Digital Home Thoughts: Yet Another “New Guy'...

Apparently Jason is indeed determined to OUT SOURCE as much work as possible. :) Either that or he simply felt it was politically imperative to have someone represent the - ahh - More Experienced Thoughts Media audience....

eWallet's entry for "PocketPCThoughts" says my Password was changed in Aug 2004, so have been hanging around for a bit (what happened to the early posts?! Sorry - rhetorical question...), and, along with the other new Trainees, am hoping to make a more consistent contribution to a site that has proved informative and fun to visit.

Like many visitors to tech sites, I have a broad range of interests:

AV background extends from phonographs (still the sweetest sound) and reel-to-reel tape, through audio cassettes and CDs, & on to HD-DVDs, Blu-ray, and a pair of plasma TVs. In computing, we go back to punch cards & magnetic tape (and Eight Inch Floppies!), through home built systems (at least 3 still in use), a small stack of notebooks, and on to a Dell Mini 10v - which, in theory, is more powerful than any of the owned notebooks!

I've done a lot of "document-centric" and CRM work, and thus have always had an interest in scanners, printers, text search, and OCR (was a beta tester for OmniPage 17), along with PIMs and more powerful CRM & database programs. My first PDA, a Handspring Visor Platinum, was purchased to extend PIM/CRM data to a handheld platform. Then moved to a Dell Axim, which still sees frequent use even though a Fuze is now the main PDA/Smartphone unit.

As for photography, at one time we had an older darkroom set up, but am afraid that I have now become a "casual photographer," having turned my Asahi Pentax Spotmatic II system over to our youngest daughter, who runs it alongside a Pentax DSLR kit. Main personal camera is now a Canon S3 IS, with a small "kit"; but also have a couple of old 35mm rangefinders, a slightly newer Nikon 35mm compact, and a pair of Canon digital compacts (A70 & 590IS).

Hopefully that is enough tech background to warrant what is sometimes labeled an "Old School" approach to things - but also hope that this rather lengthy intro will spur some conversations with those of similar interests!

On the non-technical side, we have five children - the youngest a Junior in college - and became Grandparents earlier this year. I am "semi-retired" (as are many here in SE MI, whether by choice or otherwise); we lead the MarriageBuilders team at our church, and are active in a local non-profit. And, again like many who frequent tech sites, am often called upon to express an opinion about some technical purchase or another - which at least tends to keep one somewhat up-to-date!

That about does it for now (!) - trust that this finds everyone well (and reasonably warm!).