Playing with computers is fun. It's been a long time since I was able to do something with a computer, simply because it would be cool, and the parts were there. Today we pulled one video card out of one computer and added it to another, to make a 4 screen machine. Add a little Plasma Pong and it becomes very cool!

We did run into a problem setting up the cards to use both GPU's on one display to get some really smooth frame rates. But tomorrow is the last day, and we are going to need most of the time to clean up. After all this was a real computer lab before we invaded. Now it's just a crazy mess.

Well I'm nearly half way through the 4 weeks of teaching. I have a stack of boxes in my house 5 feet high and wide. The boxes are filled with computer parts. Still some more on the way, they should all be here by Monday, when they are supposed to assemble their own systems.

I have to say it is pretty cool. I have never done anything like this before, so I'm sure as a class with a teacher I'm blowing it pretty seriously. But I was also told it's like a camp with a counselor, and in that regard I think I'm doing well. They are learning all good stuff. They can even assemble the old “test� machines we have, while blind folded. But I wish I was covering more technical aspects. Every time I try to explain how something works in detail, I end up going way to far and they all get board. Then I realize that I am off track and they didn't need to know any of that. So while I'm achieving the goal, I'm not doing it very smoothly.

Tomorrow I'm going to bring a couple of my computers in. My main machine so they can see what a real system, that is built right, should look like. And an older Shuttle machine, to show them what some smaller computers can look like. Should be fun, as long as they don't try to disassemble my main computer. But they are all great kids, I trust them.

Yesterday I was hired to teach a computer hardware class for teenagers. It's 4 weeks, 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. The cool part is that after 3 hours a day it pays about as much as my last full time job. Of course it's only 4 weeks, so I'm still job hunting.

Now I was never a fan of school. Honestly I think the classroom environment is the worst format for learning anyone has ever conceived. Now will that make me a good teacher? I hope so. I always thought that if I ever was a teacher I would be able to do it differently. I'll find out. The class is pretty small. They are all smart, well off, teenagers. We will all be into computers, so I'm sure it will be very cool. Smart kids are easy to teach.

My biggest worry is how to fill 60 hours. I could teach someone everything they need to know about building their own computer, in probably 10 to 12 hours. How do I fill the rest of the time? The best ideas I have are giving breaks, explain how the parts evolved over the years, and a bunch of different hands on activities.

But What ever happens I'm sure will be pretty fun, and some needed money.

I make client's photo CD's very simply, just a bunch of JPEG's dropped onto them. Windows XP and OS X both have decent image viewers included, so I never thought it would be a problem. Last week I did some family portraits for my mother's neighbor. When I delivered the CD and loaded it up for her on her computer. I never expected this woman to have a 6+ year old computer running Windows ME. There is no image viewer that lets you scroll through the images nicely. You have to select each one and wait for the CD drive to spin up and load a 4MB JPEG. It took forever.

This kind of machine makes me want to just walk away. Computers should be replaced every 3 to 5 years, depending on what your finances allow.

But it did make me think about the issue. I found a tiny tiny program I can load onto a CD with the images and it will automatically run when the CD is inserted. It's actually very cool, can even play background music and everything. So I think I'll give her a copy with that see if she liked it better.