dispatches

Cross platform remote access anyone?

Here's a problem I'm having a hard time solving. When I'm on the road I sometimes need to retrieve a file that's on one of the computers in the office. Usually it's a request for a high resolution image file that I need to process and deliver. When I was all PC I could use Laplink Gold, and had access to every hard drive in the place, so long as I had an internet connection. I'm finding it harder to get the same capability now that I have a mixed household.

I want something that doesn't require that I learn what VPN and SSH and tunnels mean. There's a whole jungle of jargon around this subject, and I can barely figure out what these programs do, much less set them up.  Who knows what would work for me?

On a different note, networking is turning out to be a real problem. Not with the Windows machines--they see the Mac and the Mac sees them just fine.  The two Macs usually can't find each other, and when they sometimes do (and only through a network cable), it's usually just one way and it doesn't stick. Everyone I ask just says, "Well, that's not how it's supposed to be with Macs," and  shrugs. I need a home visit. Who knows someone?

Will you be my Friend?

Peeking over her shoulder, I watched my 22 year old niece, Felicity, update her Facebook profile and check in on a few of her hundreds of friends. It is my first peek into this universe, save for when I photograph in a college lecture hall and see that a fourth of the laptops have Facebook, and not the lecture notes, on the screens.

I've ben thinking I ought to have a profile up there, just so I can be a tiny bit more of a cultural insider to my primary photographic subject matter, college students. Felicity was delighted to tutor me in the mores of this society and helped me set up my profile. She became my first Friend, which is very touching. The most fun piece was working on my "Where I've Been" map, and realizing that I have indeed been in all 50 states, and have lived in 12 of them, plus a Canadian province.

I need some models for how to compose this identity, and for that I need more Friends. The only profiles I can look at are those who have so beFriended me. So, if you're on Facebook, would you be my Friend?

Or maybe you're more in line with this Candorville strip.