 I purchased my first proper computer in 2003. It was an E-Machines, which I brought from PC World. When I got it, the machine was great, however over the years it showed it's limitations, and got gradually slower and slower. In early 2008 it finally died, I later discovered that the PSU short circuited, blowing out the mother board, and my scanner. Of course by this time a computer was invaluable to our existence. I was teaching myself how to build and manage web-sites, and Caroline was in daily e-mail contact with her family in the Caribbean. So there were two priorities, firstly we had to get a computer as soon as possible, secondly we needed to get a computer that would last as long as possible for us. Until the day that the E-Machine died I had never taken the side off a computer, I had no idea what went on inside. In fact the idea of even taking the side off the computer worried me. I took the old computer round to the friend of a friend who knew about these things. He whipped the side off and pronounced the thing as being dead. However in that short time I was able to get a grasp as to how everything went together, and contemplated the possibility of doing a self-build.  In the meantime we acquired a a cheap 2nd hand computer with the intention that it would be a stop-gap until such time as we had organised things with regards our 'proper' machine. You will see that I quickly got into mixing & matching components. The CDr/DVD drive you see is not the one that came with it, but the one that I took out of the old E-Machine.
The more research I did, the more I realised that a self-build was going to be the way to go. Not only would it work out cheaper to buy components separately, but I would learn about a lot more about computers. As I continued to look at various options I read a magazine article about Linux. To not have to continually buy into Windows and Microsoft seemed a good idea, especially as I had heard many thinks against Vista – the latest Windows operating system.
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