AF Old Guard

Has anyone heard from Dr. Bob in a while? I always enjoyed his hacks. Curious how he is doing.

Has anyone heard from Dr. Bob in a while? I always enjoyed his hacks. Curious how he is doing.

He's still alive and kicking, just seemingly not so much into Mac hacking these days.

I've got a new username, but I've been here a time or two!

There's been almost no activity here at all since I've been back online with any regularity . . . so I moved the bookmark down the list. I HATED the switch to Drupal! I'd put mopney on the bet that the move to Drupal's what killed the forums over here.

It's nice to see that you've upped the avatar size limits so I can put the PogoHamsters back up on the web! I can't do that over at the 68kMLA, but my Gunship link is back in the sig over ther and the RocketShare avatar is fine . . . but I've been missing the pogo varmints!

The only reason I even hit the link at all today was to see if I can search the forum archives yet . . .
. . . goin' there now!

jt :ebc:

p.s that was quick . . . grrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . eeun's link to the old forums on the previous page is borked!

We (she and I and three Catus sp) are in our third house in two years, which is more-or-less the duration of my dereliction from all Mac-oriented activity but using a DP G4 MDD and 17" G4 PB for work rather than for learning. The chilluns below, a dozen-or-so awaiting surgery/resuscitation/reconstruction, and spares therefor have been significant hazards in fitting our gallon of possessions into pint-pot houses.

Not the least pleasure during brief dips into Mac forums during my time of hibernation/æstivation has been the high standard of literacy therein, in stark and chilling contrast to the recent social and broadband sites I have seen from time to time. Mes amis, I salute you.

Now that joining-dates of members are being displayed in posts, I am impelled to ask how so many of us arrived here in (middish) December 2003?

Now that joining-dates of members are being displayed in posts, I am impelled to ask how so many of us arrived here in (middish) December 2003?

That's when the transfer to Drupal happened. All the user accounts from YaBB were imported.

(I'm seriously tempted to dip into the code and have a 'Dec 20, 2003’ join date just display as 'Old Guard'.)

Now that joining-dates of members are being displayed in posts, I am impelled to ask how so many of us arrived here in (middish) December 2003?

That's when the transfer to Drupal happened. All the user accounts from YaBB were imported.

(I'm seriously tempted to dip into the code and have a 'Dec 20, 2003’ join date just display as 'Old Guard'.)

If you can manage to rig that up within the Drupal theme or CSS files, go for it...I think with all the work we had to do as part of the recent server migration, we want to try to keep custom module code to a minimum (so we can actually perform maintenance updates without too many headaches).

And if you get the Old Guard tag working, anyone with a join date *prior* to Dec. 20, 2003 should get a gold star as well

I've arbitrarily called anyone who joined in 2003 (since it looks like the user accounts were imported over several days) a member of the old guard.

/me fades into the background again.

LOL! That makes me a noob! :bigsmile:

Man, a lot sure has changed while staying the same since I was here last. It's been years since I was really a regular. I recently ended up getting some side work rebuilding iBook G4's and it brought back those heady days of 04-06.

I've been here for ages, and I rarely ever say anything but i was cleaning out my closet the other day (week, month.... who knows) and i found my kanga and bronze keyboard g3. wow i powered the bronze up and it still has my install of 9.2. the kanga was dead when it went away, but ive been thinking about resurrecting it.

I'm still around - although I spend more time lurking than posting as of late. My Mac collection has changed over time - I write this on a late 2k3 Mini, my main portables are a 15" Compaq and an Acer Aspire One. I've got a G5 under my desk, but once I stuffed 4GB of RAM in there and the largest HDDs I could find, it got snapped back together and stays asleep most of the time. It only wakes up when I need it to do something that I don't want tying up my Mini.

The new stuff just doesn't seem as hackable. Its easier to use, more reliable, but there's no sense of ownership or pride. Rather than being a treasured possession, computers have become simple consumer commodities like a fridge or a television. An object to be tossed aside when their usefulness has ebbed.

The Czar

I think another big change thats happened and somewhat killed the classic scene, especially in regard to hardware hacks was first the move from hardware to software and now to cloud computing. They've depreciated the hardware and most new systems abstract the hardware away so much that no one interacts with it anymore (and people new to computers today will have no idea at their workings, you don't even get a filesystem or anything on the ipad)

I think 10.7 is the direction things are going (with the more ipad like interface), and imo a VERY wrong direction. I want my OS to be simple and easy! Almost tempted to break out an old machine and run BEos on it again!

