Most of us at Microsoft are our family's IT Pros, Im no exception.  Introduce my Dad - he's a relatively smart computer user.  He used to be in Management Information Systems at UTC many moons ago (I remember we were one of the first in the neighborhood to have Prodigy) and while the technology has changed he can figure out quite a bit on his own - but let's face it, its so much easier to slip in a question while on the phone w/ your daughter <grin>.

He stays abreast of home computing technology; has updated hardware - just bought a laptop (and software of course <grin>), high speed internet connectivity (he recently switched to cable modem) and is a big fan of digital photography and the peripherals needed to sustain the “hobby”.

This Christmas he decides he wants to go wireless.  So I go out and get him the router and he is able to set it up w/out any problems.  When he logs on for the first time he notices there are other wireless networks around him (the majority unsecured) and that he's automatically being logged onto one of them.  He calls me wondering how to fix and if he can secure his network so no one else can get on his network.  But of course you can Dad!  XP SP2 comes with a great Wireless Network Set-Up Wizard in the control panel.  He'll also have to go into Network Connections to remove the other networks.

He does this easily and he's all set now, I talked to him the other day and he was on his deck surfing away or working on his next project – converting all our home movies to DVD and he calls me laughing.  Seems a boat just went by and he picked up the wireless network on the boat (network name was the same as the boat name).

Im impressed with XP SP2 - I like the firewall capabilities as well as pop-up blocking - now I just want to figure out a smart way to get rid of SPAM ...