My name is Charles H. Davis, but almost anyone who knows me, calls me ("Ched"). I was born and raised in the Pittsburgh PA. area.  I'm a single white male, and United Presbyterian / Protestant.  About 5'8", a few pounds over the 160 I should be, dark hair, dark eyes that need glasses, and fairly average beyond that.

I was born to Charles E. Davis and Nancy J. Davis (nee Carman) on May 9, 1957. I have 1 younger brother, Curtis W. Davis, who lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and 1 younger sister, Rhona J. Mensurati-Davis, who lives in Cleveland, Ohio and works for NASA. My brother is a photographer, and my sister is partial geek who does surf the net.

I grew up in a small town called Oakdale, Pennsylvania. It is a rural town west, and a little south of Pittsburgh. Since I am only 1/2 hour’s drive from downtown Pittsburgh, it stands to reason that I am a Penguin hockey fan, and a Steeler football fan. While growing up the family religiously followed stock-car racing (local in the early years and the ASA sanction as I grew through the teen years.) I graduated from West Allegheny High School in 1975. I attended a local college (Point Park State College) for 1 semester, until I discovered girls (Mary Beth Warman), and the benefits of a 40 hour per week job. Unfortunately that led to a short time of continued education. I married Mary Beth in 1979, we had a daughter, Jessie Lynn Davis, on July 10th, 1981, and divorced in 1982 - 83. I have attempted to raise my daughter for the last 21 years; although I think the early years may have been a bit easier than these teen-age years. I was even an honorary Den Mother for a local girl scout troup.  My-Ex Wife and I do get along and my daughter still spends time with both of us, (although her friends seem to come first these days).

I had a lot of the typical teen-age jobs up until 1979, when I went to work at a local plastic factory. I stayed there for 10 years, until my parents got a computer in the mid - 80’s. That old 8088 and MS DOS 3.2 is what started me on my quest for computer knowledge, and in 1989 my Mom and Dad offered me the chance to go back to school. After 1 semester of an evening class on basic computers at the local community college, I was hooked, I left the plastic factory, and went back to school full time for 3 years, and I still take a class from time to time.

Early in the 90’s I started selling what little ability I had with computers, helping people set them up, designing flyers, invoices, or databases for a new business, trouble-shooting a PC that would act up, or just teaching someone how to use one. Since I don’t enjoy "selling", and I was not very good at promoting my abilities, I started taking "Temp" work with several agencies. I did this for about 3 years until I found a temporary position at Ashland Chemical Co., very often doing what I love - working with computers. After a year and a half, they hired me on full time to do just that, look after the computers. Token Ring Network (connected to the corporate WAN) on a UNIX server running Banyan Vines, several NT servers I set up, 120+ workstations, a CD Server, and 1 NT BDC server. In 1999 I left Ashland and struck out on my own, and am currently self-employed by Charles Davis Enterprises.

(If you've read this far, you must really be bored, but, carry on.)
 
 

Today:

At home I use a Dell 440, 1.6 Ghz, PC,  a home built 200 MMX, and an old 386 laptop.  I have been running Windows since it was released, and I do use a lot of the Microsoft products.  Not that I am not a devout follower of King Bill Gates, but their software is omnipresent, so I try to stay up with it. Microsoft holds the majority client-base today, and, really they do make some good products. I did dual boot to Linux for about a year and a half, and did like it.   I have run more software than I can remember.  I'm not a "hardware" geek that has to have the latest video card, or the latest sound card.  I can get by with a 17" monitor, although I prefer the 19".

A lot of my experience leans toward the trouble-shooting area of computers. I don't enjoy the hardware end of the computer business as much as the configuration and training aspects, but I can do what needs to be done. (replace a hard drive, or power supply, upgrade the RAM, or install a network card, etc).  I prefer to have the PC capable of at least starting with a boot disk, and I have been pretty lucky at solving configuration errors, recovering deleted or corrupted files. (And lucky is as important as good.) I also really enjoy doing any creative web design, desktop publishing, or graphic design.  Like anyone, I go through 'fads' with the PC world.  I may go through a stage where I want to install and test software for a few months, and then change directions and decide that I want to create web pages for a while.  I've even gotten off in the direction of working with 3D rendering software to create wallpapers and graphics.  I've gone through database design phases, programming phases, testing phases, and even 'music' phases of looking for sounds I can use on the Internet without violating any copyright laws.  All in all, it's tough to find an area of the computer field that I haven't at least looked at, and have a basic understanding of.  Are computers the only thing in life for me?  No.  read on.....

 

What Else I Enjoy:  Time with my daughter & family, pets, computers, downloading and trying new software, web site design, the Internet, computer conventions and seminars, and helping people with their computers.  (And yes, I do miss DOS sometimes.) The most enjoyable aspect of computers in my opinion is the admin. side of it, setting up access levels, sharing resources across a network, etc., but computers aren't the only things I enjoy.  I like shooting pool, martial arts, good conversation, reading, and learning.  When I get time to watch TV or movies, I enjoy: NASCAR auto racing, Pittsburgh Penguin Hockey, Steeler Football, Science Fiction (Star Trek, X-Files, Star Wars, etc.), WW II movies, wrestling, (although not as much as I used to), JFK stuff, humor, and anything NEW.

When I relax, I like to cook out, (steaks on the grill), seafood, lazy Sundays and nice weather, candles, romance, and sleeping under a cool breeze.

