Is My Son the Next Computer Giant?

Our twelve year-old is driving us crazy with his computer obsessions. Every time we turn around he is pleading with us to download a new app, virtual OS, emulator, widget, etc. His favorite is Edubuntu, but today he wanted to download a free trial of Windows Vista into a virtual hard drive space. My wife was amused that he wanted to know our business name, because he had to complete that part of the enrollment in order to get his free copy. Once he went through all of the steps, the download link was broken on Microsoft’s site. His response to this was, “Well that’s what I would expect from the people who made Windows Millennium Edition?”

This is the same son who at the age of four was constantly changing our desktop settings just to see what would happen. We have been used to our son checking out three inch thick books on Linux, Unix, Ubuntu or hacking his iPod. We thought nothing when he installed Rockbox on his Sansa MP3 and then on his borther’s so that they could dual boot between MP3 player and game machine. We asked him to quit using his Edubuntu CD-Rom in our laptops because sometimes even a hard reboot would not reset our wifi settings. We almost always know that his, “Dad, come look at this” is about another interesting app he has discovered or a new version of Ubuntu that allows him to do something new and exciting.

I guess my son gets this obsession from me. After all, I had my first computer in 1977. It was a Commodore 64. All of my extra cash went into purchasing add-ons: including the first mouse/wheel ball. I joined bulletin boards and learned all about hacking, which I only did for my own fun. I taught myself Basic programming so that I could create little files to execute nice screen effects. I read books about various programming languages including assembly and C++. As soon as the Commodore 128 came out, I purchased one of those. Next was the Amiga 500 and finally I made the move to an IBM with Windows 3.1. As soon as the Internet was available, I jumped off the BBS track and started learning HTML, PHTML, and scripting. I taught myself all of these things by reading the programming of other sites. I then taught myself how to animate GIFs, and Photoshop pictures before the term was even known. As soon as I acquired Windows 95, I started downloading emulators from my old Atari 2600, Commodore 64 and 128, Amiga 500 and 1200, and even Macs. I still own most of these emulators on my current computer.

My son and I both start drooling whenever we walk or drive near a computer store, we fight over who will get to read the new PC Magazine first, but I think I have lost my desire to keep on the cutting edge of the Geek world. Most people would still think I am geeky. After all, I do have a Facebook account, Myspace account (which I have never used except for searching for people), a Blog, several websites that I still maintain, Google widgets page, Yahoo widgets page and I recently opened Youtube and Godtube accounts in order to place our Living Christmas Tree clips online. But my son’s obsession is wearing me out.

Tonight my son brought me an old 3.5 inch disk and wanted to know how many megabytes it would hold. He was looking for something with about 800 MBs so he could store all of his apps on a portable device (he owns a 2 GB flash drive but cannot find it). I actually asked him why? What kind of a question is that for a computer geek? The only possible answer to that question is “because I can.” He had no intention of actually taking my flash drive with all of his apps stored on it over to a friend’s house so that he could execute commands from his own array of widgets. He just wanted to do it because he could.

I realized that I am no longer the geeky one who is trying to figure out how it is done and then doing it myself or, better yet, improving on what was done. I am now the father who continually warns my son not to do anything that will necessitate another reformat and reinstall on our home computer. I find myself wishing we could afford to purchase him his own laptop (he dreams of Macbooks) just so I do not have to worry about losing my financial records on the home desktop.

Both of our boys think it is funny that they have to explain things to their parents. You should have witnessed our ten year old trying to teach his mother how to play a Wii game tonight. And my wife and I have had such little access to the new digital camera that we purchased last summer that we still do not know how to switch from the video mode to the camera mode. BUT it is really nice when we still are need to help then with something technical. I recently had to help my twelve year old when his new iPod Nano locked up during an Itunes auto update. It took a while for us to get on the same page because I had never even tried to play his iPod. He had to show me how to soft reset it and I had to search online to find out how to hard reset it.
Maybe I need to start backing up my important files on my flash drive daily instead of using our second hard drive. Maybe I should set-up our computer for dual booting so that my two boys only have access to one hard drive. Maybe I should not be so worried about it and just allow my son to continue researching, learning, hacking, programming and eventually supporting my wife and me in our old age when he is running the largest computer software company in the world.