Screenshot Memory - Windows 8.1

I thought it might be fun to look at the oldest image I have in my screenshots folder in OneDrive. I didn't realize I had so many images in there, but I guess all my screenshots have been backup up for many years in Windows since I have a Microsoft Account and use OneDrive. So, it was no surprise to me to find my oldest image being a Windows 8.1 start screen. I don't know why I would have made this screenshot, but there it was.

A Windows Start screen with a space-themed background, divided into multiple sections containing application tiles. On the left, a weather tile shows '80° Ogden Clear' with forecasts for today and tomorrow. Below it are icons for the desktop, FileZilla, and another application. The middle section, labeled 'Interwebz,' includes Mail, Mozilla Firefox, Skype for desktop, Rayman Fiesta Run, Minecraft, and gPodder. To the right, tiles for folders such as Videos, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, and Music are present alongside Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe Bridge CS5, and Reading List. The far-right section, labeled 'Gaming,' showcases icons for Ventrilo, Fraps, Steam, PlanetSide 2, The Sims 3 Late Night, Trabi Evolution Gold Edition, World of Warcraft, and Euro Truck Simulator 2. A notification tile reads, 'YOU HAVE BONUS CHIPS READY TO BE CLAIMED!

This image brought back a bunch of memories. It was kind of fun looking over the apps I had installed on the computer and added to my Start screen. The gaming section made me smile because it had Ventrilo and Fraps on there. Ventrilo was my goto app for playing games with friends and family online well before Discord was ever a thing. I used Fraps to record my gameplay with the intent of uploading gameplay content to YouTube. I think I managed to upload like 6 videos before I decided I wasn't that great in that space and dropped the idea. After that, I mainly recored gameplay in case something amusing happened and then I would clip the video and share it with my friends.

One program caught my attention that I haven't thought of for a long time: Synergy. This was an awesome app that would allow me to use a single keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers. I wanted a desktop setup with two monitors at the time, but I didn't have a computer that could handle a second monitor at the time. What I ended up doing was buying a cheap used laptop, put Linux on it, and used that computer to run a second monitor. I then used Synergy to control both my Windows machine and my Linux machine and had my two-monitor setup that I used for a long time.

The other memory that popped up while reviewing this image was Windows 8 itself. I had actually moved away from Windows a few years prior to the release of Windows 8 because I got bored with Windows. I had started using Linux at the time and enjoyed trying different Linux distros, but I got came back to Windows because of Windows 8.

I started working with a retailer that sold Windows computers a few months before Windows 8 came out. We went through a training program to become familiar with all the user interface (UI) to help us introduce this radical change to customers. The training included a copy of Windows 8.1 as a thanks for becoming "Windows 8 Certified." I was so intrigued by the addition of the Start Screen and the other changes that came to Windows 8 that I ended up installing it on my main computer. I was one of the few that really liked this version of Windows, and it was only because it was different.

Anyway, that was fun. I might have to slowly go through more of the screenshots and see if I can find other fun things I snipped over the years.

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