Noise in the Generational Technocracy Gap

I'm becoming more and more aware that degree of familiarity people have with technology (and by extension the ease with which they adopt it) has less to do with age or generation. It seems that the young and "techno savvy" people who are all about the very latest handheld devices are at a total loss when it comes to functions on a computer (PC or Mac). Also, there seem to be a number of "older" folks who manage to get through the latest gadgets and computer issues with graceful ease, thus defying the adage of the retiree that can't program a VCR.

So what does techno-savvy-ness correlate to if not generational exposure to technology? It's a mixture of logic and experience. Of course you see many bright people struggling to comprehend the basic operations of a cell phone-- but that's hardly surprising. I suppose the situation just strikes me as odd. It seems that more often it's the retirees that are out-pacing the kids at understanding and manipulating technology. Sure the kids know how to make their phones do neat things an how to play video games... but it's the people who were in the technological trenches-- the dark days of the DOS Prompt-- that understand what's going on inside the box, and how to fix it.

Tools and Software

I've been thinking about this for a while and the blogging format seems like a decent way to communicate this type of information. There are a number of software tools out there that make Internet life easier. Here are a few of the indispensable tools and practices.

1- Get rid of Norton System Works and AntiVirus:
A decade ago, Norton was indispensable, now it is a complete burden on your system that creates more problems than it solves and generally mucks up and slows down the operations of your computer.

2- Turn on Windows Firewall:
By this time, if you're a Windows user, you should be running WinXP. Use the native firewall. It's quite good and keeps life easy. For your frequent Internet access points (home and work) you should have a hardware firewall installed. This is far more secure and frees up system resources.

3- Keep your Anti-Virus software up to date:
If affordability is king, try AVG's Free Edition. It's been rated quite well, is frequently updated, and has all the features you could want including email scanning. - It's free so you don't have an excuse anymore.

4- Get Cloudmark:
While this isn't a free solution the Cloudmark Desktop is the best defense against SPAM that I've discovered. The software uses a common set of spam profiles submitted by other Cloudmark users. The only way a piece of email can be labeled as spam is if it has already been flagged as spam by other users. So if you're in the situation like myself where you rely on email for new business, you don't have to worry about email leads being flagged as spam. Only mass-delivered email will ever be flagged. This software is worth every penny!