J.C. Hutchins's first installment of the 7th Son trilogy, 7th Son: Descent, hit book stores recently.

I don't read much fiction. I prefer to get my fiction fix by watching movies. This book, however, is worth reading over and over again. J.C. Hutchins tried, unsucessfully, to get his story published before releasing it as a free podcast. I discovered his podcast just before his final book was released on audio. He took to the podosphere and used the power of the internet to spread the message about his book.

After amassing an enormous following to his podcast, publishers finally started to take notice. And now, 7th Son is in print!

The story starts with the brutal assisination of the President by a 4 year child. Readers quickly learn that there is an evil conspiracy consisting of clones and government officials with code phantom clearance.



J.C. is a masterful storyteller and 7th Son is the creepiest story I have ever read. The podcast version of the book is still available, check out the info here. You can also purchase a copy from your favorite bookstore, or from Amazon.

If you're in to sci-fi thrillers, this one will not dissapoint!

If you do pick up a copy, tell J.C. that Beta Clone #235 sent you.

Andy continues to fan the fire he started last week. And it appears that his plan to #stir things up is gaining momentum. Local blogger, SlickDiaz, wrote a well thought out piece on his blog, Reclaiming the Title. Rod has not been silent on the matter, either. On Friday, Ian added his voice to the mix. What we have here is a handful of passionate Stocktonians, wanting to increase communication throughout our communities. How cool is that? Seriously. That is cool!


The What
We have an opportunity to increase communication between city departments, elected officials and the people of Stockton. I don’t know if we’ve been at this point before. I don’t know if we are here now because of technology or because people are just becoming more energized. It is likely both. The web, with current services like Twitter and Facebook, give us the ability to interact with friends and family. It can also give us the ability to interact with our local government.

While I agree that most people don’t trust their elected officials, I do not believe that you need to trust someone to interact with them online. We need an easier way for citizens to get up-to-date information from local government and for these citizens to have tools with which to communicate with the city. Not everyone can (or wants to) attend city council meetings. Writing a letter, and even sending an e-mail, can be arduous. Using Facebook and Twitter is a simpler way.


The Who
As it relates to social media consumption, I see three populations in Stockton. Andy, Slick, Rod, Ian and I are in one group - the “veterans”, for lack of a better term. In another group are those that have no access to a computer and may not own a cell phone. The third group is the one I will refer to as the “fringe”. This is the population that may already use the web to get news and may have even visited our city’s website (provided that they remember what the URL is). They may have delved into social media but only to have fun with their friends or keep tabs on their favorite American Idol contestant/judge/host.

The size of the fringe is not insignificant. I would argue that it is the biggest of the three groups. This is the group on which we should be focusing our energy.

We mustn’t forget about that second part of the population: those on the other side of the digital divide. We still need traditional communication channels for this group. We need the smart people in our community to come up with better ways to get this population engaged.


The How
We need to reach the fringe. Not to sell them on Twitter or Facebook. Rather, we need to have an open dialog about new ways to communicate with the City. It is our job, as members of the veteran group, to help spread the word to the fringe.

We need to hold social-media town halls. Although I am very much a fan of meet-ups (can’t wait for our first Tweetup!), getting a bunch of veterans together won’t do much to get new participants involved. We can hold how-to sessions at local libraries. We can also do what we’re doing now, talk to our friends, family and neighbors. We can keep stirring it up.

In order to realize any success in this regard, the City of Stockton must officially jump into the mix. They need to start small and identify what departments are best suited for this new medium. The city cannot wait for “enough people” to be in the channel before ramping up their efforts.

To help the city along, the Record must dedicate some space to educating the community about social media. The Record’s managing editor, Dan Blount blogged a simple post recently. Writing about social networking sites, Mr. Blount added, “As the world expands, it continues to contract through the use of these media.” We need more than a quick blog entry. The Record has the power to get in front of a lot eyeballs. This cause could benefit from that power.


