My first contact with a computer was at the age of 13 or so when I got a C64 for Xmas. Over the time I got quite good on that machine and wrote a number of programs that got published in magazines, like for instance Giga-Mon and The Texter, both of which made it into the german 64'er magazine. In '93 I finally decided to get a new computer and chose an Acorn A5000, closing the gap from 8bit @ 1MHz to 32bit @ 25MHz in one giant leap for mankind. These days, I use a Linux PC for all my computer needs; the reasons for moving away from RISC OS can be found here.
My other hobby is guitars. I've been playing acoustic guitars for about 18 years now, including 2 years of basic and 7 years of classical training. Favourite composers are Heitor Villa-Lobos and Isaac Albéniz. I don't get around to practising as much as I'd like to these days but it's (just about) enough to preserve my technique. I'm playing an Alhambra Artist and D'Addario Extra High Tension strings.
I started playing electric guitars somewhat later, about 10 years ago. I'm currently using a Fender Stratocaster (Clapton series, red body with white body protection, maple fretboard), a Gibson Les Paul Standard (black) and a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier half stack which is a Monster of an amp. Makes going deaf one of the most pleasant experiences in history. It's also great for declaring war to everybody within 1 mile of where you play it.
My musical taste includes metal in arbitrary extremeness on one hand and pseudo-classical on the other. By pseudo-classical I mean classical in instrumentation, not in date of composition. I love composers like Modest Mussorgsky, Sergej Prokofiev, Dmitrij Shostakovich, Anton Bruckner, or my personal favourite Franz Liszt, but quite frankly stuff like Mozart bores me to death. On the metal front I like all kinds of bands, ranging from classics like Iron Maiden, relaxed stuff like Psychotic Waltz or Kyuss to extremes like Cradle of Filth, Carcass or Bolt Thrower. I also love progressive music, meaning bands like Sieges Even or Watchtower, not "any band that has a guitar solo not based on a pentatonic scale" like some people. My roots lie in mid-80ies power/speed/thrash, though, and it doesn't seem likely to change. One of the coolest bands from that era was Coroner who managed to combine the technical excellence of Cacophony with the sheer power of Slayer but unfortunately lost it after the first 3 albums. For more click here.
I utterly loathe Rap, Techno and Pop. I also consider "Soft Rock" an oxymoron and would like to re-instate the death penalty for censors and short-haired posers wearing Hard Rock Café T-Shirts.