First, welcome to the Hyndburn Life site.  I hope you will find something of interest here.  I'm sure, that as the site gets more established, everyone will find something that suits his or her taste. 

Remember to make use of the FREE email account by clicking the link above.  Remember also the discussion forums where you can become involved.  The more the community gets involved the livelier the site will become.

So, who am I and what am I doing?  My name is Mike.  I have spent many years working on telephony, data communications and computers.  My task here is to jargon bust the myths and mysteries of the home computer.  In other words, tell it as it really is and cut out the flashy stuff.

I am hoping to produce a series of articles aimed at the computer novice. The aim is to help you understand the jargon and to help you make an informed choice for your needs when buying or upgrading your computer.

In the future I will talk you through a home computer.  We will explain the HDD's, FDD's, VDU's, DDR memories, motherboards, CPU's, Mbytes and much more.  If you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about then these articles are definitely for you.

If you are familiar with all of the above then maybe I could arouse your curiosity with one or two optimisation techniques. Hopefully this will help in your decision making when buying new or upgrading old.

We will then take a tour of what you should be looking for when buying a computer.  The outside may have chrome strips and go faster stripes and look state of the art but all that glitters is not gold.  I hope to explain what I consider to be the important components and give a better understanding of those processor speeds that everyone is so fixated with.  Remember the tortoise and the hare?

A computer without an operating system is like a car without petrol.  So we may take a short trip down the wonderful world of Windows 95 through XP and maybe point out that there are alternatives that you may wish to consider.

Depending on the response to these articles, further ones regarding Internet connection and use, computer networking and computer safety may follow.  Broadband is a hot topic but what's really involved?  We may find out.

Well that's the introduction over with.  I hope it has sparked some interest and hasn't been too boring.  These articles will not turn you into a computer expert but hopefully you will become a more informed customer and get value for your money.  As they say, you decide!!