A blue-collar jerk at home in cyberspace      

  My name is Bill Husted. For many years I wrote a technology column called Technobuddy for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Considering the part of the country I live in, I always liked the sound of Technobubba better. I've retired from the newspaper but until recently continued to write the columns for it under contract. That arrangement has ended with no hard feelings. I wish it still appeared in the AJC but these are hard times for all - including newspapers.

The column can still be found in the Naples, Fla., and Ventura, Calif., newspapers. The Ventura link will take you to the columns. I couldn't find a good way to link to the columns in the Naples paper but you can use my link to visit that newspaper's website and then use the word Technobuddy in the search feature to find it there.

Nowadays I have more time and less money. So far it's been a good trade-off. And I've been able to find some freelance writing projects besides the column that keep me reasonably busy. You'll learn a lot about me here, starting with the fact that I'm not a Web designer. This is a very basic Web site. To make things worse I can go weeks or months without updating it or fixing mistakes.

This site was originally on Mindspring, an Atlanta-based ISP acquired by EarthLink years ago. I moved to this domain - owned by my wife - recently. I have really warm memories of Mindspring before the EarthLink days and hated to give up my Mindspring e-mail address. That company both preached and practiced good customer service and was lead by Charles Brewer. His belief in serving the customers was sincere.

My readers write to tell me of customer service and tech support nightmares on a regular basis. It's shame that there aren't more executives like Brewer out there.

If you're looking for a really old column, try this link. The columns here are not updated - it's just a storehouse for some very old columns.

My interest in HDTV, high definition television, has grown. I've also noticed that I get at least as many reader questions about this topic as I do about PCs these days. Here is a page with some of the columns I've written about that technology.

 Besides messing with computers, I'm an amateur radio operator. My call sign is KQ4YA. I don't get on the air much but ham radio is a lot like life ... it goes in cycles. If you'd like to know more about the hobby, follow this link. You'll learn about my own station and then find, at the bottom of the page, a long list of ham radio links. If you try each link  - you won't have time to have a hobby.

     My family is precious to me and here are a few pictures from home. My wife, Mary, is a real estate agent and here's a link to her site. 

Thanks for dropping by. You can e-mail me at bhusted@bellsouth.net

  Here's a little game that I've enjoyed. It's an amazing time waster. It seems simple but beating all three versions in hard mode is fairly difficult and requires some real strategy.