Got an unexpected phone call from my cousin Michael in Canada two days ago. He was calling to see how Mother is doing, because he wanted to know if she could accept phone calls. We had a long chat, and he suggested I sign up for a Skype account. Skype subscribers can call other Skype subscribers anywhere in the world via pc and talk free! I took his advice, set up my account, and called him back. This time, he turned on his webcam, and I was able to see him as we were talking, and also his wife, Debbie.

Well, I can't abide being even a step behind, and I decided to connect my little 5 yr. old web-cam, but discovered the OEM drivers aren't acceptable to WindowsXP and the new driver I downloaded from the manufacturer's web site doesn't seem to work either. So I bit the bullet and purchased a new web cam. As soon as my daughter finishes transferring her iTunes from Dad's computer to mine, I'm going to install it and call Mike back.

I also bought a flash card reader so I can transfer photos from my camera without physically tethering the camera to the laptop. That will make it much easier to phost photos here.