A number of experiences during the past couple of weeks have reminded me of a few technology truisms that I had begun to take for granted — truisms that you might find helpful in your day-to-day life.
Truism No. 1: Avoid tech jargon whenever possible.
When you've been actively involved in the high-tech field for as long as I have (nearly 20 years), you pick up a bit of jargon over the years.
That's fine when you're talking with other "bit-heads" or those immersed in technology. But if you're talking to non-techies (the Grandma Betty's of the world), don't be surprised if you get a glazed look when you drop a few acronyms (like DS3 or XML or even simple stuff like RAM) into your conversation.
This truism was brought home to me late last week while visiting with the owner of a copy store in Rock Springs, Wyo.
Robin's not a dumb gal by any stretch of the imagination, but the term T-1 was foreign to her.
She also was not clear on the differences between different types of physical layer for networking or connecting to the Internet, in this discussion, this meant copper wire, coaxial cable or a fiber optic strand.
Once I explained each to her in layperson's terminology she was fine, otherwise she was in a fog.
Truism No. 2: The size of the pipe does matter.
As mentioned in a recent column, I've had a pretty busy summer so far, travel wise.
Which is great if one can really get away on a true vacation, but as the owner of my own business, client responsibilities have a way of making themselves known regardless of where I am or what I'm doing.
Which means that I have to be able to connect to the Internet wherever I go, and usually that's not a problem.
Normally I would not consider myself spoiled, but my recent travels to the Green River/Rock Springs, Wyo., area have taught me that when it comes to Internet connectivity, faster is definitely better.
Unfortunately, the best 'Net connection I've been able to wrangle in Wyoming thus far (on a dialup) has been 24 kilobits per second, less than half the speed I get via dialup anywhere else in the country I travel and dramatically lower than the 1.544 megabits per second I'm used to getting at the office.
Which means my Internet experience in Wyoming has been painful so far, verifying again that the size of the pipe does matter.
Truism No. 3: Tech stuff has a way of not working just when you need it most.
It doesn't matter what we're talking about — software, Internet access, mobile phones, printers, personal digital assistants, etc. — but experience has taught me that tech stuff has a way of breaking, freezing, dying or not working at the most inopportune times.
Recent examples include running out of ink at the moment I need to print a critical document, dropping a cell call with a prospective client because of a bad zone, or losing an Internet connection in the midst of some time-sensitive research.
In other words, bad things happen to tech stuff when you can least afford it to happen.
Truism No. 4: Technology is addictive.
I'm not talking about addictive like kids being addicted to computer games, although I've seen this with my two sons.
Rather personal technology is addictive in the way that it ingrains itself into one's personal and professional DNA.
Think about it — when was the last time you left home without your cell phone? Did you feel lost or naked (or both) when you realized your mobile wasn't with you?
Or if you travel for business, when was the last time you went on a trip without taking along a portable computer? 1994?
Assuming you have a PDA like a Palm or Handspring, when was the last time you actually entered a fellow techie's contact info into your PDA by hand? You "beamed" the info into your PDA, didn't you?
In fact, the faster, smaller, larger, clearer and cheaper technology gets, the harder it is to live without such technological advances.
I thought I was going to die the other day when I found myself in another city needing to print off copies of a document and the newest PC the copy shop had was a Pentium II running Windows 95.
Oh, my heck! It was sooooooo slow. I thought I was going to die.
That's what I'm talking about. Technology is addictive.
David Politis leads Politis Communications, a public relations, investor relations and marketing communications agency serving the high-tech and biotech markets. E-MAIL: dpolitis@politis.com.