The Question
What else can we do to increase and improve communication amongst the city and its citizens? What ideas do you have? Leave a comment or send an e-mail to matt-at-mattbeckwith.com.

At the end of the day, Twitter and Facebook are awesome tools to start a conversation. We need more conversations in this city and we need more people in the conversation.

I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to roll around. I couldn’t wait to get home today to update my iPhone to the new 3.0 OS.

I was really looking forward to text forwarding, typing in landscape mode and of course, finally being able to cut, copy and paste, although I must admit, I almost never use cut - I’m more of a copy-paste kind of guy. I was also looking forward to Spotlight. Not being able to search through e-mail has always been a problem for me. More important than searching through e-mail, though, not being able to search the Note field in contacts has always been an issue.

I keep a lot of information in that field and rely on the search feature in Address Book on Mac OS X a lot. Recently, I came across a cool article about twins. I know a few other twins and parents of twins and wanted to forward it. From my iMac, I opened up Address Book and searched for ‘twin’. Since I noted ‘twin’ in the note field for people that are, or have, twins I was able to quickly identify those I wanted to send the link to. Searching for Contacts on the iPhone, however, does not work this way.

I was really hoping that Spotlight on the new 3.0 software would correct this flaw (since Spotlight on my desktop searches that field just fine) but sadly, it did not.

Then I remembered a booth I visited the last time I was at Macworld. Polar Bear Farms was showing off an application for iPhones that had been jailbroken called Search. The write up in iTunes mentioned that it searched the Note field so I spent the $4.99 and got it. Of course, it worked like a champ.

So, kudos to the team over at Polar Bear Farms for filling a void that Apple left with Spotlight on iPhone OS 3.0. They have some other really cool looking apps as well, check them out.

Hopefully, this weekend I’ll be able to pick up a 3G S!

I finally got my new toy a couple of weeks ago, a Canon Rebel T1i. After months of shopping around I finally settled on the Canon XSi. Having never shot with a digital SLR before that model seemed to be a great starting point. So, I did what any prudent person would do: I announced my decision on Twitter. Within just a few minutes I had several replies. One of them was from Rich, a friend of mine from Colorado, saying that I should look at the new T1i which would be coming out in just a few weeks.

Given that the T1i, with 15.1 mega pixels, also takes HD video with resolutions up to 1920 x 1080, I decided to delay gratification and order Canon’s newest model. Then, I waited. And waited. And waited. With Canon only saying that its release would be “sometime in May” I was pleasantly surprised when came early in the month.



Along with the kit lens (18-55mm IS) I also picked up a 70-300mm zoom lens and a 60mm macro lens. I would love to give a full review of the camera but there is still so much I don’t know about it. Having only shot with point-and-shoot cameras before I fully recognize the fact that there is a steep learning curve here. What I do know is that I love shooting with it. I love the speed of the camera. Compared to my old S5, I love the ability to shoot when I want to as opposed to waiting for the power cycle, zoom, focus and shutter.

I haven’t had a lot of time to get out and shoot with it yet but have taken some shots, posted to Flickr of course. Stay tuned for more!

Steve Jobs's (temporary, perhaps) absence from Apple, Inc. will be just a blip on the radar.
 
In an e-mail to Apple employees, Steve Jobs announced he would be taking a medical leave from the company until June.  Saying that his “ health-related issues are more complex” than he originally thought. He told employees that Tim Cook would lead the organization during his leave and that he looked forward to seeing them again “this summer”.
 
Rumors about his declining health have been flying around as furiously as iPhones off store shelves.  Ever since it was announced that he had pancreatic cancer in 2004, we have heard from analysts, critics and bloggers that have predicted the end of Apple’s market dominance if Steve Jobs were to depart.
  Read More...

