May 13, 2008 Archives

I am the tech support guy. I usually have a computer or two hanging around the house, needing repairs. These come from friends and associates. It's a challenge, which means I enjoy it.

My friend Farrell's mom's machine is on the floor next to me. Once a very pricey Fujitsu, this laptop is getting a little long in the tooth. It was gunked up with a little spyware and some tiny applets; only a problem in the aggregate.

There was one other problem. Ruth had somehow locked the computer with user name and password she didn't know!

If you have your PC password protected, I have bad news. With a quickly downloaded copy of the "Emergency Boot and Recovery Disk," I logged on and was in control of users and passwords in under five minutes!

I told the family the laptop would benefit from more memory... but it's at its design limit already.

It will work and do everything Ruth wants. It will do it more slowly than I'd like.

She would actually be the perfect candidate for Linux, though I haven't (and probably won't) mention it. It's a little less CPU intensive than Windows XP, meaning it will be faster, and it has all the applications she wants and uses.

Linux still scares most users who cling to the belief Microsoft is some sort of gold standard. Of course, to me Linux is worn as a geek merit badge.

One thing I did do was install logmein. Next time, the repair is done via remote control! There are now seven machines I can operate from home.

I just posted this on dpreview.com, but I guess I might as well post it here too:

I'm looking for some advice from forum members.

I am interested in doing a photo workshop sometime in September. I've never gone to one before. I am a reasonably competent amateur. I'm still shooting an original 300D Digital Rebel (over 40,000 shots) and use mainly Sigma lenses.

I'd like to concentrate on shooting skills. I'm already pretty good with Photoshop, which I use on a regular basis at work.

I am looking to go somewhere beautiful, not worried about some hiking (I'm 57, work at a desk and reflect much of what that implies), and will fly anywhere Southwest goes, rent a car and drive where necessary.

I looked at a website for a Rocky Mountain National Park workshop run by Andy Cook & Bruce du Fresne. It seems to be along the lines of what I'm looking for, though it might be too short for my long trip. I don't know.

Actually, that's the operative phrase: I don't know. So, any suggestions will be appreciated.

I'll let you know what comes of this.