In another life I worked for a company that sold and installed telecommunications and networking equipment. Every once in a while I'd find myself crawling around in attics and crawlspaces and climbing up and down ladders pulling miles of phone and network cable.

Those were not my favorite days.

So when I was looking to connect our new Xbox 360 (sitting downstairs in the living room) to the rest of our network (residing primarily upstairs in the office) the thing I wanted to avoid most was stringing new wires.

I planned to use the Xbox as a Windows Media Center Extender, so I could listen to music and watch videos stored on my computers elsewhere in the house. First I tried the Xbox 360 wireless adapter. Wi-Fi worked all right but the Extender was sluggish and I couldn't get video to play smoothly.

Then I read an article about powerline networking, and I was intrigued enough to take the leap.

Powerline networking doesn’t get as much attention as Wi-Fi. As the name implies, it’s designed to connect your computers using the electrical wires in your house or apartment. (You can read a more in-depth explanation about how it works here.) The main advantage of the technology is that (on paper, at least) it can shuttle data between computers much faster than wireless—some powerline networking equipment manufactures claim speeds up to 200 megabits per second. That makes powerline especially idea for video and other heavy-duty tasks.

I bought a pair of Linksys powerline adaptors—basically, small brick-like things that you plug into the power outlets in your wall. (They won’t work if you plug them into a power strip.) A basic powerline setup requires two adapters. In my house, for example, I have one plugged into a free outlet next to my router and the other plugged in downstairs near the television. I ran a short network cable from the adapters to my router and Xbox, respectively. I installed some software on my computer—and voila, the Xbox was joined to my network.

What a difference it made. The Extender was slow and almost unresponsive over wireless; now it fairly zips. I can watch recorded television and download movies without any hiccups. The only drawbacks to powerline are that the adapters can be expensive (at least compared with wireless), and you still have to rely on the quality of the wiring in your house.

But for a quick and easy solution that didn't require me to spend hours fishing cables through walls, it was worth it.

<Mark Carpenter>

I wonder how many millions of photo cards the postal service delivers during the holidays. Every year my family gets more in our mailbox and fewer of the old-fashioned Hallmark variety.

As digital cameras improve, I’m also seeing more and more cards with homemade shots, rather than the professionally-posed ones people used to send out (times must be getting tough for portrait photographers). My wife and I love getting photo cards, but we have one pet peeve: Couples who slap on a picture of their kids (or sometimes a beloved pet), but not themselves. We’re usually better friends with the adults than their kids. We’re rarely close with their pets.

Why are so many cards kid-centric? We figure it’s because our friends:

1. Don’t like the way they look.
2. Are incredibly proud of their children
3. Have more cute pictures of their kids than snapshots of themselves with their kids. 
4. Forget to take family portraits when they’re all together.
5. All of the above.

I suspect the first reason is the most common, even though we could care less how good our friends and relatives look. We just want to see their smiling mugs.

Not including a picture of yourself on your card just because you don’t have a good family photo is no longer a viable excuse. That’s because most photo sites now let you create cards with multiple images. Not everyone has to be together in the same photo. You can put a big photo of your kids in the middle, for example, and surround it on either side with a small photo of say, you and your spouse, you and your hamster—or whoever.

If you find normal family pictures too dull, then think creatively. One guy I know shoots a wacky picture to put on his cards each Christmas. One year he dressed like a vagrant, laid down on railroad tracks, and held a bottle in a brown paper bag while his wife and two kids stood nearby looking at him in disgust. The caption read: “Down and out again. Merry Christmas.”

The next year he used a picture—presumably posed—of a cop shoving him against a police car and slapping handcuffs on him while his family looked on in horror.

“Busted again! Merry Christmas,” the card read.

You don’t have to be as creative as my friend to make an impressive card. On photo sites like Shutterfly or Snapfish, you can browse from hundreds of card designs. Some are really slick. All you need to create your own photo cards is a digital camera, some decent snapshots, and an Internet connection so you can pick a card design and upload your photos. Everyone’s doing it. You might as well too.

<John Swenson>

If you're the adventurous type, or like to be the first on the block with new technology, then you might want to check out the new public test versions—"release candidates" in geek speak—of Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Release candidates are typically pretty close to finished. But they can still contain glitches (which is why companies like Microsoft allow the public to play with pre-release software in the first place: to help ferret out and squash any stubborn remaining bugs). I wouldn't recommend installing either of these updates on any computer with data you can't afford to lose. But if you have a spare PC and want to glimpse the future, here's what's available:

On Wednesday Microsoft unveiled the pre-release version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). The 336 megabyte download is the company's last planned comprehensive update to its venerable operating system. But before XP fans get their hopes up, know that this isn't the same goodie-packed gift of service packs past. SP3 is primarily an anthology of security patches and miscellaneous tweaks that have trickled out of Redmond since Service Pack 2 went public in 2004. If you've been diligent about keeping your computer up to date, then chances are you already have much of what SP3 has to offer. There is a smattering of new features, but these frankly are aimed at corporate technology managers, not folks at home. You can read more about what's in SP3 here.  But as Windows guru Paul Thurrott noted, "This update certainly brought back some nostalgic memories. But seriously, folks: It's time to walk away." Walk away to Windows Vista, he means. According to Information Week, the final version of the SP3 is expected to ship early next year.

