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Hi. My name is Giles Thompson, welcome to my website.

As this is my personal site I have kept the web design to a minimum as I do enough of this in my work! This site is about what I do for pleasure with my computers.... graphic art using packages such as Bryce, Photoshop, Freehand, Illustrator, Poser & Ray Dream 3D & music using Ejay.... in fact the original design for this site is over four years old now... hmmmm possibly time for change!

I also love to mix dark Drum & Bass on my Technics record decks & play guitar.

I am an inveterate fiddler.. I cannot leave my computers alone & can often be found upgrading & building computers in my spare time, in fact I do not think that I have had exactly the same computer/configuration for more than 2 weeks in the last 2 years on my PC, sadly there is not so much scope for Macs, at present I own:

An Apple Mac G3 233mhz (beige desktop) with an XLR8 366mhz ZIF upgrade processor (this took 10 minutes to install & configure & I thoroughly recommend them) running @ 433mhz (highest temperature under heavy load 24°C... totally stable, in fact more so than the standard chip @ 233mhz & cooler too!) with 256MB of RAM & a VoodooMac 5500 PCI 64MB bought for £40 from a sale at PC World, a 19GB UDMA 66 HD, 1 internal 4GB SCSI HD & 1 4GB External SCSI HD. This ran @ 280mhz with the standard 233 chip for over a year & if you are prepared to take the risks, which are minimal for G3s, you can find out about overclocking Macs here. This runs Mac OS 9.1 the last of the true Mac OS systems. I am of two minds as to whether to run Mac OS X on this system.

A Pentium III 866MHZ running @ 936MHZ with 512MB Tiny BGA PC150 RAM on an Asus CUV4X-E motherboard which replaced a QDI Advance 10f when it died an untimely death at just 3 weeks old! This runs a Leadtek GeForce 2 Pro 64MB DDR (I am waiting for the GeForce 3s to get to a more reasonable price to get one) a SoundBlaster Live Player 5.1, 40GB UDMA 100 HD & two Intel Pro 10/100 network cards. It also has a Pioneer front slot loading DVD ROM (UDMA 66) & no I did not only buy this for the slot (though I do like my gadgets) it was more for the higher speed/transfer rates it offered over my old OEM Matshita DVD ROM, which went to my girlfriend's son, Clayton, along with the Geforce 2 MX I had in the system previously. This system is a dual boot with Windows 98 for the entertainment side & Windows 2000 Pro for my "serious" side... Bryce etc...

I recently built myself a mini server from an old Compaq Deskpro which I found at a computer fair minus all drives, RAM & Processor for £15. It now houses a Pentium II 350, 256MB RAM, an old 4GB IDE HD from my G3 and an 8GB IBM SCSI HD too. It isn't too pretty as the case would not fit it all in so it is hidden in a well ventilated cupboard! Total cost? £95 plus the bits I already had so not too bad! This runs Windows 2000 Server for the Mac volume support it offers... Macs on a PC network? Will the depravity never end?

I have also built Mandy, my girlfriend, her own PC... well actually it is a repair job that came to me & didn't get paid for so it's hers now. It is an old Time (God I hate their PCs) mini PC so I was very limited as to what I could get to fit it. A Jetway Motherboard with onboard graphics (which I have disabled & replaced with a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI, despite being AGP they were awful) & sound (4.1 surround) AMD K6-2 500MHZ, 192MB RAM, an Intel Pro 10/100 ethernet card, USB MultiModem which is really quite good & fast & a Spyc@m 100 so she can take pics & use it as a webcam. She misses using my P3 but then she only uses Word, Outlook Express & Instant Messenger really so how she can tell the difference I don't know... I don't miss her mistakes on my PC though! She managed to destroy Windows ME in 8 days on the first PC I let her loose on... I know ME is flakey but this has to be some kind of record surely! This runs Win 98 as it does not take too long to reinstall!!!!!

Oh yeah & I don't see that either Mac or PC as being superior, they each do their own thing very well & I can't be bothered to try & compare them as this is just so pointless & childish... it's a computer for God's sake not a religious crusade! High end graphics? Go Mac. Versatility & multimedia go PC. If you have the money go both & have the best of both worlds & put a big cheesy grin on your face!

I have decided to wait to see what happens when more 64 bit programs to come out to decide between the relative merits of an Athlon Vs Pentium 4 system as my next PC. On the face of it the Athlons look very good but I have a feeling that the second generation P4 may have something up its sleeve! I have also heard that Athlons can have some problems with graphics programs so they may well not be for me.

I would dearly like to own a G4 Mac, which are just gorgeous, so this is next on the list.... isn't Mac OS X sexy? Oh no! I have just read about the new G5's........

My job is IT manager of a local firm who sell fishing tackle, where I run & design our websites & I am responsible for all IT issues.

I have a dog & a cat & live in a town called Dunstable (about 30 miles north of London).

As you can see time is at a premium so this site will be upgraded as I have time!