| Who
is "Bob In Houston"?
"May I bore you with my Bio?" |
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|
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I'm Bob Henry 
also known as Bob in Houston, BobH or Ripple32.
I primarily run the following software:
Linux - Mepis Operating System (a pure Debian distribution) maintained with Mepis and Debian Sarge updates -- KDE Desktop Environment -- Internet software: Kppp (dialer) - Mozilla Suite (with Multizilla/GoogleBox, Mnenhy. Enigmail, Adblock), WEB browsers: Firefox, Konqueror, Opera - Email/Newsgroup: Thunderbird. Kmail, Knode - Chat: Xchat, Chatzilla - gFTP -
Windows - Win2000 operating system with Mozilla Suite Internet client suite, ZoneAlarm v2.6.231 firewall, AVG antiVirus, The Proxomitron web proxy,
Mailwasher spam control, Netscape Communicator v.4.79 Internet client suite, SamSpade Internet utilities, mIRC chat client, Trillian chat/IM client, SmartFTP FTP client, Note
Tab text editor, YeahWrite! writing/organizing, Winamp media plater, 602 Office Suite and various other programs and utilities.
I secondarily run Win98SE with ZoneAlarm, Netscape Communicator v.4.79,
NetLab, mIRC, ICQ, WS_Ftp, FTPexplorer, SuperNote Tab, C-Note, C-Word,
YeahWrite,
QuatroPro, Paradox,
StockWatch-2000, MetaStock, Almanac. (this computer
is currently out of service)
I also run Win3.11 WFWG on DOS v.6.22, Netscape Communicator v.4.0x, Netscape
Navigator v.3.04 and 2.01, MSIE v.4.01, Opera, Pirch, GlobalChat, AIM and
various DOS programs. (this computer
is currently out of service)
Life, School and
Career
I was born in Goose Creek, Texas, less than a mile from the Humble
(now Exxon)
Oil refining plant entrance in Baytown. In those parts, you will hear people
say the aroma of refining mass quantities of crude into gasoline "smells
like money to me". In the '40s, the family lived in a nice two story Humble
Oil provided house on a large corner lot right across the street from docked
tanker ships and across the grounds from the Company Community House. We
were a "Humble" family. <g>
In high school playing in the Pasadena
Texas High School Concert Band was my top priority. Playing the best and
most difficult to execute concerts we could find, we were the best in the
tri-state area of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. A salute to our great director,
Dr.
Gene Stutsberry, who was the mentor of all music loving kids in Pasadena
for all those many years.
In college, I got serious, and discovered I enjoyed learning and sharing
knowledge. I studied Microbiology, Chemistry and Radio/TV/Newspaper Communications
at the University of Houston, where
I received a Bachelor of Science Degree with a major in Biology and minor
in Chemistry.
My work has been as Medical Microbiologist and Immunologist for various
hospitals and Pathology groups in Houston. My favorite, most exciting job
was the first, which was at NASA
in the botanical preliminary testing labs during Apollo14
-
15. Even though my role was minuscule, the experience was unforgettable. I have
also enjoyed working odd hours for a local radio station as a part time
engineer and volunteer go-fer at the local Pacifica Radio Station.
Computing
That was all ancient history. Now I spend my time on the computer, mostly
on the Internet.
When I was a child, my grandfather encouraged me to "get into computing
when I grow up". Well, for a long time, I had no idea what he was
talking about, and by circumstances of life, I had little opportunity to
find out. There was still no computer science department established
at my university when I graduated.
At a job in the mid '70s, there was a huge mainframe. I had never
forgotten my grandfather's talks about computers and I was fascinated by
this beast of a machine. The input was by punch cards and output was to
a printer. I became friends with the operator and finally learned some
computer basics, thanks to his being interested in sharing his knowledge.
Later, with the issuing of Vol.1 No.1 of PC Magazine, my computer
education once again spurted. The Apple II didn't happen for me
and I soon knew I had to have a PC. I got funds from a second mortgage
and finally had a computer to play with. It included, Q-DOS,
IBM-DOS,
MS-DOS
v.1.0 and CPM/86. The
BIOS would not accept a hard disk,
but it had two 360k floppy drives and the BIOS could be upgraded. It came
with Prince, an Epson
printer (MX80 w/GraphTracksPlus, which I still use) and a box of application
programs. It cost nearly $3,500. My second choice was a DEC
Rainbow, a great PC with "built in" on ROM very nice applications.
I opted for broad compatibility and got the PC Clone.
Well, time flies and I was on my second much upgrade 8088 that was supped
up with an AMD CPU, DR-DOS, a fully populated 2 meg RAM board, a 40 megabyte
hard disk and a screaming' 1200 baud modem. I had been searching
for a reasonably priced source to download stock prices when I happened
on a Prodigy booth in the local mall. I was hooked immediately,
but they weren't quite ready. I signed up and nearly a year later (It seemed
forever) Prodigy sent me a big yellow box of disks and paper (v.2.0) and
I became Prodigy Member FNTB00A.
That was some ten years ago and that rare and prophetic ID has been good
to me. When Prodigy was the fastest growing OLS and running neck
and neck with AOL for largest membership, they asked me to join their closed
beta test group, which beta tested virtually all the software that
is Prodigy Classic
today, most that has come and gone, at least two PLUS upgrades and
the initial release of Prodigy Internet.
I've enjoyed testing software since.
Two years ago (Feb. of 1997) the Prodigy Internet Special
Contributors (SCs) asked me to join them in their ongoing endeavor
to assist, advocate for and help troubleshoot problems for other Prodigy
Internet members. This independent but sanctioned group is collectively
distinguished by the high personal quality and achievement of each SC.
The unexpected and unsought appointment is a high achievement, a computing
achievement, and one of my greatest life pleasures. It is why I'm writing
this bio. for you.
Now I run two computers, Mycroft, an AMD
K6/MMX-233 with Windows 95 and Sherlock, an AMD 5x86x133
with DOS 6.2/W3.11 WFWG. I suspect Windows 3.1 will fade out with key applications
dying a y2k death by the end of the year. I can see no good reason to continue
running Windows 3.1 and I've had a Linux</