Our youngest member at MLMUG is Kevin Montgomery. I have always been impressed with Kevin's personality and his ability to communicate with all age groups. I met Kevin when he was 12 years old at one of the MLMUG meetings and was immediately captured by his good manners and intelligence. I am sure you will enjoy his article as much as I did. He is a fine young man and MLMUG wishes him good luck in all his endeavors.

— Maria O. Arguello

 

Kevin Montgomery

Hi, I'm Kevin Montgomery, I am 17 years old and I live in West Chester. As for my life, well it's been pretty uneventful up until a couple of years ago. But let us start out with my Apple-related life.

About 7 years ago the Montgomery's entered the computer age with the purchase of a Macintosh Performa 6230 at 75mhz. My brother and I liked playing games such as SimCity 2000 and PowerPete. As for my Mom, she really didn't touch the thing. Two years later we hopped onto the AOL bandwagon. Being only two years of age, the 6230 was not by any means slow, but then again we were 'newbies' to the whole computing experience. Both my mother and I loved playing around on the Internet.

About a month or two after connecting to the Internet, I began taking an interest in web design. I was in 7th grade, and had signed up for a computer class in school which conveniently enough was taught on Macs. Since then I have always fooled around with web pages and some JavaScript. As of right now, I run two web sites, one of which is fairly new. I did the layout on one of them: anomaly.netfirms.com

In 1997, my mother found out about MLMUG online. About a year later, she began bringing me to the meetings. In 1999 my Mom and I attended the MacWorld Expo in New York with the MLMUG. There, we marveled at the new G4 tower and all the other wonderful Expo products. Two months later we replaced the slow, aging, and then 5 year old 6230 with a new G4/400mhz mini tower. I can remember pulling the components out of the box (similar to when we got the 6230) and setting everything up, jumping right on, and playing with Soundjam. I enjoyed that computer so much compared to the slow and tragically flawed 6230 (I only learned about the horrible design of the 6230 a year ago). A couple of months after purchasing the G4, I picked up an iBook 466 SE. It has been over a year, but that computer has served me well everywhere I've gone.

But those three computers aren't the only Macs I have now. My current arsenal includes an SE, an LC III, the 6230/75, a 7100/66, a 6400/200, a 6500/250, a G4/400, and an iBook/466. Out of the bunch I'd have to say I like the 6500 and the iBook the best. Currently I am running 10.2 on the iBook (developers preview) and 9.1 on basically everything else (yes even the SE!). I plan on purchasing a new G4 power book soon.

As of right now, I am currently a junior at West Chester East High School. I did not sign up for any computer classes this year, mostly because it's all Windoze, except for the art lab. But who needs classes on how to use a Mac? I've managed to learn HTML and JavaScript pretty much on my own (although I don't know JavaScript as well as I should), and have just about perfected using REAL basic. You can catch some of my talent at the previously listed site of http://anomaly.netfirms.com, which features some corny JavaScript roll overs, and my completed and tested REAL basic app 'Utilit-�'.

When not using my Macs for programming, I use them for school, or just goofing off on the Internet. For my tenth grade English class, I edited two movies on my iBook, which turns out to be fairly capable. Other times I've taken my computer to school and plugged into the network for some quick Internet browsing. The two high schools in my district formed a Robotics team, which competed at Drexel University this past March. For every meeting I brought my iBook. I was in charge of electronics for the robot that we built this year, although it hasn't been my first time fooling with electronics. I've managed to bring a couple of Macs I've had back to life. I've tackled problems ranging from dead hard drives to fried power supplies, even restoring a rain drenched 7100.

As for the future, I can't quite say what I'll be up to, but probably something to do with engineering or computers. But until I move on to college, I'll be at the MLMUG monthly meetings.

— Kevin Montgomery
Email Kevin