my technobiography

I don't know how far I should look back when looking at my technology background. I did not have the privilege of owning some of the very first PC that ran at 30Mhz and saved to 14 inch floppy drives. In fact, I kind of just leaped into it in August 2000 -three years after it went mainstream in countries like the US and still way too expensive in my home country -Kenya. Ironically, my very first Internet connection was with my high-school's high speed Internet. I quickly had to learn how to use the Web browser, set up my email account, search for things and somehow make sense of results. I never regretted the learning curve. I was a lot more curious than I was initimidated.

Until my college years though, I remained a consumer of such technogies. I was happy to know to use Ms Word, use the Internet -(as if using it was a qualification in of itself). The internet remained a magical wonderland where information simply existed and people with more authority than I did controlled it.

I think my quest to delve deeper actually came in my first year of college when I decided I wanted more from these technologies. I changed my major from Biochemistry to computer science. I wanted to be some sort of inventor - but most of all -I just wanted the magic trick out of the box. So I delved into some of my own projects, working with such little knowledge that I did not know to create a line break without new paragraphs. My first website was for a club on campus and was so cryptic (even to me) that I was unable to edit some of my own work. Almost two years since, I have come a long way. I have learned from friends, from self-taught books and from standing on the shoulders of giants (copy, paste and edit a little). My driving force however has remained the same since I started -the quest for demystification. I don't really know where I'm headed either in the short term -this summer or in the long term with the rest of my earthly life. Time will tell. In the mean time, I just want to know more. I want to see the trick behind the magic -so that I can do one too.