Keep in mind one of Steve Jobs's goals for the original Macintosh was to make it an "appliance computer". I think a lot of this has to do with the way computers are used by the general public these days. Most people use one at work in some way, but when they are given a choice as to what they would like to do with their home computer in their spare time, most use it for social networking or web surfing. A computer with a shell as limited as the original At Ease would be sufficient for this purpose, since all these people would need to do is find some way to launch a web browser and click the bookmark for Facebook or Google.

With mobile phones now being used for much of the same things light users have computers for (the notable exception being word processing), many have become accustomed to the simple interface--simple enough a technophobe won't lose sleep over it. This may sound like a watering down of what we, as both veteran users and power users, are used to, but it's clearly the next step in the evolution of home/personal computing--one in which the user has minimal control. Remember--it's been ten years since we could customize our desktop color scheme to something other than blue or grey. The Macintosh HD icon doesn't even appear on the desktop by default anymore. Lion will only continue to take away these features and unless Apple does respect the power user, we can expect to be using computers designed with the user who only cares about Facebook in mind on our desktops soon. (I do feel Apple will continue to make power user features optional by means of a control panel so they don't lose some traditional customers, but they definitely won't be accessible out of the box; I also expect Windows will become far simpler in its next release).

As I said, most of us on this board would fit under the label of "power user" and I think many of us have been working with computers for some time. Many of us probably got our start in the 1980s or earlier, back when we had more control over every aspect of our computer. When we broke onto the scene, computing was a different arena. There were computers in offices and schools--something that really hasn't changed--but home users typically bought computers if they were hobbyists, enthusiasts, worked at home, or wanted to become more productive. (Remember how computers were often advertised as "business computers" years ago, even the early Macs?) Then we saw the simplified Performas in the 1990s--the "family Macintosh" loaded with software not designed with power users in mind as well as the Launcher and At Ease as Finder alternatives. Now we have people using computers for socializing more than anything--I'm sure if you made a pie graph of your average user, you'd find they spend more time on social networking websites than anything else. I've observed it in public computer labs and among users who aren't into the same sort of power computing we are.

In 10 years, we could become a niche market in terms of home computing. Apple will continue to simplify in every aspect (look at how the XServe was discontinued, for instance) but will reach a point where they can't take away any more features without greatly upsetting the power and veteran user crowd. I've been loyal to Apple since I first used a IIe in 1989 and sincerely hope I still will have some control over my machines in 2019.

(On a final note--I don't qualify for "old guard" yet, as I just joined these forums not too long ago, but I've been an active member of other Mac forums for years and have read Applefritter for over a decade--anyone else remember the built-to-order IIe service called "The Fruit Shop"?)

Tom, the new server hardware works like a charm. The site performs like I would expect it to now...

I love the "Old Guard" tag! Fantastic!

Hackability of new hardware could be debated. For me, my declining interest in Mac hardware hacking can be squarely attributed to my "growing up" and adding a son (my first, and so far only, child) to the house. Between having a full-time job, working on my masters, having a wife, a child, two dogs, and performing endless house & car maintenance, I just don't have as much time to spend on the hobby. And what time I do have free for myself is much too precious to spend cooped up inside with bits of computer strewn about. That's not to say I don't enjoy it, though, and that I don't have interesting ideas for hardware hackery or that modern Apple machines aren't hackable...

To wit:

I was in my 2007 aluminum iMac to upgrade the hard drive to a 2TB drive today, and I noticed that the Apple logo on the front of the machine is just a bit of plastic held on with some glue. This looks like a piece ripe for hacking. I was thinking it might be fun to cast a custom replacement out of some translucent blue plastic and rig up a white surface mount LED to edge light it when the machine is powered up. Somewhere around here I've got a book on molds and casting my own resin pieces... Maybe some time this spring or summer when I get a few moments...

