "}{}{}{"

I have started rewriting it, but I don't have much time with finals comming up in 2 weeks for me.

I'll update this post once I got it done though.

Sweet and finals for middle school, high school, or college?

I just finished my finals a few weeks ago and good luck to you also if you are in college what is your major?

I'll be looking forward to your update on the app and that's funny about how the code is structured  

[TheMarius97]

Sweet and finals for middle school, high school, or college?

I just finished my finals a few weeks ago and good luck to you also if you are in college what is your major?

I'll be looking forward to your update on the app and that's funny about how the code is structured

Well, as I'm in and from Switzerland we don't have the same education system. What we usually do, is this:

Kindergarden[6 yo], Preschool[7-9 yo], middle school[10-13 yo], secondary school[13-16]. After that it's either Gymnasium (which is sorta like college I suppose) or an apprenticeship (of 4 years for IT).

I'm now doing my first year, and there's finals for Web, SQL, Hardware-stuff, Linux Servers, Financial-things, Setting up PCs, En- and decrypting.

It's structured in modules(one is Webdesign, one Networking, usw...)

[piggykid1]

Well, as I'm in and from Switzerland we don't have the same education system. What we usually do, is this:

Kindergarden[6 yo], Preschool[7-9 yo], middle school[10-13 yo], secondary school[13-16]. After that it's either Gymnasium (which is sorta like college I suppose) or an apprenticeship (of 4 years for IT).

I'm now doing my first year, and there's finals for Web, SQL, Hardware-stuff, Linux Servers, Financial-things, Setting up PCs, En- and decrypting.

It's structured in modules(one is Webdesign, one Networking, usw...)

Nice and yea that is basically what college is.

 

For college I have a few things to decide from programming, computer hardware, science more specifically Astrophysiology but I like all sciences, business classes (I want to be an entrepreneur)

Those are my intrests currently

 

Also I see you program in SQL and my uncle is good with SQL but what exactly is it used for I have heard it is a server side language that can be used to gather data from servers

[TheMarius97]

Nice and yea that is basically what college is.

For college I have a few things to decide from programming, computer hardware, science more specifically Astrophysiology but I like all sciences, business classes (I want to be an entrepreneur)

Those are my intrests currently

Also I see you program in SQL and my uncle is good with SQL but what exactly is it used for I have heard it is a server side language that can be used to gather data from servers

SQL is short for Structured Query Language.

It's used to get data from SQL-Databases on a server (I mainly use MySQL)

It's very near to english so it's easy to understand. You can use it on Webpages combined with PHP.

Example:

SELECT column_name,column_name

FROM table_name;

SELECT name,surname,age FROM students;

Will give you the data for Name, Surname and Age of every Student in the table 'students'

We only did basic stuff in these 2 semesters. You could do MUCH more.

[piggykid1]

SQL is short for Structured Query Language.

It's used to get data from SQL-Databases on a server (I mainly use MySQL)

It's very near to english so it's easy to understand. You can use it on Webpages combined with PHP.

Example:

SELECT column_name,column_name

FROM table_name;

SELECT name,surname,age FROM students;

Will give you the data for Name, Surname and Age of every Student in the table 'students'

We only did basic stuff in these 2 semesters. You could do MUCH more.

Gotchya that's pretty cool I like how there are so many different languages that can do a lot of crazy things I still find it crazy how we can turn words into a video game

[CoronaBlue]

When I was a kid I thought "upgrading the computer" meant taking it to Best Buy and telling them to make it faster (silly past-me). I have an adult brother who lives pretty far away, and my mom would always tell me about how he built his own computer, like it was some kind of black magic. It wasn't until I was around 18 that I decided to do the same. I'm not really sure why it took so long. I guess you could say that money was just never good. I live in the woods, so I don't really have neighbors that I can do things for, and whenever I had a job I was always expected to contribute to the bills somehow (which sucks up a minimum wage check pretty fast).

 

My first build was...interesting. I got all of my information from a YouTube series on building computers, and not a high quality one either. Still, I didn't know any better. So I selected my parts, and spent all night putting it together when they finally showed up. To tell you the truth, I don't remember where the money came from. I do still remember how exhilarated I was when I got home to find all of those components sitting on the back porch. When I was finished I really didn't know much more about components than when I began, but I felt quite accomplished.

 

That build was short lived though, because I moved into a dorm at UT Austin and let my other brother have it because he needed a computer. I thought my gaming and PC building days were behind me. Boy was I wrong. Long story short, I moved back home because I hated being a college student in Austin. I didn't complete my second build until February of this year. The component choices were more well informed, and I got a lot of input from the folks on LTT forums.

 

These days high end graphics are my crack, and I lay awake at night thinking about the day that I can finally build a machine with no compromises. That will, unfortunately, probably have to wait until I finish my studies.

[TheMarius97]

Gotchya that's pretty cool I like how there are so many different languages that can do a lot of crazy things I still find it crazy how we can turn words into a video game

Do you "speak" any programming languages?

Good luck turning pure SQL into a game though ^^

[piggykid1]

Do you "speak" any programming languages?

Good luck turning pure SQL into a game though ^^

O oops I wasn't saying SQL for games hahaha and I know a little of HTML5 and css and python and javascript I know very small amounts of ruby and java

 

I'm deciding between learning lots of Python, Java or C++

 

What would you suggest for me for a language to learn?

[TheMarius97]

O oops I wasn't saying SQL for games hahaha and I know a little of HTML5 and css and python and javascript I know very small amounts of ruby and java

 

I'm deciding between learning lots of Python, Java or C++

 

What would you suggest for me for a language to learn?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want to do android app development I do suggest starting with Java. As I've also only just started with C++ I can't really tell you much. But It's certainly been fun to learn. I know rarely any to no python. Is it something worth looking into?