Recently, on Dancing with Elephants, I heard about a man trying to whittle his personal belongings down to 100 items. Greg and Tonya asked their audience to write in with what 10 things they couldn’t live without. That got me thinking: as a self-professed, but improving, pack-rat, could there be only 10 things with which I couldn’t live?

So, to start, I did a rough inventory of the Outback. For those of you that are new here, that’s the name of our home office / recording studio. Our first home had a separate room in the back yard, which was the whole reason I wanted to buy that house, that served as an office and studio. When my oldest brother, Ken, saw it he instantly christened it the Outback. On a somewhat unrelated note, it was also Ken that gave Emily the nickname she uses today, Emo, the day she was born.

Back to the story. These days, the Outback is inside but still serves, in addition to a home office and recording studio, as my personal junk drawer. While I was up late recently I started counting and cataloging nearly everything in the Outback. Here’s what I came up with so far:

87 shot glasses
9 century patches

Read More...

After returning home from camping, I finally downloaded iTunes 7.7 and iPhone 2.0. Even though I’m not getting the new 3G iPhone I have been really looking forward to the new software.

I had just won a $50 gift card from Stacey over at Pill’s Place so I decided to get an iTunes card, just in time for the opening of the App Store (and the purchase of Alan Jackson’s Good Time).

In addition to the App Store, 2.0 has some new features, such as the ability to do a screen shot (Jason Tucker explains how). Now I can easily show the applications I’ve downloaded.



So far, my favorite apps are:
Remote - now I can control my iTunes from my iPhone... awesome!
Guitar Toolkit - A great portable guitar tuner
Where To? - An app that shows nearby restaurants, attractions, etc.
Super Monkey Ball - fun game, kids will probably play more than I do
Fuel Gauge (MPG) - helps me track my gas mileage
Tetris - amazing game for the iPhone, a must have!
AOL Radio - I know, it’s AOL, but the interface is beautiful and the music choices are great!

I was also thrilled to see the push services work. Since I rely heavily on iCal and Address Book (and, oh yeah, Mail) I can now go about my day no longer worrying that I may double book myself. Another new feature I really like is the way passwords are masked. Now, the last character is left un-masked until the next character is typed - very helpful when I fat-finger a password and forget what I’ve already typed.

So, thanks Stacey, for letting me go wild on the App Store!

Do you have an iPhone? What are some your favorite apps? E-mail me (mb@mattbeckwith.com) or post your favorites in the comments section.

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to my iPhone
Happy birthday to you

Of course, everyone knows that the iPhone turned 1 today. I still love my iPhone as much as I did the day I brought it home and am proud of the fact that even though I have dropped it several times it still works fine (except that the vibe doesn’t work).

I originally planned on waiting until June 29th to write "Why I Still Love the iPhone One Year Later". With any luck, however, I won't have the same iPhone on 6/29.



I was one of those crazy people that stood in line overnight to get my hands on the first iPhone. Emily and I spent 20 hours in line in front of a local AT&T store and were, in fact, one of the first people in the store when they opened the doors at precisely 6:00 PM on Friday, June 29, 2007, amidst cheers and applause.

My impression of the new device and the launch event was very favorable. In my mind, I had built up the new super phone to be the greatest thing since the invention of, well, you guessed it, the phone. How do I feel about the phone a year later? I still love it. The seemless integration with my e-mail, iCal, Contacts, pictures and videos makes it one of the most useful tech gadgets I have ever used.

Having said that, I am super-excited about the rumored next generation iPhone announcement next week. Nearly all rumors point to the new iPhone running on the much faster 3G wireless network and being available in larger capacities, among other exciting offerings.

Of course I understand that next week's WWDC is about more than just the iPhone. Perhaps we'll see some new hardware. Perhaps all of the iPhone chatter has provided a convenient cloak for some other new whiz-bang; only time will tell. For me, it's all about the iPhone, so here are my hopes for what happens tomorrow on the iPhone front (in order of personal importance).