Peace,
Drew

I came in for a look-see and was glad to see the new server has been installed. I'm not really surprised I still remember my un/pw for AFF. I started dropping out of the forums a while before, but I really lost the drive when I had to move and leave behind nearly all of my collection. I just wasn't going to fit a basement worth of collections in a single car garage. I grabbed my Amigas, Suns, and NewWorld Macs, odds and ends. I left behind so much 68k/OW PPC, it breaks my heart a little. Not that I _needed_ any of it, but still. I should have kept a few more things like the Portable and an SE/30 or two. Maybe a Blackbird... I've been a recovering collector for over 2 years. Just like AA, I'll always be recovering.

Cheers.

I usually check in here and A2Central at least once a week.
Sometimes I post, sometimes I don't. It all depends on what is going on.
I found a new job and started last week, so I don't have the time on my hands that I did while laid off, but I'm revamping several of my IIe Platinums and several IIc's to keep busy on the weekends.

I've put my Classic, Color Classic, G3, G4, and G5 Mac's aside for right now, but I'll get back to them eventually.

I pondered getting an Intel Mac, but (you will have to excuse me for saying this) isn't that almost the same as buying(HEAVEN FORBID) another PC? :)

No, It's NOTHING like a new PC!
It's still an apple at heart. I <3 my C2D MacBook Pro. It's just as "Apple-ey" as my iBook and iMac G3's :3

I think another big change thats happened and somewhat killed the classic scene, especially in regard to hardware hacks was first the move from hardware to software and now to cloud computing. They've depreciated the hardware and most new systems abstract the hardware away so much that no one interacts with it anymore (and people new to computers today will have no idea at their workings, you don't even get a filesystem or anything on the ipad)

I think 10.7 is the direction things are going (with the more ipad like interface), and imo a VERY wrong direction. I want my OS to be simple and easy! Almost tempted to break out an old machine and run BEos on it again!

Honestly... I really don't want to get OS 10.7 because 10.6.6 is the best OS I've ever worked with. Recently, I had to use windows 7 on a Toshiba... I felt lost. Using the trackpad and separate buttons proved to be quite the challenge. The Multi-touch has pretty much been taken for granted as a standard feature, thus meaning that it took me about 30 minutes to edit a post on my blog.

:3

Hey Jon, good to see you again. I had been wondering what had happened to you. You've been missed.

I don't mean to pry, but I'm curious what you mean when you say you left behind nearly all of your collection. What happened to it? Sold, trashed, given away, or just left there on the shelves to begin the fossilization process? Sounds like a lot of it could have found some more than willing buyers. I think the secret to collecting if you don't have a mansion for a museum is to focus on three or four items that you know have significance and keep it at that number, selling or however discarding the lowball on this short list when something more significant comes into your hands. I've forced myself to always try to clean my closets and what I'm keeping right now for a permanent collection is a Flowerpower iMac and an SE/30 and a Color Classic that needs a mobo. Any of those could easily be bumped by something more significant to my taste like a 700mhz Graphite iMac in pristine condition or a TAM or even maybe a tricked-out 9600 (now wish I hadn't parted out the one I had)--any of which I would only pick up if I got some very good deal, or better yet, free. My Quicksilvers and B&W and Beige G3 desktop are all still being used so they don't officially count as part of the collection. If I stop using the B&W, I'd trash it. I'd probably bump the Color Classic with the Beige G3. Not sure what I'd do with a Quicksilver. I don't think I'd bump the first three or the Beige G3 with a Quicksilver. I've still got other G4's, iMacs, and Emacs that I'm going to sell soon, and whatever doesn't sell goes in the trash--none will end up on my small collection shelf. My collection stays at three, possibly four, nothing more. I'll keep it strict.

I haven't been here in years but I decided to say hello in this thread.

OOOps! Came here a little late! (as usual...) Yup was
here for the old OLD board!

Eyes are still doing OK, so I came back when I saw
that S. Jobs had passed. WOW! He was younger than ME!

How's everyone doing? I'm still using my godd old
Apple //e and it is still going strong after DECADES!
Can anyone say THAT about TODAY's E-toys?

Nice to see Tom Owad still here! Hope to post more often
in the future.

L8R

PS...Hmmmm...I wonder if I qualify as the oldest poster here?
Sneaking up on 61!

Woogie,

I'm close: 58 going on 59. lol

As I was sitting here going through the responses, I was wondering if anyone else has the same (sort of ) problem I have when it comes to trying to describe my hobby (old Apple IIs and Macs) to someone, either at work or anywhere for that matter?

