I have been toying with computers for about seven years, now. my first system was an HP Vectra
286, which I had forced upon me by a friend who insisted that I was smart enough to make these
 !#$&*@! things work. After upgrading to the point where I would have had to deal directly with HP
for parts, I decided to go IBM compatible and build my own. Since that time, I have built and/or
modified five or six systems, learning from my mistakes along the way. I am in no way a computer
professional, nor do I think that I could compete with the purely technical experts. I am merely
someone who finds computers to be extremely interesting and challenging, and feel that I do have
some knowledge that might be useful. I can usually (sometimes after banging my head against the monitor
figure out what  is causing a particular problem, and correct it. As such, I think I might be able to help any
newbies whose questions might be overlooked by the more talented experts.