Hi, my name is Malke Routh. My background is fine arts and crafts and English Literature. I started out as a painter and then spent quite a few years as a potter working in porcelain. Nothing to do with computers! However, like many artists I have always had a Day Job and it was during those Day Jobs that I became fascinated with computers. At that time, my involvement was only as a user but I was a user who wanted to find out everything about using the programs on those computers - early Apples and PC's running DOS.

Years passed, my life changed, and our oldest son was begging us to buy him a computer. Being a Book Person I resisted - I wasn't going to buy a computer to run a Peter Rabbit program when I could read him the books. However, the time seemed right when The Boy was going into Second Grade so we bought a very expensive computer running Windows 95. Unfortunately (or fortunately as you will see), this computer was a major lemon. I spent countless hours talking to tech support and at some point during this process I became captivated by computers. I'm a very focused person (my family and friends would use a less complimentary term!) so I began to stuff my brain with everything I could learn about these wonderful machines. I haven't stopped yet.

In 2000 I decided to try and make a living from my passion and opened Elephant Boy Computers here in Fresno, California. I'm not The Elephant Boy - the name comes from a picture I took of my youngest son wearing a paper elephant mask when he was in pre-school. I scanned the snapshot and the official name and mascot of Elephant Boy Computers was born.

I continue to be fascinated by computers, both software and hardware, and I support all of the Microsoft operating systems from DOS through Server 2003, Linux, and - with my recent purchase of a MacBook - OS X. Aside from computers, I love my children, my cats, and I still am a Book Person. Although I don't expect to turn my clients into geeks like me, I do want them to feel comfortable and productive with their systems. I like helping people with their computers, and that's why I volunteer my time helping in the Microsoft public newsgroups and on a few web forums like the wonderful Computer Haven. Helping people like you makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy, too.

Click the arrow to meet Steve Winograd.