Bill Bumgarner

Finally, I a generational label that is somewhat applicable to me. Yes, I'm a part of the Tech Support Generation.

This week, we are with my family in the midwest and, yes, I'm doing some tech support work on my mom's computing environment.

Of course, my mom has long been a Mac user. Instead of dealing with hours of uninstalling spyware, virii, and trying to coerce broken Windows systems into appearing to be useful, my time has been spent upgrading an AirPort Extreme base station, installing an AirPort Express on the stereo so mom can play music from her computer (she is an iTMS addict) on the house stereo, and... well.. that's it because the system otherwise "just works".

With the recent AirPort update, AirTunes-- playback of music through the AirPort Express-- now works simultaneously with WDS. I don't believe that worked in the first release. In any case, it means that the AirPort express is quite effectively extending the range of the house's airport network while also acting as a music playback device.

Given that my tech support duties were over and done with in about an hour, I spent a part of yesterday afternoon playing with mom's digital camera. It came with ArcSoft's Panorama Maker. First time I have played with such software. PM is pretty cool, though the UI isn't great and the software tends to spend a lot of time not responding to the user.

With some patience, I did make some panoramic shots of the back yard, including a QTVR (which is higher resolution then that little QT frame might indicate). Yes, land is considerably cheaper in the midwest than on the east or west coast.

Now... back to [over]consuming, playing with my son and the dog, hanging out with the family, and not tediously trying to hand edit the Windows Registry....