User:MacGuiver

Hi, I'm Martin Guiver. I became 60 years old this year (2005) and am now retired. I joined Wikipedia on 17th December 2005.

My user name originated when I worked for Apple Computer Inc., who (used to) make Macintosh computers.

My surname is Guiver; this is an old English family but there aren't many of us around (although small numbers of us are spread all over the world!). Even the English have difficulty in pronouncing this name correctly and remembering it. I live (and worked) in Holland, where they found the name even more difficult to remember.

However, there used to be a well-known television series called McGyver; wild adventures about someone who could get out of all kinds of scrapes and fix just about anything with a pocket knife (Swiss Army, of course!) and a roll of duct tape. I'm pretty much the same, so MacGuiver (which is pronounced almost the same way and was easy to remember) became my user name at Apple...

Wikipedia sounds like an interesting concept to me; why should we have to give money to Encyclopedia Brittanica to access knowledge? Knowledge should be free!

Initially I would like to describe a number of Portuguese towns that I have visited this year while sailing (one hobby) along the Portuguese coast and add some of my own photographs (another hobby).

Who knows what else I may get involved in?