Hi, I’m Joan Archer a disabled pensioner who loves gadgets. I make extensive use of Microsoft Windows and Office.

     I got our first family computer in September 1998 running Windows 98 First Edition, the children had started using them at school, so we thought it would be a good idea if we got one to help them out.

     I had never touched one but after we’d only had the computer for 6 months I had to reinstall the operating system, it had been sent with the wrong discs, remember when you used to get actual discs with new machines.

     The machine came with Lotus 123 installed and we loved it, you didn’t get much memory or hard drive space but to try and learn all I could I would click on everything to see what it did. We got the Internet, dial up, oh those wonderful screeches, and I looked for places I could learn all about these wonderful gadgets.

     I found a lot of help through the Microsoft newsgroups and made a lot of friends along the way. I started to find the forums and tried to learn all I could, trouble is I’ve forgotten most of it.

     Started with Windows 98 then moved on to XP, Vista, WinME, 7, 8 which was upgraded to 8.1.1 and I’m now running Windows 10.

     I like to help out where I can or just be that someone who welcomes people here and lets them know there will be someone along who can help them solve their problems.

Click the arrow to meet Jay Lacher.