The first major Vista update, on the other hand, is definitely something to get psyched about. Earlier this month Microsoft made the pre-release version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) publicly available to try out. I know opinions on Vista differ—and that's putting it politely. But I think naysayers and holdouts will begin to soften once they get their hands on the new service pack. Like many employees, I've been playing with pre-release versions of SP1 for months (part of a tradition lovingly known among Microsofties as "dogfooding"). While the new update doesn't have a ton of flashy eye-candy, it's made lots of improvements under Vista's hood. My PC definitely has more pep and behaves less quirkily since I installed it. If you've got time to kill over the holidays, you can kick back with the full list of what's in SP1. Todd Bishop at the Seattle PI offers a shorter, plain English run down on his blog. The final version of SP1 is expected in the first quarter of 2008.

<Michael Stroh>

In October, Microsoft quietly released a new version of one of my favorite programs, SyncToy.  This free utility, which you can download here, was originally created as a handy way for digital photographers to keep their proliferating snapshots backed up and organized.

Nowadays I think just about anybody can benefit from SyncToy—especially if you have multiple PCs in your life.

Ever find yourself working from home, only to realize the file you need is on your office PC?  Or that a website you want to pull up is bookmarked on your wife's laptop, not your own? Or that you inadvertently deleted your latest batch of digital photos—the ones you never got around to backing up?

In each of these cases, SyncToy can help.

The new SyncToy 2.0 has a bunch of improvements, including the ability to rename folder pairs, synchronize encrypted files, and run on the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. It's also a lot faster than previous versions, says Liam Cavanagh, the Microsoft program manager who helped oversee the update. "People think it sounds trivial because of the name, but SyncToy is a really powerful tool."

<Michael Stroh>

For more on this subject, see the post I wrote back in August in response to reader mail.

I recently saw an interview on 60 Minutes with MIT technologist Nicholas Negroponte, whose dream is to put a laptop into the hands of every child. Two years ago he founded a non-profit organization called One Laptop Per Child, which recruited hardware and software engineers to design a low-cost PC specifically for poor children.

The resulting XO laptop is really a remarkable machine—power-efficient, durable, and cheap. Imagine the engineering challenge required to create a computer that both appeals to kids and boots up reliably in some of the world’s most infrastructure-poor neighborhoods, all for $200. It's a design where form definitely follows function:

• Built-in camera, speakers, and microphone
  So kids can express themselves through music, video, and pictures.
• Sun-friendly screen
  The XO display can flip between a full-color mode and a low-power, high-resolution black-and-white mode that’s readable in direct sunlight—important because many children in developing countries attend school outdoors.
• Unusual wireless “ears”
  Made of rugged, dual-molded nylon plastic, the XO’s flip-up antennae have a much greater range than most conventional laptops. Tucked away, they keep dirt out of the audio and USB connectors and act as a locking mechanism for the laptop.
• Environmentally-safe rechargeable battery
  Many children in the developing world live “off the grid’’ with little or no reliable power. So the XO’s batteries have four times the life span of a typical laptop battery and can be hand charged via a crank, pedal, pull-cord—or even solar panel. They also contain no toxic heavy metals.
• Innovative, kid-centric software
  The XO's custom interface, called SUGAR, was created with kids in mind. The XO also comes with numerous educational applications, such as TamTam Jam, a music-creation program (pictured below).

Perhaps not surprisingly the XO’s innovative design and good looks have generated significant interest among parents in the developed world too. To take advantage of that, Negroponte’s foundation is running a special Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada through December 31, 2007. 

If you donate $400 to the foundation, they will ship you an XO and send one to a child in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia or Rwanda. Half of your donation is tax deductible. As an added perk, you also receive a free year of HotSpot access from T-Mobile.

I've gone ahead and signed up for Give One Get One and should receive my own XO in early 2008. I'm looking forward to exploring the laptop and learning about the design decisions that went into its creation. I'm also curious how it will be received by children. Will it motivate them to learn? Will they have fun with it?

I'll blog about my experiences once I've had the opportunity to play with it.

<Lorin Catudio>  

Ed note: The XO is just one of several efforts now underway to create computers for developing countries.