Most folks either start to get a glaze on thier eyes like they are tuning me out, or they ask if I'm out of my mind for wanting to work with "Dead Technology".

There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to this. I figured it was because of my age, but there are some folks out there who are half my age and starting to show an interest.

Any Input?

i´ve been viewing this entire thread and i do wonder on some of the postings... looking to my membership i´d be a freshborn newbee, but is that the truth ??? Surely not ! In fact I started up with the ZX81 and the apple I and its for sure - only very few in the site might claim to be "in the stuff" that long - so far so good if some here claim to be "Old Guard" what the hack am I ? a prehistoric dinosaur ? On the other hand its amazing to read some of the posts in which several members to have "some kind of nonspecific feeling" "but I can´t fix it to the point".... seems to sound like missing selfreflection.... at least I´d define the feeling by myself to be an "non microsoft fan" in other words: - till to the uprise of the pentiums of the third generation and the first videographic cards with at least some 256 MByte Graphicmemory on Board there was not a single "BlueMac" ( thats my nickname for all the masses of "Blues and their compatibles" from Taiwan and any other hack of the world that was operating on "shi..Dos" - there was no machine on the market that had such sophisticated advantages on working with graphics... it had a good reason that in nearly every agency or publishing unit all over the world you entered the offices and you would only see people working on Mac´s. In the DTP area there was nothing compareable....

But unfortunatly the vast majority in the market was swashed away with millions of "Bluemacs" from "Gates Mc Donalds...." being cheaper and more simple for less advanced users that needed to be lead over years to the "copycat" of our first graphical operation systems while gates and companions where stumbling from one buggy copycat to the next handicaped version of copycat. There was a good reason that viruses and other "gifts" where written in sparetime of the evening to be "donated" to the "Gatesworld" while Applemachines viewed only very randomly some kind of similar "donations".... it was to easy and most of uprising users from "gatesworld" haven´t been able to humble out of their pampers while users in the Applescene had meanwhile grown up to expertise, that was missing in the "Gatesworld". The drifting away of the "unigue and unspecific feelings" of Mac users was really affected by the decession to build Apples with CPUs from Intel due to the fact, that the alternating chip-families died from starvation and Intel spoiled the market with big money and masses of "lowbudget CPUs". But its for sure that this was not only caused by the big companies... those guys that are of my age and remember back will surely agree, that one of the reasons was caused by Apple itself... In the end of the eighties ( hey who out there was in those days allready active user and how many read this and don´t know what I´m talking about ? )when Apple decided to let the relation between user groups and the company go out of cooperation and let the relation starve out ( unfortunatly that was a decession from steven jobs... wozniak wanted to continue the cooperation ).... up to that point the existing relation between Apple and the Usergroups had been a benefit for both sides... and after that ? the first big kick after, was the development of the "living dead" ( in normal language: the apple III - that died before birth .... ) who remembers that ? How many do remember the days when we jumped in our cars to make lots of miles to join the evening meeting of the next local user group, have some nice beer talking with fellows that came up new and soon later became friends for ages ??? The evening in which we spent time talking about the programms we were struggeling with and getting from other companions in the user group valuable hints how to solve those struggles ? guys from those days aren´t "old guards" but for sure they are the true dinosaurs and they are bleeding comunity . not by mind but by simple age... i don´t want to remember that much how many incidents forced me to take part in furnurals of friends from those days ... the only thing i realy have to realize: the lightningstrokes are getting closer and closer...
At the last post its cute that this point was thrown in the arena... of course it cute to watch an upgrowing number of users that reactivate the old machines from the old days... there are several reasons for that...
on the one side lot of the old community that were forced by profession to work with "Bluemacs" are now getting retired and several guys remember the fun that was related with those "antique computers" and start searching the boxes in their shelves and in the celler on the hunt to get again back to the old days and catch again some fun.... some youngsters get the machines from their parents and get the virus of fun with the old boxes and the fact that it was rather easy to unfold the own creativity in developing own simple hardware without the need to become an engineer before... 8 Bit Hardware with 1 MHz is easier to build than 64 Bit hardware with several GigaHertz... with the new machines its already hightech to make a simple PCB due to problems caused by that impulsspeed... thats not anymore a stuff for newbees... 8 Bit hardware can be realized with a breadboard and a solderingiron in the kitchen... but it´s nearly impossible to execute the same task in the kitchen with 64 Bit hardware...
the same statements are valid in some kind to the software..... there surely is a difference betweeen just playing around with a sectoreditor and old 8 Bit or 16 bit software or menipulating an operation system with several amount of Kilobytes or have you ever executed a task on searchig a special group of Bytes within the code of nowadays operation systems with several millions of Kilobytes ? In old days it took something like few days to disassemble a programm to analyze the functions and today ? you would need months to identify some few functions or tasks - thats no more fum thats boring work ! I do predict an upcoming kind of newbees that will turn back "to the roots" as result of "the fun within".. sure they will stay a minority within the mass of nerds on the hunt for money and "skills" but the minority will survive so far if we will be able to keep the heritage of the feels of the old days and if we are able to show the newbies "the fun within"...

