Aside from working in the yard this week, I’ve been using my computer skills to setup my parent’s computer. After fighting with Vista for months, I decided that it was time for a change. I installed Windows XP on it in hopes that it will make it easier to connect to the Internet.

Right now the computer connects through our wireless router. For a more reliable connection, I plan to run cat-5 cable from our home to the shop. A wired connection will be much more reliable than trying to connect with the wireless game router. It is a project I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time.

I will need at least 100 feet and thought I had enough cable at home. Looks like I was wrong as I was trying to run it. I’m way short, so I will be ordering some from Optimization-World.com. Then my computer networking job will be complete, and here is hoping that the wired network will solve the connectivity issues.

It does feel good to call on my networking skills. That is the downside of being a housewife. You don’t get a lot of opportunities to use your work skills. It is fun to practice what I know and to be able to help family. It’s win-win all around.

Guest post today from Britney Baker and her top 5 Wii game picks for 2011. Hope you enjoy!

We're already three months into 2011 and some great games have come out for the Nintendo Wii, but there are still exciting titles coming later in the year. Here are five of them.

5. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars – March 22

Based on the hit cartoon The Clone Wars, the newest entry in the surprisingly fun Lego Star Wars saga will introduce large scale battles and boast a huge cast of playable characters. Expect the Lego Star Wars gameplay you know and love, but with a few extra touches to make the experience even better.

4. The Last Story – TBA

A brand new RPG from the creator of the Final Fantasy series, The Last Story has already been released in Japan to fantastic reviews. Up to six players can play cooperatively or competitively, controlling a band of mercenaries on the fantasy world of Ruli Island. There's little reason to think that Nintendo won't release The Last Story in the United States. The only question is when.

3. Conduit 2 – April 19

Conduit 2 is the sequel to The Conduit, a first person shooter that was well-received for its stellar use of the Wii's motion controls. Players will control Secret Service Agent Michael Ford as he battles the alien-like Drudge across several international locales, including the lost city of Atlantis. Developer High Voltage software has made a point of attending to any complaints about the first game, such as the stale story, and has promised that the sequel will be bigger and better.

2. Xenoblade – TBA

Like The Last Story, Xenoblade is a Japanese RPG that has already been released in Japan and received sparkling reviews. Despite the name, the game is unrelated to the popular Xenosaga series, but it promises to be just as exciting. In Xenoblade, players control a man named Shulk who uses his legendary blade to battle dangerous monsters threatening the world, including robots the size of mountains.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – TBA

One of the most popular franchises in gaming, The Legend of Zelda returns to the Wii with an all new adventure in Skyward Sword. Reportedly, players will be able to control the angle and direction of every swing of the sword with a flick of the wrist. Despite a less than stellar showing at E3 where the controls looked lackluster, Nintendo has a reputation for putting out the most polished games on the market. It's a good bet that whenever Skyward Sword is released, it will be well worth the wait.

Britney Baker is a freelance blogger who normally ranks prepaid phones for PrepaidCellphones.net. Her latest review covered the Tracphone.

I’m going to have my geek license revoked if I don’t start paying more attention. I just learned today that Apple is about to release the iPad 2. It seems like the iPad was just released. Have I really been pining for an iPad for a year? I could look at it like this. I wanted an iPod for at least two years. Maybe I’m halfway through the waiting for an iPad.

The reviews of the new iPad 2 seem to be positive. I mean, the iPad is supposed to be a great thing, so it stands to reason that the second generation would be as cool. Apparently the iPad 2 is fast and sleek.  The iPad 2 is about one-third thinner than the iPad. It has a new cover that is yours for just $39 for plastic and $69 for leather.  What I like best is that the iPad 2 has a camera.  I always like to have a camera with me. So if I do ever have an iPad, that will be a nice bonus.

The iPad goes on sale March 11. Sadly I will not be in line for it. Maybe for the iPad 3..

If only my income matched my desire to buy the latest gadgets, I would be an early adapter. I would wait in lines for hours to buy the latest iPod or help Best Buy unload their truck to see if the latest gadget happened to with this shipment. Alas my lack of a lot of disposable income means that I usually have to wait for the price drop to take advantage of technology.