Some of the folks I enjoy watching ...   John Wayne, Jimmy Stewert, Galleger, Michael J. Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, JFK, Dick Van Dyke, Dan Ackroyd, Red Skeleton, Jerry Lewis, Jim Carey, Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Lenord Nimoy (and the rest of the Star Trek cast), Arnold S., Sly Stalone, Valerie Bertinelli, Paul Newman, James Woods, Michael Keaton, Tom Hanks, ...
and listening to: Oldies, Motown, EZ Listening, and such.  Like The Beatles, John Lennon, Carley Simon, Carpenters, CCR, Cher, Elvis, America, Bread, Meatloaf, Chicago, Kansas, Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens, Jefferson Airplane, Steve Miller, Bob Segar, the Temptations, Seals & Crofts, Neil Diamond, Simon & Garfunkle, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Boston, Journey, ELO, Alabama, Billy Joel, Carol King, and many others...  I may not know all the words, or even a particular song title or artist - but I enjoy listening to music.

With material items, I will share everything I own with my friends, ...with my time, I tend to be a bit more selfish.

Favorite Quotes:

If it doesn't destroy you ... it will only make you stronger.

The past is our history, the future still a mystery, but today is to enjoy - that's why it's called ... the "Present"

I try to read and answer my email at daily, so you can drop a line to:

  Some may note that out here in the real world, what is being taught in the schools, is usually 5 to 8 years behind the current trends. While this may be true, don’t mistake that as a lack of need for the education: The old DOS, dBase, WordPerfect, Lotus 123, Fortran, C, Pascal, and other "learning tools", are essential to a good background and understanding in the computer field. Those old technologies are an absolute "building-block-must" to truly understand the current programs, visual languages, hardware, and technologies. To really excel in this career, computers must not only be a job, but the real achievers will be the ones who make it a way of life. Times and technology are moving too fast for someone to expect to be able to "show-up" for eight hours a day, and leave everything at the office at the end of the day. Just because someone does not know how to edit an ini file, doesn’t mean that they have not come across and solved a problem somewhere in their experience with computers. The kids today have grown up with this computer revolution, it comes second nature to them, don’t think that some 12 year old somewhere might not be able to teach you something you didn’t know. The movers, and shakers will read, watch, question, listen, and learn, then take that knowledge 1 step beyond what we had yesterday.
 
 

Special Thanks

 The group of people who I would like to thank for the encouragement in pursuing this "way of life".:

First and Foremost:

My mom and dad. Mom always encouraged me to find what I enjoyed in life and work to be the best I could be at it. (Although now she does tell me to give it a rest once in a while). Dad ? Well dad bought the first family computer, an old Zenith Data Systems 8088 PC. He showed me to put phone numbers down in - and "it saves them", then "guess what, you can copy files from this ‘floppy disk’ to a 20 Meg hard drive, and play games". Of course it didn’t take long for the 20 Meg hard disk to give way to a new 40 Meg disk. I had no idea how to type, and couldn't figure out why the alphabet was so mixed up on the keyboard, - but hey I'll try anything once. Very quickly I was impressed with the fact that every time I put IN the same thing, the computer put OUT the same thing. Consistency that human beings did not have. (Not to mention that when the damn thing did not do what I wanted that I could just turn it off, something you can't do with an ex-wife.) Well within a week I found a few "DOS Commands" that I could type, and actually get information. So being the curious (and a bit stupid) type, I promptly DELETED *.*, Unfortunately I happened to be in a directory called BIN which in those days meant DOS. Fortunately the family had a friend who knew how to copy files, and reinstall the operating system. COOL STUFF !! Back to my mom, she not only gave me the chance (and encouraged me) to go back to school, she helped teach me how to "learn" again. And even though my mom is not a computer "tech" she knew one word processor almost as well as the people who wrote the program .. Word Perfect.

And...:

My sister Rhona J. Davis-Mensurati. Rhona is by no means a geek or chip head, but believe me she is very capable with a keyboard and PC. I want to thank her for all her patience when I called to ask some really dumb questions. She always took the time to give me an answer in terms that I could understand, or at least direct me to a resource that had an answer.

Another group of people that I am eternally grateful to are those who taught me what a computer was for and how to use it. Ever patient teachers, & techs., who put up with never ending questions, and a few exceptional people who know a whole bunch more than me. (But help anyway).

The teachers: -

CCAC, University of Pittsburgh, PITT Computer Learning Center, Microsoft Roll-Out personnel, CompuMaster, Executrain, Sarcom, Essential Seminars, and others

The Techs / Nerds / Geeks / Wizes:

G. Douglas Davidson, Sharee Stoudt, Bethany, Josh Grossman, Rich Swan, Ron Wilson, Larry Stone, Wayne Cass, Mark Soper, Lieala Hennamuth, Robert Hutchinson, Randy Fittanti, Ray Hennamuth, Tom Monroe, Jim Parker, Bill Walker, Jay Johnson, Mike Brown, Eric Newsome, Anthony DeAngelis (a 15 year old teen who WILL make his mark in the field), Kym Sokan, Rick, Bill, Dave, Sandy, Mike, Bob Dodds, Tom Hicks, Vince, the IS staff at DOT in Washington DC.. and I am sure I've missed a many others. 

The Cyber Crowd: Many anonymous cyber-space hacks who only want to learn and teach.

The Computer Professionals: the people who have, and continue to push the computer industry and it’s technology to the limit:

Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Peter Norton, Steve Woziniack, Steve Jobs, Brian Livingstone, Richard Dell, Thomas Watson, Gorden Moore, Gary Kildall, Ted Hoff, Mr. McAfee (yea I know you guys pronounce it MacAfee),and all the other entrepreneurs, visionists, programmers, MIT (and other college IS department) students, as well as all the other unheralded, extraordinary people who are helping to advance an exciting future.

 

well folks, that's about all I really have to say about myself.  A little long winded, but then again, that's why I like the computer, it's always there to listen.  Enjoy your travels, and ...

Thanks Again,

Ched

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