I wonder if I qualify as the oldest poster here?
Sneaking up on 61!

If your concern is not to be sent to the recycle-bin yet, take comfort. You are not the oldest by at least a two-digit margin.

Oh! Don't worry! I don't plan on going
"to the recycle bin" quite yet! :bigsmile:
Got too many things to do yet!

So many machines to hack! So little time!

It IS memorable the note that when the
"computer age" really took off, we were all
snot-nosed "younguns" and now we are
GRANDPARENTS! That there is now at least one
generation of people who have ALWAYS known
computers!

And WE remember TUBE TVs and radios! And
ROTARY DIAL telephones!

… and Wheatstone-bridge pH-meters, paper-chromatography, spirit duplicators, analog(ue) computers, sulfa-drugs, signalling turns with an arm out of the window, gravity-filling with petrol from an overhead sightglass filled by a hand-levered pump … the list goes ever on. But we're still here, and we done seen it all.

Grannysmith;

Well....I've SEEN those gravity gas pumps but never
USED one! But I've SEEN them used! WOW! All of the
other things, yes, I've actually used them or had to
be familiar with them! Even had to perform hand signals
for my drivers license test!

Drove fire apparatus with NO doors or roof! They had
NON-syncro MANUAL transmissions! My first car was a
manual! Now they are a rarity or high-priced sports
car! (Mine was a 1963 Ford Falcon 6 banger!) :bigsmile:

You now have techies that not only can't define a
Wheatstone Bridge, but can't construct one! I used to
build my own comm gear. For some reason I never got
around to taking my HAM test, though.

I STILL regularly build my own computers and like
to do the occasional software hack. Usually for my
own purposes. Getting ready to build another PC for
my personal office after Christmas. All of the parts
are quietly waiting in boxes....

And... I miss DOS! And ProDOS! And Basic! Was a sense
of REAL accomplishment to write one's own program from
scratch! I still write an occasional mini-program (now
I think they are called "apps") for my Apple or older PCs.

Just like the Chronicles Of Sarnia, I am still here on AF although not always readily found.

Connie is in storage and my ice book died at the worst possible time. Now I am using a late 2006 MacBook Pro. I miss Connie and cannot wait to set her back up whenever I hit the States again. She won't die and still plays nice with my home theater system (also in storage) - they don't make them like that anymore.

Doug-Doug,

Wow!
Glad to hear from you.
It's been quite a while since you've been up.

You doin' ok?

Steven

Do I count as old guard? I'm old, and I used to be in the Guard (SD Air National Guard, that is), I joined AF quite some time ago, but it's been a long while since I've spent much (any) time on the board. Longer than I care to admit.

FWIW, I'm still using Macs, and still have a room full of old stuff that's been collecting too much dust of late, and my wife is on me to do something with some of it. I'm not getting any younger, and after a battle with The Big "C" in the last year (on two fronts), I'm about ready. I think.

Anyway, it's fun to see some of the names here again. Might have to lurk a bit and catch up.

Cheers!

I'm still offering advice when I can.

It looks like I'm back here to stay for various reasons. I think I'll reboot my username again while I'm at it . . .
. . . might as well sign on as a n00b for all I've (not) been here during the HP_Mini phase of my life.

It looks like I'm back here to stay for various reasons./

You'll have to catch me up on those reasons sometime. (I've noticed a certain tumbleweedy-ness in certain places since certain things went down.) In any case, good to see you.

Thanks for the welcome, EudiG.

I don't think it's necessary to go into any details about the migration, if that's what is happening.

