My tech journay (Part 2 of 3)

1995 also marked the first time I ever coded my first ever website. Well actually it was a website for this I group I belonged to back then. I made my own graphics on Windows' built-in Paintbrush app, wrote the HTML in Notepad, and previewed my creation on the Netscape Navigator web browser. This was the time of HTML 1.1, I believe. The web is now abuzz with HTML5. Between 1995 and 2000, I was able to play around and create some simple Visual Basic apps. In ca. 1997, I also got a part-time job updating the website of the Philippine Basketball Association, to publish scores just after game night ended and the scores and stats were in.

1998 came and Steve Jobs was back at Apple (I didn't yet realize exactly who he was at that time) and the first iMac was released. Boy was I salivating. In 1999 or so I'd go to the Apple Store near the Powell St. Station in downtown San Francisco and just try to use one of their iMacs to browse the internet. It felt natural using those colorful iMacs. They gave me a sense of "this is right," or "this is how things should be."

In 1999 I bought my first ever tech gadget, a Nokia phone, if you can call that a tech gadget. People have had Nokia phones before that - maybe as far back as 1997 - but I was only able to afford one, a second-hand one, in 1999.

In 2000, I won some prize money for doing well in some civil engineering-related exam, and I used half of what I earned to buy what I would consider my first ever real tech gadget - a brand new Palm Vx. That probably was the real start of it all. But at the same time, I was becoming busier with civil engineering work and the only programming I ever did was in Matlab.

2005 came and I was on my way to Japan for a couple of months stay, and my mom wanted to buy me a laptop. Our earlier family laptop was an Asus with WindowsME, and it served us well for more than 3 years already. My first choice was this fully functional 4:3 15" Asus laptop with the best Pentium processor at that time (Pentium 4, maybe?), webcam, maybe a DVD writer, 1GB RAM, and all the works.

Compaq Presario from 2005

But you know what, I settled for a more expensive and yet less powerful and less feature-filled 16:9 14" Compaq Presario with 512Mb RAM, CD writer only, no webcam, and only a Pentium M processor. You know why? Only because it resembled a PowerBook more! It was just more beautiful.

Apple Powerbook from 2003 /
Apple Macbook Pro from 2006

For some reason, I changed the wallpaper to reflect the Aqua wallpaper in OS X Tiger, changed the icons and installed a dock, and then eventually used FlyAKiteOSX that made my Windows XP Presario look more and more like a MacBook or PowerBook running Tiger. And then I bought a 4th-gen iPod.

2006 came and my mother got an actual Pentium-based MacBook Pro, which is exactly like the computer I have wanted. It was with me 99% of the time. We did great things together. I composed and recorded at least three songs on that thing.

At around that time I also bought a secondhand first-generation "Bondi Blue" iMac, for about US$160. Wow. Meanwhile, my Presario later started using LeopardXP.

Stay tuned for the last part of "My tech journey."