About

Who am I?

My name is Jostein Elvaker Haande, and I’m a 45-year-old computer enthusiast with a great passion for anything that’s related to computers. It started back when I was young when my father was kind enough to get the family the old classic Commodore 64. I still vividly remember fiddling through vast stacks of cassettes trying to find the game or program I was looking for, not to mention the day when my dad brought home the first floppy drive. I was thrilled and in heaven, no more huge stacks of cassettes, just nice small thin 5.25″ floppies. Does the command LOAD “*” 8,1 ring a bell to anyone?

As time progressed, and it usually does my father and I moved on to something more modern. We still stuck to Commodore, being faithful disciples as we are. And what did we move on to you ask? We moved on to the even more classic Amiga 500. And what a glorious piece of hardware that was. Not only did it boost glorious sound, but the graphics were sensational. Not to mention, the floppies were even smaller and everything loaded faster. The fact that you had more applications at hand also helped, and writing reports for school had never been so much fun. The only sad thing was that you no longer had an excuse for your handwriting being bad.

It actually took quite a long while before I moved on to PC. My first ever PC was an Intel 486 DX2, but to be honest, it never really got used much. Things changed when Intel introduced the Pentium line of processors. I still remember quite vividly when I got home with my Pentium 90, boosting a whopping 32MB of system RAM.

The machine flew like a rocket, and I could finally use Windows 95, the most hyped-up software product ever. Since then, I have become more and more of a PC user, and less and less an Amiga user.

As my knowledge improved, and my horizons broadened I felt like it was time to move on to something new. That’s when I was introduced to the world of Linux. It has to be said it took forever for me to start up with Linux, seeing as that was back in the days when we connected to the Internet with analogue modems with the amazing speed of 28kbit/sec.

You can imagine how long it took to download the ISO of RedHat, the first Linux distribution I ever used. Of course, the first ISO I downloaded was faulty and failed to burn, so I had to re-download the rather large image. But everything changed when I burnt that CD and installed RedHat.

I went to the bookstore and bought my first book on Linux. RedHat Linux 5.2 for Dummies, a book that was read, re-read and read over again. It was, as the name implies a book for beginners, but it opened up completely new doors for me and a world that I loved openly embraced.

It taught me the basics, which is the foundation of my skills today. As they say, we all begin somewhere. Today, one could define me as an almost fanatic Debian user, who swears to the use of Debian for almost anything, but of course, even I admit that there is a place and use for anything out there!

But there is more to life than computers, believe it or not. I have other interest too, which includes football, movies, books and beer. My favourite team is the English Premier League team Liverpool, based in the city of the same name. Seeing those reds in action is a huge passion of mine, and I try to dedicate time to them whenever they play.

There’s something truly unique and special about putting on the red jersey, and then joining your friends down at the pub for a few beers and some football. This is indeed a trait that suits sports in general, but there’s something extra when it comes to football. There’s no sport on earth that stirs up the same amount of passion, love, frustration, anger, and desperation, in short, the complete range of human emotions, as football does.

Then there’s the aspect of movies. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved watching movies. Being able to sit down, and relate to a world that is fictional, even though in so many ways so real. It’s a great escape from a world that at times isn’t quite playing by the same rule book as the one you’re reading and playing by. It’s a great escape and of great entertainment value.

Being the tech-savvy geek that I am, I’ve also invested money in a home theatre which is quite frequently used. Being able to sit down to watch movies with sound that completely surrounds you and embraces you, is nothing short of a big thrill. Hearing the bullets come at you, like you’re in the line of fire yourself makes that escape even more life-like.

Or when you hear someone sneaking up behind your back, feeling that you are about to be attacked, even though you know full well that there’s no one there but your speakers producing vivid and crisp sounds.

Again, talking about great escapes brings me to another one of my interests; books. Here, there are no technical gadgets to help you produce sound and sound effects, and no TV to bring you images. All you got, is yourself and your own creative mind. Kicking back with a good book is nothing short of bliss, as you sit there in your sphere with the book in your lap and images passing by your retinal membrane.

A good book is not only a work of art, but it’s also something that adds to you as a person. A good book is something you remember for a long time after you’ve read it, and that in some way sticks to you like glue. The images you shape while reading pop up more often than not, and quite often when you don’t expect it.

A good book makes you feel that you know the people portrayed in the book, and you can relate to their innermost fears, dreams, hopes and life situations. A good book makes you want to come back for more and makes you sad when you finish it. Books are in short, a necessity to life itself.

That’s a short insight into who I am, what I like and what my interest is. I am me, and I am nothing but me, that is all that I am, but it is also more than enough, and there is enough for everyone.

I sincerely hope that you find my blog a worthwhile read and that you find my articles useful and even maybe insightful. I want to thank you for your time and hope to see you again soon.

Yours sincerely Jostein Elvaker Haande aka tolecnal
“A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular”
– Adlai Stevenson