* New iPhone available for purchase
* Lower price, subsidized by AT&T
* 32 and 64 GB models
* Copy and paste (c'mon, why did I have to wait a year for this!?!)
* Picture messaging (I am so tired of the "... has sent you a picture..." messages)
* Search functionality (like PBF Search)
* Video camera (like PBF ShowTime)
* Over-the-air syncing with dot-mac (or whatever it'll be called after next week)
* Native IM with video
* Flash
* GPS

I am also excited about the launch of the new App Store. I am not much of a gamer but the games that were shown at the SDK launch were pretty cool. Also, I can't wait to see what the jailbreakers have been bragging about.

If you have some time to kill tomorrow morning, check out 2008 WWDC keynote bingo. Me, I'll be following on MacRumorsLive and Twitter (although, based on the recent health of Twitter I would venture to guess that this site will crash tomorrow).

I will not be attending WWDC but, as luck would have it, I will be in San Francisco on Monday afternoon, perhaps a trip to Stockton street will be in order.

Drum roll, please.

Merriam-Webster gave the honor to 'w00t'. American Dialect Society gave it to 'subprime'. Locavore earned the dubious honor from Oxford.

Not one to shy away from popular fads on the internet, I wanted to play along. After careful consideration and some deliberation with Dawn, I have chosen the mattbeckwith.com word of the year: podcast.



Ok, so some of you might catch me on the technicality here. Oxford named 'podcast' their word of the year in 2005. I started listening to podcasts in 2005 and in the time since I have all but given up terrestial radio. Driving nearly three hours a day, I used to be an NPR junky. Nowadays, I might just need to pull out the owner's manual for my car stereo to figure out how to turn on the radio.

I subscribe, and listen, to 67 podcasts. Most are weekly, some are daily, some are between monthly and weekly. I listen to shows on technology, news, management and couple-casts, among others. So, is 'podcast' the word of the year because I spend so much time listening? There must be more to it than that, right?

Of course. 2007 brought so many great podcast moments. Some highlights:

September - Podcast and New Media Expo
May - Pizza Go Here is born
April - Beckwith Family Podcast is launched
April - Manager Tools conference
April - My Mostly Trivial "appearance"
February - Tour of California
January - Macworld / Mac podcast meet-up
January - I started writing for Typical Mac User

Through podcasting, we have met some great people, in the real-world and in the podosphere. I've had the chance to spend some time with some of the brightest, most interesting people I have ever met, way too many to list. We are grateful for the amazing people all over the world that have allowed us into their amazing lives.

Podcast.

If you have a computer and a pulse, there is a podcast for you. You don't need an iPod. Download iTunes, go to the podcast directory and take a look. While you're there, check out our show, Pizza Go Here.


Me and Victor Cajiao, one of the kings of podcasting.

Podcast.

Months after we were first teased with demonstrations of the next release of Mac OS X, Leopard was unleashed today. I arrived at the Apple Retail Store about 4:30 and waited with a bunch of other Mac faithful. The best part was seeing the reaction on the faces of the passers by asking what we were standing in line for. Just as the Apple website countdown clock hit zero (we were all verifying on our iPhones) the doors flung open to enormous applause from the gang of Apple employees. As they cheered and high-fived us, we piled into the store to claim our copy of Leopard.



Now for a couple of observations. Leopard was not the only thing flying off the shelves. It's no secret that Apple retail stores are sales powerhouses (see Apple Stores Now More Profitable Than Tiffany's Per Square Foot) and anyone at an OS launch day can easily see why. Anecdotcally, nearly half of the people I saw snatching up Leopard were also buying external hard-drives. I recommended the LaCie Big Disk 1TB drive to a fellow shopper but they sold out of all of them in just a few minutes. Gone, too, were the 500GB LaCie drives among most other high capacity external hard-drives. The cool thing was to see just how many new Mac users there were joining in on the fun of a new OS launch.