I've gotta try to get my IIsi Memory Hack introduced over here. I tried last night, but got a drupal error and lost it. I've also gotta get used to the new UI over here. Making a reply is easy enough, but I need to figure out how topic posting works with the teaser thing and all.

jt

p.s. what's the pixel limit for avatars now? I'm looking forward to doing a PogoHamster makeover. :mac:

I'm back as well. Was a regular back in the YaBB days, actually haven't been on here in years, but...I'm back.

I never left, but I've been quiet lately

In much the way I do with many forums, I have lurked on and off for like a decade.

Hey whats up guys

hopefully some informative and entertaining posts to come

Welcome aboard, uni! It's gonna be fun and games here again like it was back in the day. :mac:

Hello all,

Its been a while and I've grown up a bit, but I still check in too. Its been over eight years since I reregistered here at the urging of madmax_2069. Its nice to see you here, Oddball. Has that been your avatar in the four years you've been registered? Its pretty hilarious.

Nice to see Oelmuvun out and bout too.

//whatthehellswithwindows

Thanks, it has, but it dates all the way back to my Trash80toG-4 incarnation in the days of the really old guard. I pulled it off the old HDDs when I returned to the WWW and re-enlisted as Trash80toHP_Mini.

One day I'll hopefully run across my second stab at online animation, the PogoHamster Christmas edition. Once I find out the pixel limits of the avatars here, they'll be updated to match my latest reincarnation.

BTW, it's nice to finally find out wthwwwthww. :mac:

jt

Once I find out the pixel limits of the avatars here, they'll be updated to match my latest reincarnation.

85x85 pixels, and maximum file size of 30KB.

I don't know if I'm technically old guard, I quit posting after the move from YaBB, but I was active for a while in the old Colour Classic forum.

I'm a regular lurker though. Not regular enough to catch this thread in 2010 when it first came up, but...

Kind of nice to see some familiar faces here again though.

I don't know if I count either, but I've been on and off since at least 2003 under at least two different usernames. As I was reading this thread, I was struck by how much has happened since I joined: got almost 3 degrees; got married; moved out; lost some dear friends, and made a lot more new ones.

I still have my Macs (a fair number of older and newer ones, and my wife adds to that total even though she lives on the other side of the state) but I don't get to play with them much. Thinking about it, playing with computers doesn't produce a tangible product; maybe that's another reason I stopped? Maybe I will again soon? My cameras (for which I got one of my degrees) quasi-languish on their shelves, and I don't get to pull those out as often as I should, either.

I'm in the process of burning bridges, decluttering, and doing some major changes to my life- and that's preoccupying most of my intellectual energy that's left. I won't say what, but hopefully it normalizes in the next year or so and frees some of that back up.

Wow. It's been a while. It's a amazing how having a productive 9-5, a wife, two kids, two cars, and a house will keep you from really engaging in your hobbies. I guess these days I feel too guilty about "goofing off" instead of having time with the family or helping out my wife with housework and watching the kids to really dig in on the hobby.

That said, I do come back and read through the forums (mostly without logging in) once a month or so. I've noticed that most of the traffic is related to Apple II stuff. That's good, I guess. The site has it's niche audience, but I'm just not that interested in Apple II era machines to participate (or really even read the threads).

Some of you may know that I run ppcmla.com. I'm thinking about closing up shop. Activity there is really really low, and last month some hackers set up a spam server on my site. It's not really worth the effort to keep it online anymore. That's too bad because I put a ton of effort into the UI on that site.

Take care, folks!

Looks like you already closed up shop. Never went to the site before (had not heard of it) would have liked to have seen it.

I spend almost as much time with macs (both old and new) as I do with the Apple IIs. (actually more since I work daily on modern Macs like the one I'm typing this on!)

Perhaps I'll see you around online.
Best of luck,
Zan

Not closed yet. If you went to the URL in my post above, be aware that I spelled it wrong (go figure). I corrected that. The URL is http://www.ppcmla.com. It's also in my sig.

Peace,
Drew

Drew,

I hope you don't close up.
I just found your site and registered.

I have a few PPC's sitting here and another board full of info never hurts.

"Power PC. It's Alive too!!"

Steven

i have quite a few PPC's and i didn't know about the site either,

i tried to register, but got blocked by the spam filter...
if you have not closed shop yet to new users, i would like to register...