My first encounter was with Windows XP. At that time, I didn't know that computers could play games; my "games" were the system's built-in Paint software, and later, Microsoft Office 2007, which I opened under my father's guidance. As early as first grade, I learned to type in Word, set page numbers, update index directories, and then print them out into tangible paper. Subsequently, I self-taught how to use Excel to make class schedules and add fancy animations to elements in PPT.
Once while organizing wrong answers, I learned to use a scanner to import book pages into the computer, use the basic version of Adobe Photoshop I had just learned to increase contrast, erase the wrong answers on the error book, and restore the background to pure white. During this period, I also encountered Kingsoft Art.
At that time, the Chinese internet was in an era of wild growth. Using 360, Liebao, and Sogou browsers, I could freely access many websites without logging in, and my favorite was俯瞰城市肌理 in Google Earth. To watch movies, I learned to find resources on torrent sites and download them with Xunlei; for listening to music, I used the newly launched Kugou Music, enjoying the benefits of free downloads across the internet. But because of this, piracy, rogue software, and viruses were rampant, exposing me at an unprepared age to antivirus software like 360 Security卫士, and through battles of wits with viruses, I developed my initial cybersecurity awareness.
By second or third grade, my system was upgraded to Windows 7. Office 2010 became my new favorite, and I started tinkering with Excel's drag-and-drop sequences, VBA basics, and more complex PPT templates, while WPS Office also entered my field of view. For audio and video, QQ影音,暴风影音, and iQiyi became standard, and I顺势 registered my first WeChat account. At that time, I felt happy just being able to simply go online, watch some cartoons, and play with Office.
During this stage, I also briefly encountered OS X 10.7 Lion. Although I only used it twice, to complete a school "video assignment," I used iMovie for the first time, planting the initial impression of the Mac ecosystem.
At that time, I hadn't encountered Bilibili yet; I mainly used iQiyi and Youku. These two websites often had long video ads, but their search results would also show some videos from external sites, including bilibili. At that time, Bilibili was still a breath of fresh air. Youku and iQiyi were filled with冗长的 ads, while the B站播放器 loading screen with the small TV写着“高能正在来袭” became my pure land.
In 2016, news of Windows 10's release was buzzing. I was deeply attracted by its flat design and dynamic tiles, almost considering it my "dream system." Unfortunately, I was using my father's old computer, which couldn't handle Win 10, so I had to settle for the next best thing, switching to Windows 8.1, and Office was also upgraded to 2013. In the same year, I registered for QQ. Also during this period, following the vine of PS, I touched upon Au and Ai, learned to crack the Adobe全家桶, and一度痴迷于桌面美化—transparent taskbars, Dock bars, dynamic壁纸, I折腾 Windows into various花样.
Due to performance limitations, I once missed out on Premiere, which is resource-intensive, and instead mastered lightweight tools like爱剪辑. I also tried凡科建站 for the first time to build my first website, although I stopped managing it after two months; without a server or domain name, I experienced the joy of being a站长.
2018 was a turning point year. My computer changed from a Thinkpad to a 2011 MacBook Pro. Although it was an old machine, the graphical操作体验 brought by macOS Sierra quickly won me over. I found that iWork's ease of use for simple文字工作 far exceeded the冗杂 functionality of Office and WPS.
In August 2020, during the pandemic, I switched to a brand-new小米 notebook,迎来ing an overhaul of my toolkit: browsers全面转向 Google Chrome and the then-still-clean Microsoft Edge; compression software switched to BandZIP; at school, I learned 3Ds Max, self-taught FL Studio and VS Code, and finally used the long-awaited PR and AE.
However, the most疯狂壮举 of this period was莫过于“Hackintosh”.
Since there was no Sketch on the Windows端, I initially tried using Adobe XD for原型设计 and矢量图绘制, but its difficulty and糟糕的稳定性 made me忍无可忍. In a fit of anger, I started折腾 Hackintosh, and in early 2021, successfully ran macOS Big Sur with support for Handoff on this小米 notebook.
Once the Pandora's box of tinkering was opened, it couldn't be closed. In 2022, I purchased a cloud server,初次 encountering CentOS 7 and宝塔面板. On the notebook, I折腾 from dual-boot to triple-boot, installed Ubuntu and deepinOS, but due to the inertia of software and device ecosystems, the daily主力 was still that set of Hackintosh. Meanwhile, with increasing video production demands, I started using剪映, and mastered OBS Studio's推流操作.
The tide of时代 rolls forward. In 2023, when large models掀起革命, limited by ChatGPT's registration threshold, I turned to百度's文心一言,初步体验ing the power of AI. In October 2024, after the高考 ended, I entered university campus, and finally owned a brand-new MacBook Pro with Apple芯片. Tools were no longer bottlenecks限制想象力; I smoothly used Xcode, Final Cut Pro, and a host of JetBrains系重型开发 tools like WebStorm and IDEA.
In文字创作, I also completed the transformation from重型排版 to纯粹表达. No longer执着于 Word's复杂排版, I moved my阵地 to Typora, Lattics, Obsidian, and Ulysses. They专注于文字表达与知识的沉淀, just like the current me.
In spring 2025, it was the second time I接触ed large model AI, and soon experienced relatively more mature AIGC model capabilities. From then until now, Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini have become my most important生产力工具.
Looking back over these over ten years, from a child doodling in画图板, to a大学生熟练穿梭于终端 and IDE, these更迭的系统与软件 are not just tools, but digital witnesses of my growth along the way.
Digital Chronicles
Digital Chronicles