Two hours versus twenty? Waiting on line for the iPhone was great fun, but doesn't come close to the excitement of the Leopard launch. Sure, it might've been because we got my iPhone at an AT&T store but I still think the excitement of the crowd was still higher today. I mean, the iPhone is cool because it is a phone and it has the look and feel of Mac OS X... but Leopard is Mac OS X!

Well, I just glanced over to the PowerBook and see that the installation is complete... time to get to work. I opted for an erase + clean install on that computer. Later this weekend - the iMacs get the upgrade.

Rock on Leopard!

Did you get Leopard? Waiting on the fence? Mac-curious? Check out the greatest Mac podcast on the net - Typical Mac User.

Check out some pics here.

Dawn and I made the drive down to Ontario (California, not Canada) for the 2007 Podcast and New Media Expo. We have met a ton of other podcasters and are having a great time.

Last night we met up with some other podcasters at the Couple Cast meet-up at the Ontario Mills Mall. It was great to meet Dan and Cj from Love Long and Prosper, Steve and Dawn from For What It's Worth, Matt and Amy from the Redboy Podcast, Rob and Tina from Learning to Fly Together and Barely from Barely Podcasting. There were a lot of other podcasters there but we didn't get a chance to meet them all.

It was great to finally meet Steve and Dawn from For What It's Worth. We have been listening to their podcast for a long time but really wanted to meet them to personally thank Steve for the Pizza Go Here art work.


Today, we met Chuck and Kreg from Technorama (and others), Doug Welch from Career Opportunies (and others), Shelly Brisbane from Shelly's Podcast, Rob Walsh from Podcast411 and Today in iPhone, Ken Ray from Mac OS Ken, Tee Morris from Billibub Baddings and Podcasting for Dummies, Adam Raimer from Mad Town Aces, Don McAllister from ScreenCastsOnline, Aaron from the Big Show, Charles Cadenhead from Mostly News and Desperate Husbands, and a bunch of others.

Congratulations to Chuck Tomasi on being named the co-author of the upcoming Podcasting for Dummies book, along with Tee Morris!

Tonight we had dinner with Steve Holden from Tech News Radio and the Jersey Boys Podcast and Mike Auzenne from Manager Tools. Afterward, we hung out with Victor, Adam, Steve, Chuck, Kreg, Mad Marv, Chris from Amateur Traveler, Steve from Geek Cred - thanks guys for letting us hang out with you.

Check out the pictures here.

Wow! That's the best way to describe this phone. Since January I have been eagerly waiting for the iPhone. Could this small device truly be all that Apple and AT&T said it would be? Was it really going to perform like those great videos Apple released in the last couple of weeks? For the last several years I have carried about 10 different cell phones and a few different PDA's and Blackberries. I have never found a device that did a good job of syncing my life (e-mail, calendar, contacts, etc.) and have been stuck with a Razr for the last 18 months, waiting for the iPhone.

After spending 20 hours in line with Emily, I finally got an iPhone in my hand shortly after the AT&T store re-opened. The employees of the store were great and added to the carnival like atmosphere. Once I got home I took the iPhone out of the box and connected it to my iMac. My activation went flawlessly and my number moved from my Razr to my iPhone in just a couple of minutes. Syncing my pictures took the longest time but by 7:00 I was making calls and sending e-mails.




Although it could have been due to the plethora of blogs, podcasts and the Apple videos about the iPhone before it was released, I had no problems whatsoever setting up or using the device. The menus and functions are all very intuitive and most have a similar look-and-feel as their Mac counterparts.

I couldn't browse the internet using WiFi the first night but once I edited the static IP WiFi options on the iPhone I was on my wireless network. I have pretty slow DSL so I didn't mind using the Edge network. Websites really looked great on here. I bet the NY Times got a lot of traffic because that was one of the first sites I could think of to visit.



