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JL, 09 May 2007 A Day in the Life As we all know, genealogy is about stories.  And photographs, of course.  Well, here's a story.  And a photograph.  Back in January, we had alot of snow.  The most in 68 years, somebody said.  I live in the basement of a 3-storey house, so I assumed one thing I'd never have to worry about is a falling roof.  Wrong.  I was out at an appointment so I missed what must have sounded like the-end-of-the-world when the entire roof over the deck, a storey above me, tore off the house and slid sideways.  Part of it landed on the deck.  The rest of it tore through the railing like a bear through a tin-can.  A twisted heap of fiberglass and shattered support beams crashed across my doorway in a mountain of snow.  An insurance company crew was supposed to be up to rebuild the roof the following week. Obviously, they haven't been back yet.  As you can see, the main truss is now part of the landscaping.   OK, now for the important part.  This truss is really a nice looking piece of lawn art around the time the sun is going down.  It's Spring now, and sunny and warm and the way the light hits it is really quite attractive.  Although it looks smaller here it's actually about 25 feet across.  Too wide for my un-fancy camera.  Autostitch to the rescue.  I took photos of the truss in 4 sections and Autostitch recognized the common edges and put them together.  As you probably know the bottom beam is not really shaped like a bow.  That's the downside of home-made panoramas when you're dealing with a dead-straight edge.  Try scenery instead, or groups of people.  There's a demo version for free although the demo version only works with jpg's.  Good enough for most of us.  Sometime you might like to piece some photos together.  There's nothing to it.  It doesn't even install on your computer, just unzips into a folder. When you open it, you'll wonder where the program is.  This is all there is. Click File/Open and browse for the pictures you want.  Hold down your Ctrl key to choose the pictures.  Then sit back and wait for Autostitch to do its thing.  You'll find a picture called "pano" in the same folder as the pictures you chose.   Their website has some great examples of what can be done.