Dan
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About Dan Goodell . . .
I'm originally from Hawaii, but have been in California too long to call myself a Hawaiian anymore.

The total solar eclipse of 2017 was a major event across the United States. I saw the 1979 eclipse, and chased the 1991 eclipse to Hawaii, only to be thwarted at the last half-hour by an unseasonal cloud cover. Here's my photo of the 1979 eclipse.

I am a retired computer consultant specializing in providing computer services to the real estate and related professionals, small businesses, and home users, including:
  • PC consulting, maintenance, troubleshooting, upgrades and repairs
  • software installation, upgrading, virus/malware cleanup
  • small business networking and PC maintenance
  • websites for business and non-profit organizations
  • personal webpage design and cgi programming

My Library of utilities contains a collection of tidbits I developed to make DOS tasks easier. Many of my programs and utilities soon became available on CompuServe and made their way around to other Internet depositories, as well. When I started my webpage in 1996, they became available here as well.

By 1998 the Y2K ("Year-2000") crisis had bubbled up into a hot topic worldwide, although a relatively small group of techs had known about it and had already been working on it for several years. My hardware test program, 2000TEST, was originally written in 1996. While the crisis with software was real, the problem with PC hardware was often blown out of proportion. 2000TEST was used by thousands of people to check their PCs, to understand the real nature of the problem and to wade through the mass of hyperbole and misinformation.

Over the years, other projects have included setting up computers to boot multiple operating systems. I first began dual-booting in 1986 with DOS 3.3 on a 20 MB hard disk, for the purpose of separating work and personal environments. In the ensuing years I was soon triple-booting and then looking for ways to multi-boot even more operating systems. After a lot of research and trial-and-error, I finally settled on a universally successful solution. I've documented my multi-booting procedure here, which I still use today to multi-boot everything from DOS to Windows 10.

By 2005 I began using virtualization in lieu of alternate boot partitions to run multiple operating systems. I've found it an excellent method for isolating internet browsing sessions, as well as testing new software before committing it to my "real" machine.

In fact, a lot of my research into the Dell PC-Restore system was done via virtual machines.

In 2004 the Dell Computer company began shipping XP-equipped consumer PCs with a proprietary factory restore feature. Documentation was virtually non-existant and the feature--not particularly well designed--easily broke and malfunctioned. My investigation and treatise soon became recognized world-wide as the definitive source for information regarding the feature. Over a four-year period that page alone was regularly receiving around 2,000 unique visitors per day from exasperated Dell users.

Trivia: My webpage debuted online Nov 24, 1995 - long before most people were aware of the World Wide Web. At the time there were not very many personal webpages online, and it was rather unclear what a personal webpage could be used for. My inaugural webpage opened with a phrase that reflected that ambiguity. Much has changed since those fledgling years, but one thing remains from that original webpage: that opening phrase still introduces this website.
Updated 01/20/2017