Visual voicemail is awesome! Instead of "dialing" in to the voicemail system and fumbling my way through the menu to find the options for greeting there is a "Greeting" button once I selected voicemail on the Phone menu. I was purposely missing some calls just to get a voicemail... something I would have never done with any other phone! This feature is amazing!

Google maps has great detail on the satellite view and looking for directions was a snap, even without GPS. I will never get lost again (yeah, right)!

The camera feature is cool... with it's full screen view finder and the pictures seamlessly work iPhoto. With good lighting it takes pretty good picture!



The typing did take some getting used to... notice I said "did" and not "does". After a full day of e-mailing and texting I've got it down! Typing is very comfortable, more so than on my Blackberry and faster than traditional predictive text. I really like how it guesses my mistakes when I "fat-finger" a word. I thought I was going to be disappointed that I can't text page pictures but it is so easy to e-mail which is even better!

All in all, this is the greatest phone ever and I had a blast waiting in line with Emily and the other iPhone iPhans!

Time again to plug two great podcasts. If you have an iPhone (or just want to learn more about it) check out Today in iPhone. Rob does a great job covering the iPhone. Also, check out Victor's show and blog at Typical Mac User.

Check out the pictures here.

Yes, it's 2:00 am and Emily and I are camping out in front of the AT&T store to get the iPhone (for me... not her). We are 5th in line so I am all but certain that the greatest-phone-since-the-invention-of-the-phone will soon be mine.





Only 16 more hours to go!

Are you getting an iPhone? Then you have to check out two great podcasts, Typical Mac User and Today in iPhone.

While I was waiting for my flight in Sacramento I took a screen shot of the speed test I ran. Not bad for free.



Now in Dallas, with a little bit of time on my hand, I figured I'd spend the $10 to get online. Such as in life... you get what you pay for.

It's 8:30 in the morning in sunny Sacramento. I should be on an airplane approaching the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. All of the passengers boarded before 6:00 am and it seemed as if we would be heading out quickly. Then, the pilot came on the cabin radio and said that the aircraft had been "turned off" the night before and the technicians were now having a hard time re-starting all of the computer systems. After a complete re-boot of the plane (several minutes), they powered everything up and discovered that the computer was not going to work - I wonder if American Airlines is running Vista!

So, all of the passengers de-planed (I love this term), retrieved luggage (shouldn't it be de-checked luggage) and got in line at the AA ticket counter to re-book another flight.

An hour of standing / sitting / standing in this line and what can I do? Well, fire up the PowerBook, of course... after all, Sacramento International Airport has free WiFi.








*** 8:32 am update ***

Just as I finished publishing this entry a nice woman working for American Airlines walked down the line asking everyone if Dallas was their final stop. I was the only one left who was not traveling any further than DFW so she plucked me from the line, much to the disgruntlement of the others, and took me right up to the counter and got me checked in for the 11:30 am departure. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the power of my blog entry that got me plucked out of that line, that line that had at least a few more hours left.

Tired? Yes, but it could have been a lot worse than five and a half hours.

*** 12:30 pm update ***

Well, 11:30 came and went. At 11:50 the agent announced that our replacement plane hadn't yet left San Francisco. The departure time on the gate board now reads 12:50 pm. Yikes!

Even though we have never owned a video game console we have wanted a Nintendo Wii from the first time we saw our young nephew play with his. Well, wii finally got one; Dawn and the girls surprised me with an early Father's Day gift. We only have Wii Sports and have played Tennis, Bowling and Boxing. The Wii was so easy to set up and connect to our home network. We all had a lot of fun creating our Mii's (even though Mak was a little perturbed that Nintendo didn't really offer her shade of red hair). Here's a picture of us - if anyone knows how to transfer high quality Mii's from our Wii to a computer please let me know.

I am a self-professed podcast junky. One of my favorite podcasts is Mostly Trivial, with your host Johnee Bee. After doing some research on the penny-farthing bike I bought recently, I decided to pitch some trivia questions to the show. I was driving home from work, listening to podcasts, and Mostly Trivial started to play. I was blown away when Johnee Bee introduced the category as 'bicycles'. I'm practically famous! Finally, I knew all of the questions.

