Contact

I use Yahoo! for e-mail, where my username is billwesterman.  I’m also frequently on iChat / AOL Instant Messenger as gobillwesterman.

About me

Ethnographer.
Tech hack.
Photo hack.
PowerPoint überhack.
Snowboard hack.
Fondness for pens, pixels, and big cars.

Born Kansas City, Missouri

School Washington University in St. Louis, Spanish & Computer Science

Worked Andre's Confiserie Suisse, Andersen Consulting, Sapient, Accenture Technology Labs, eBay, Create with Context

Current location Silicon Valley, California

Currently tackling Snowboarding black diamonds, puppy training, re-learning how to touch type on the Sidekick 3 keyboard

Next wedding anniversary Seventeen

Recently read Jack sh-t

Handed Left for eating and writing, right for everything else

Languages English, Spanish (mucho), French (un peu), Portuguese (pouco)

Height 6’6” / 1.98m ... and shrinking (see Too Damn Tall on Flickr)

Shoes 13 US, 48 EU (but size 14-15 snowboarding boot - wtf?!)

Baseball caps XXL

Hardware Macintosh, bitch (to quote Bill Keaggy)

Enjoyable smells Skunk, leaded gas, freshly opened electronics, cut grass

Rarely Asked Questions

Where did the name “útilware” come from?

I’ve always been interested in simple, useful things, and I also have an interest in Spanish. And útil means useful in Spanish. As far as the “ware” part of the name, this site started off as a place for

people to find and download some Palm software that I had written, like my Palm Mirror.

And what’s with the “a collection of many useful things”?

I’m not entirely sure. Once I branched out beyond the Palm software, I started pulling in other things I thought people would find useful, so the tag line kind of appeared out of that. Then again, maybe I’m just riffing off of Boing Boing’s “A Directory of Wonderful Things”.

What software did you use to create this website?

I used Apple iWeb, part of their iLife suite. It’s killer good for laying out a page without having to worry (much) about browsers, cross-platform compatibility, CSS, HTML, or any of that stuff. It does tend to create large files, though.

What camera do you use for your photos?

Nearly everything on this site was taken with a Canon PowerShot SD450, including the close-ups of the Ford Galaxie. Other shots - especially those  on Flickr - were taken using a Sidekick 3.