Wouldn’t you know that not even 30 minutes from the time I tweeted my find, I was contacted directly by one of our readers? He offered to loan me a USB device that can read the slides and digitize them into .JPG format. This way, I can share the images with my family, post some of the non-personal historical ones online and carry around any that are near and dear to me. The offer to borrow a digitizer isn’t the first time I’ve had a reader try to lend a hand either. I can’t count how many times folks have offered to loan me a netbook, notebook, camera lens and various other bits of gear. Each is a kind and generous offer.

That’s what makes jkOnTheRun what it is — it’s not what James and I write, nor what we do —  it’s the camaraderie and community that offers the real value. It’s the readers that make this site what it is each and every day and for that, I’m sincerely grateful!

I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin’s father, and he was a sweet man. It’s obvious that Kevin didn’t fall far from the tree and if you’d ever met his father you’d understand why Kevin is a great guy. My meeting Kevin’s father was just like meeting Kevin himself, first over Skype and later in person; he was a nice man and very proud of the work that Kevin does here.  He told me that with a big smile on his face.

You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers, Kevin. Be there for them so that you all may get through this together. I’ll keep things going here but know that this is just a gadget blog and not important in the overall scheme of things. Your family is what really matters and may you all get through this together. My heart is heavy for you and Barb and your kids.  Peace be with you my friend.

Sorry for the seemingly off-topic post, but when you think about it, my wedding this past weekend is actually very topical. Long-time readers know that my then-girlfriend and now-bride has everything to do with my writing on this site. All of my writing in fact, both on-line and in print. At the risk of rehashing a little and contrary to popular belief, I didn’t wish to to be technology writer when growing up. I actually still haven’t grown up, but I did find the path to what I do today largely due to Barb’s support, guidance and planning. When I discovered that this is what I want do for my career, I took a risk and huge pay cut from my 15-year Information Technology career. Barb supported that move, both emotionally and financially, until the stars aligned, and that’s the main reason that I have the privilege to write for you. It’s that simple. I won’t bore you with any more details, but for newer readers that didn’t follow this journey until recently, I wanted to briefly share some of it.

The wedding was generally low tech, although I was able to put some real-time updates and photos on Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. Between those networks and the community comments here, Barb and I are humbled and overwhelmed by the joy and warm wishes sent our way. For that, we’re very grateful. And we have to give a very special shout-out to James, Matt Miller and Dave Zatz. They took time out of their schedules and trekked in with significant others from Texas, Washington, and Maryland to share the special weekend with us. After the jump are just a few pics, including a rare one of the MobileTechRoundup podcast crew and family. Thanks again for indulging my personal post. Now it’s time for me to get back to work as the mobile technology landscape is changing by the minute!

I Kevin, take this iPhone, to be my smartphone….

The MobileTechRoundup family: Matt Miller, Barb, Kevin, Sheri & James Kendrick

Pic from the iPhone from the pic above

Aside from that, with some quiet rest and recovery Barb should be near 100% next week. Thanks again for the thoughts and prayers… challenging times like this truly bring out the best in this community!

Sorry for the lame "Jerry Maguire" reference (the "Flipper" speech), but the weekend is near and I tend to get goofy as we approach Friday night. I’m actually not leaving Twitter entirely, but I’m consciously migrating much more of my attention to FriendFeed and I wanted to briefly mention why for a few reasons. For one thing, I’m humbled, not to mention surprised, that over 700 folks are following me on Twitter. I don’t exactly understand how you do this… I keep looking back quickly every now and again, but never catch you following me. Nevertheless, Twitter says you’re there, so you must be. Unless Twitter is down… which is another one of the reasons I’m moving away from it.

Now FriendFeed might face the same stability challenges that Twitter has of late, but my gut tells me that it will be handled better. Partially because of what FriendFeed is already doing: aggregating my online presence (and that of friends) from over 40 sources. I suppose I should step back and explain for those new to FriendFeed.

The service lets you share content from sites like Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, blogs, Pandora, Last.fm, and even Twitter, just to name a handful. It’s like a meta-service for one-stop content shopping. But the real value to me isn’t in just the services it supports. The real value is in the follow-up conversations and the way that interesting things stay around. Much like the Digg model, you can "like" something that someone shared on FriendFeed. That moves it back up to the top on the ever flowing river of presence. So does when someone comments, which isn’t limited to 140 characters as Twitter is. The comments are grouped so a string of comments actually becomes a useful conversation. Here I shared an article on camera lenses and it recieved some "validation" by Thomas Hawk, one of the premiere photographers we have the privledge to know through his work. The item has become more than just a "shared item" to myself and others at this point. It’s gained value and therefore, the right audience might be more compelled to read it.

There are many other nice features (search, popular items, nice mobile support, ability to hide items, editing of your comments) but I’m probably not doing it any justice. While many of you would say "Oh no, not yet another social networking type site", I’d say that would be a poor description. Because it pulls in content from social and non-social sites, it becomes an conversation and knowlege aggregator. Why would I deem it as such? I’ve noticed a change in my behavior, that’s why. I’m relying less on Google Reader to navigate through all of the daily nooks and crannies during my day.  Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of great posts out there, but they’re finding their way to my FriendFeed anyway (and faster) because my friends (or I) are recognizing which are worth reading and which are a quick scan or pass. And the commentary is often as good as or better than original source. Yes, you can read blog comments on post pages, but those conversations seem more static to me for some reason.

In any case, if you’ve followed me on Twitter, I encourage you to join me on FriendFeed right here. And yes, I’m being very particular in my wording since I now realize I’d rather be joined in a conversation than followed for what I say.

I should quickly tie-in something related to my web-only challenge here as well. With a new 24-inch 1900 x 1200 monitor drviven by my UMPC, I have plenty of real estate. I use it now to keep FriendFeed up and running all the time. Instead of leaving a tab open for FriendFeed in Firefox 3, I actually use a Google Gadget in the sidebar for the service. In the properties of the bookmarked Gadget, I made sure I checked the "Load this bookmark in the sidebar" box. I tried to run the standard FriendFeed page in the sidebar, but I had to manally reload it. With this gadget, the conversation is automatically refreshed every few minutes and I can see it all day long. It’s also worth noting that with the Twitter integration in FriendFeed, any Twitter replies in FF can be sent directly to Twitter by checking a box.

Barbara, I thank you too for letting Kevin play with jkOnTheRun, sure it’s not really playing you know as well as anyone it’s a lot of work.  I thank you for being understanding about all the time that Kevin is spending writing about all of this geek stuff.  I don’t have to tell you what a great guy Kevin is but you should realize you’re a great person for letting him follow his dream.  Thank you for putting up with all of this, it means a lot to me and especially to all of our great readers who follow Kevin’s writing faithfully.  We all thank you for being a great person and for supporting what Kevin does.

Without Sheri and Barbara we couldn’t do what we do here so join me in showing appreciation for Kevin and my better halves for supporting us through all of this.  They not only make it possible for us to do this but make it a great endeavor due to their support.