If you haven't listened to Mostly Trivial, give it a try. It is a short, very well produced weekly show.

Check out the episode I contributed to here.

Click here for Mostly Trivial on iTunes.

My first trip to Macworld was great! We had an absolute blast at the expo and afterward at the Mac Podcasters meet up. Check out the piece I wrote for the Typical Mac User Podcast (http://typicalmacuser.com/wordpress/?p=237).

The non-Mac highlight of the day had to be meeting Sinbad. He is a true Mac fan and it was great to talk to him about his thoughts on the iPhone.



Check out the pics here.

Macworld Conference & Expo is next week and Mike and I will be there on Thursday!



We have all been inundated with rumors of the iPhone and an early release of Leopard; iTV seems to be a no-brainer, as does a re-vamped iLife / iWork.

Here are my predictions (ok, some of them are merely hopes) for Tuesday's keynote presentation:

1. There will be no iPhone (although Jobs will make jokes about it).
2. Leopard will be released earlier than originally announced.
3. iWeb will be completely re-vamped to integrate one-touch publishing for hosting services other than dot-mac. It will also finally give us a simple file management system and easy editing of css attributes.
4. iTV will be the grandest announcement at the event as it will contain many more features than we were led to believe.
5. Mac Spreadsheet will be lame.
6. The 100 GB iPod will be finally come out, the next version will be WiFi and Bluetooth.
7. dot-Mac will be upgraded with increased storage space and iCalendar sharing improvements.
8. A mammoth 42 inch iMac is released.

Maybe, just maybe, there will be some other updates as well:

a new lisa?

a new Newton?

There you go. Enjoy Macworld!

Due to overwhelming fan outcry, I have finally posted the video for Hopes & Prayers on YouTube (check it out here). Ok, so there are really no fans... but I thought I'd post it anyway. The song was recorded in early 2003 in The Outback. Jason wrote the song, played all of the instruments and sang lead vocals; Rich and Tish sang background vocals and I got to put the whole thing together. I have always thought this was the coolest song I ever worked on... in fact, it is so cool, it needed a video. Enjoy!

You can also view the full quality version of the video here.

We always knew that this day would come... the day that we would need an external hard drive. So, a few months ago we bought a 500 GB Lacie Big Disk. It's hard to believe that the first computer we owned as a family had a 2 GB hard drive (the same size, ironically, as the card in our digital camera) and there weren't a lot of others with a hard drive that big! Needless to say, with our music collection and digital pictures, we could barely survive with the 100 GB on the PowerBook and 80 GB on the PC. What pushed us over the edge was our quest to convert all of our VHS to DV. With 60 video tapes or so there are hours and hours to copy... stay tuned as we will be posting some of the classics.

What goes better with a new domain and a new external hard drive? A new host! Our new site is hosted and registered by GoDaddy.com. Their prices can't be beat and their service is amazing... they have 24x7 live phone tech support and service... wow... what hosting company does that.

The new hard drive has also given me the chance to re-organize all of our photos (Dawn's going through all of our photo albums and boxes of pictures). Sometimes a picture jumps out and slaps you in the face... like this one... any guesses where and when it was taken? Let us know by clicking on the 'Comments' link below. Gas for under a buck?!?! Wow!





... plus, new pics of Emily, Makenzy, Chris, Rachel, Elizabeth, Pamela, Kenny, Maryssa, Mike, Shauna, Tony and Christina and even Pong Master Bruce and his family added to the 2006 pics page!

We were in the process of updating the site... hadn't decided which program is better. iWeb is really cool but the structure is difficult and there are only a handful of themes. RapidWeaver has been the tool of choice ever since I stopped doing it on a pc and will continue to be my favorite on the mac.




See ya!