The Sony Dash is one technology that I really wanted to buy from the get go. (see the Sony Dash at Amazon.com) The $200 price was a bit too much for me – especially since it was being hailed as a way cool alarm clock. I use an alarm clock once a week – one of the perks of being a housewife is I do not have to punch a time clock. I do have to wake up early on Sundays to make it to church on time.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one skeptical of the price for a fancy alarm clock. Now you can find the Dash for about $100. It was a recent Woot.com sale for $70.  That is a price I can live with and more reasonable.

So even though I would love to be an early adapter, there is something to be said for waiting. You will know more about the product and possibly take advantage of a price drop.

So, I guess everyone has heard about the big switch to digital television in February 2009. It seems every nightly program has a crawl that announces that the analog signal will be turned off, and you will either need a digital TV or a converter to watch broadcast television.

Well, we need a second television for the bedroom and are torn about whether to go digital or not. Getting a HDTV will take up less room since we can buy an lcd mount and hang it on the wall. That appeals to me but also a cheaper TV sounds good to our budget, especially with trying to save money for a trip later this year.

We will probably go cheaper for right now. But it might be worth doing some comparison shopping since who knows what deals we might can find online for a HDTV. It would be nice to get the latest technology and then not worry with a converter.

I ordered a portable hard drive from Western Digital to store all of photos on. This way I can take them to any computer. Plus I can put all of my photos in one place. That will be nice for a change. Hopefully this will make it easy to find pictures.

It’s a 60 gigabyte hard drive that was only $39.99. It might not be a very large one but will do for now. It was too good of a deal to pass up. That should last me a few months anyway. I do plan to back up my photos on DVD since I would like an extra copy just in case something happens to the portable hard drive.

Next I will need to buy a bigger SD card for my digital picture frame so I can display even more photos.

One things I miss about not working in computer networking is keeping track of the latest computer products. It was always fun to research products or to find a product to meet a certain need. From buying used cisco products to finding an adequate photo software, no matter what the challenge, it was fun to do some online browsing.

Our computer network at home consists of a router. It doesn’t need much attention, so there isn’t a lot of tweaking or tinkering I get to do these days. Since I do plan to go back to the networking field once Rae is in school, I need to stay current on trends and products. It is just not as challenging when I am doing it for fun and not for a project. Still I will just have to find a way to make it enjoyable so I can keep up with the computing world.

Having more than one computer is great for our geeky family. It means my husband can work and I can work at the same time. It does have a downside in that sometimes there are files I need that are on the other computer. Lately I’ve been thinking that an external hard drive would be quite handy.

We could basically put our ‘My Documents’ folder on the external hard drive so that way we can both get to our files no matter which computer we happen to be working on. When we’re not using the external hard drive, there are storage cases that will protect the devices when not in use. That will be a must buy item especially with a two year old who is developing a fascination with dipping everything in water.

To have all of our data portable would be a good thing. The best benefit to an external hard drive would be to access any pictures or files I needed to at anytime. It’s definitely an item to put on the Christmas list for sure.

Today I ordered my husband his Father’s Day gift. He knows what he is getting and is very excited over it. Rae and I – well I guess it’s really just from Raegan – got him a new cell phone. We are changing providers and switching to Sprint just for this phone.

I guess we could have waited a few weeks to get an iPhone, but I think my husband will be just as happy with the Upstage from Samsung. You have probably seen the annoying commercials for this phone. It’s dual-sided, so it’s a phone on one side and a MP3 player on the other side. He has been salivating over it since he first saw it. Ordering online from Sprint was easy. I signed up for their basic plan, added the data package and still will pay the same for our current phone plan, just now we’ll have more bells and whistles. Once the phone is in our hands, we can call to get our number switched to the new phone.

I have one more little surprise for Father’s Day but will keep that secret since my husband doesn’t know about it. I also plan to make a custom ringtone using Rae’s voice. I’ll show off my finished project and how I did it once it’s complete.

I recently got the chance to try out AMD’s Personal Internet Communicator. It’s a device made by AMD that lets people connect to the Internet without a computer. All you need is a monitor and an ISP. They supply the rest. It’s a pretty neat little device. Although it is a little slower than surfing on my PC, it works just the same.

Here is a little video review I did of the PIC.