David Edwards

265280 Photo

View All Posts
  • Title: Registered User

  • Posts: 1 post

  • Bio: I am a know-nothing guy. I suppose I've had CoffeeCup software almost since they first started producing it. I've been using computers since the days of an 8080 chip and a great technological breakthrough that allowed you to stick an evelope about the size of a 45RPM record (ask your mom or dad) called a floppy disk into a tray to load up an operating system. Then you could stick in another disk to run a programme that would tend to hang from time to time because it couldn't find a file called command.com. Really sophisticated machines had two floppy disk drive-trays and you could run both disks, avoiding the inevitable hang. But the greatest breakthrough, the greatest marvel, was a hard drive that let you store up to twenty megabytes of data. We all wanted one because that would store every possible programme we would ever need and every possible programme anyone could ever dream up. I have just recently been told that my anti-virus programme wants to download some new virus definitions. The single file size is 40.2 megabytes. But that was the age of microcomputers. Till then, computers were behemoths that took up an entire specially built room. Some nerd called Bill Gates, who was writing programmes for the new toys they called microcomputers, included a version of a computer language called BASIC on his disk. That was really helpful and let you write your own simple but useful programmes. A lot of magazines started coming out and they gave all kinds of helpful tips on programming and provided many scripts for a lot of innovative ideas. About then, the revolution started. Most of us got left behind in the crush as new computer languages, new terms, new equipment and, confusingly, more acronyms seemed to appear on a daily basis. Every new issue of a favoured computer magazine had a year's worth of learning needed to follow the trend. I learned all kinds of new computer languages, even including one called Turbo Turtle, though I never did learn why it got called that. Every language got upgraded and more upmarket. I learned C. Then I had to learn C+. Then C++. I just about mastered Microsoft Visual Basic and got told it was too slow and I had to learn something else. Somewhere in there I got tired of learning and of trying to keep all those acronyms from becoming meaningless jumble. I let others do the prorammes and tested them out. If they met what I used to call good programming criteria, then I used them and bought them. They had to be easy to use; easy to load; fast; intuitive; most of all, useful, and they had to work without glitches. They also needed to be inexpensive to buy because, for the most part, they were something that was used only a few times a year. Oh, and the biggest requirement was they had to be try-before-you-buy. One day I needed a File Transfer Protocol programme to launch my first very own website. My search engine of choice hunted down several. Even the specs looked daunting on most. A cute name, CoffeeCup, was also on the list. What the heck coffee had to do with software was a problem for another time but I needed to download a programme and one that I could, hopefully, learn how to use before I got frustrated enough to teach my computer how to fly. It was downloaded in a flash. Obviously a small programme and that was a good sign. It looked okay on the screen. I supposed I could figure out how to use it, and the best part, it wasn't crippleware. That was an annoying, futile and frustrating method of letting you test software but you couldn't actually use it. So, I never did. I fiddled with the CofffeeCup FTP programme for a short while and then, shazam, (ask your mom or dad) my very own website was up and running. CoffeeCup became programmers of choice from then on. I have probably tested and played with all but a few of their programmes. They sit on my computer until they no longer work because their time-limited use or instance-limited use has expired. I don't have any need for most of them and never bought them. If I need them again, I simply download them again. The ones I do use I buy. It's as simple as that. Hell, it's as simple as CoffeeCup. Thanks, guys.

  • Last Visit: Sep 29th, 2016 at 04:38 PM