Computers are a great interest of mine. My first personal computer was called an MTU-130, which I ordered direct from a company in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1982 for an outrageous amount of money. A couple of years later, I jumped on the IBM-PC clone bandwagon, purchasing in quick succession: PC/XT, PC/AT, PC-386, PC-486 and Pentium clone computers. 

My first modem - hooked up to my MTU-130 - was an original Hayes 300 baud model. I quickly discovered the online world of BBSs and CompuServe. Now I communicate over the Internet at speeds unheard of in the early 1980's using the Shaw@Home cable broadband service.  This service gives me speeds of 1 Mbps and more, versus 300 bps for my first modem - an increase of over 3,000 times in throughput over the last 15 years!

In 1983 I joined a small local group of computer aficionados, who later called themselves Big Blue and Cousins. I joined because I had purchased a C compiler for my MTU-130, and needed some support while I self-taught myself the programming language. At the time, the colleges and computer retailers didn't offer any courses in C programming, so I felt right at home among my peers - out there on the bleeding edge of technology. The group soon decided to start running an electronic bulletin board system (BBS), and things took off from there. I ended up staying with this users group until 1996 - some 13 years. In the process, I served as Clubhouse Coordinator, Treasurer, Secretary, Newsletter Editor, and finally President. Some friends of mine decided to form a new computer users group called the Victoria Computer Users Group. We keep the group small and friendly...and very informal.  We meet on a regular basis, and the user group is mainly web-based.

In late March of 1999 I set up my own server at home (you are using it now).  It runs all Microsoft system software: Windows NT Server, Internet Information Server, the FrontPage server extensions, and Proxy Server.   One of the motivations for this change is to regain control of my website.   Although the Shaw@Home service provides me with a reliable and fast connection to the Internet, the @Home web-hosting service leaves a bit to be desired.  Web gadgets are not allowed (except for two very basic ones), and I had run into storage space problems, since my JoeTourist website contains so many graphics.

Having my own web server is great.  It provides me with virtually unlimited space, and a place to play around with all of the various web-hosting tools out there. Using FrontPage to manage and publish my web pages is just plain wonderful. It is so much easier to keep the website up-to-date, and the web pages now have a more modern and clean look due to the style sheets available in FrontPage.  Of course, the refresh speed for browsing my new website is much improved, since I now don't have to share web server resources with thousands of other Shaw@Home customers.

Thanks go to Rick Macmurchie from Great White North Technologies, who works through all of the technical problems of setting up a web server with a proxy server and other technical goo-gahs that are necessary to make this system work reliably. Thanks also go to Greg Hansen, who for many years has been my computer systems dealer of choice (G.H. Business Computers and Systems).  The moral support and technical know-how that Joe Macmurchie contributed is also very much appreciated.  Having good friends to share this project with makes it just that much more fun!