Workshop participants frequently ask which tools I use. For those that care, here is the answer. Just remember I use tools that work for me -- and might not for you, for any number of reasons, including personal choice.

I currently run three no-name desktop PCs. The workhorse is an 18-month year old 1.2 Pentium with 512MB of memory and removable 60GB 7200-rpm hard drives, a CD Writer, and a 19-inch monitor running Windows 2000 and Norton Anti-Virus. I tend to upgrade or replace one PC each year.

My work-a-day printer is a little HP DeskJet inkjet, which makes great looking prints of digital pictures. Living on the Lake Erie beach at Port Ryerse, a 56kbps modem is the best I can do for an Internet connection. (Fast connections haven't reached this corner of the world yet.)

Genealogy applications on my hard drives include Microsoft Office (I consider Word a prerequisite for convenient genealogical computing), Family Origins, RootsMagic and PAF. My genealogy photo editor is Adobe's PhotoShop Elements.

I have a collection of web development tools here (clients sometimes insist I use their preferences) but find Microsoft's Front Page most productive and therefore my default. (I use Microsoft's now-discontinued Image Composer to compress web graphics before uploading them.)

My digital camera is now three years old and has been discontinued by Kodak. I'd invest in a newer, better model, if this one wasn't meeting my purposes so well.

My digital camcorder is a Canon Elura. I capture its video to my hard drive and edit them with Adobe's Premiere and a collection of Premiere plug-ins. For genealogy video VideoWave and Ulead's VideoSuite meet my needs.

I believe in shopping locally. My computer dealer and ISP are Simcoe storefronts. Specialty software (and other goodies) I buy over the Internet.