Tech Blog

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This Christmas has probably the most intensive tech-soaked holiday period I've had with friends and family.

It was refreshing to see the ways that recent tech developments have allowed us to enjoy the gathering, events, experience and excitement.

Distraction & entertainment
This year more kids (other than me, it seems) showed up to family events with a new Nintendo DSi in tow.  Little guys and girls were competing Pokemon, taking instant snapshots and manipulating them, and generally entertaining themselves and their peers as the 'adults' played pursued more mature endeavors.

The adults, got involved in DVD related trivia games, watched 'home movies' delivered on USB sticks, or edited and shared online, or watched current release movies 'rented' via the Internet.

Sharing
Traveling at the holidays is always a challenge. You've got limited tech you can take with you and there are limits as to how you can connect with your friends and family.

Lucky for us, there are many ways you can share your holiday experiences with others. For example, I've been taking a lot of snapshots and video of the various events on one side of the family. I've been using my flickr pro account to share the activities with my family back at home. Of course, you can use Picasa, YouTube, SmugMug or others, but the point is that these services make it easy to upload, edit and share your photos.


Support
Of course, if you're the tech 'guru' of the family, this time of year means that you're also called upon to;

• install and update printer drivers,
• figure out why a game stopped working (on a Windows XP system),
• update network security,
• fix a hardware printer issue,
• or some other non-trivial family hardware fix.

The best 'gift' you can give, and receive (aside from slippers), is the one where you can share your skill and expertise to help those less fortunate, those who don't get tech the way you do. That gift of skill and knowledge will be appreciate, and maybe get you out of a dishwashing session or two