Build, rather than tear down. Technology is like tennis. No one thinks they're a good tennis player, and no one thinks they know much about technology. Why? Because there's always someone ten times more knowledgeable than you living on your block. The solution is to help one another over our insecurities. If a friend stares at the ground and says she's ignorant about technology, help her out. Can she set an alarm clock, or defrost a refrigerator, or start a furnace up in October? Then confess your own inadequacies, and make it good. "I used to stick my floppies to the file cabinet with a frefrigerator magnet." The more truthful you are, the better she will feel. Hopefully, someone will come along shortly and comfort you.

Don't say it if it isn't true. How many of us have actually paid for the shareware programs we use? I think I have maybe sent money to three shareware companies in my life. Yes, I felt guilty because their programs were critical to earning my daily bread. But my real reason was that I was afraid the product would be upgraded and I would never know. New rule: if you don't send money to the developer, and only about one person in twenty does, don't say you did. Or go that extra ethical mile and report your friends to the Software Publishers Association Hotline: 1-800-388-7478.

Don't say things you don't understand. It's especially hard for us menfolk. We'll be at a party, unsure of ourselves, and finally get a fledgling conversation going with some other poor devil about our computer systems. Soon we're blathering on about megahertzes, floating point calculations, terabits and gigaflops. Why not admit that we don't have a clue what we're going on about, and confront the problem of our social backwardness head on? We could have honest, searching conversations about things that really touch our lives, things that move us, things that matter. Of course, this will be hard for guys who don't follow sports closely.

Forgive and forebear. When you're on queue to technical support, and the music suddenly stops playing, do not let the first words out of your mouth be, "I just installed your product, and now I have to hurt someone." The tech staff know your pain, and stand ready to forgive you for your splenetic outburst. Why not meet them halfway, and acknowledge that you know they didn't create the table of IRQ interrupts and jumper positions on page xxiii of the manual, the one with columns A and B interposed. Five times out of ten, they will in turn apologize for taking your money and shortening your life span.

Think kind thoughts about software moguls. People are so mean to Bill Gates. We insult him for his hair, his manners, his operating systems, everything but his money. According to biographers, however, Bill was virtually autistic as a child, constitutionally unable to express warmth or even engagement. Seriously: doesn't it seem paradoxical for us to say that anyone can be anything in America, then wrinkle our noses when someone with a bona fide learning disability becomes the world's richest man? I've made up my mind, that for 1996 I'm going to be a friend of Bill, and not a foe.

Don't be jealous of your seven year old. It is unseemly to covet the facility a child brings to the business of computing. They sit down, fiddle with the arrow keys, and they're off. Whereas you sit surrounded by manuals, cheat-sheets, tweezers, barbecue forks, and other accessories, desperately seeking to get beyond the welcome menu of your program. It's not your kids' fault they are naturals, and you are -- unnatural. When you are most perplexed by the disparity, remember those old evolution charts, showing the stooped over apes metamorphosing into Penney's catalog models? You're the lemur.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Yes, it's "cool" to pass copies of software to your friends, but it is of questionable karma and it almost always ends badly. What kind of friend steals for another friend? And who gets the documentation, the serial number to use when calling tech support, the registration card, and the upgrade mailings? On such matters has many a friendship foundered. If you must be dishonest, consider drawing up a pre-software agreement in advance, to spell out contingencies. Why risk a good friendship just to save a few thousand in licensing fees?

As for me, my personal resolution for 1996 is to be more original in coming up with column ideas and to rely on less gimmickry. However, since it's still 1995 as I'm writing this, I feel I can still get away with a column on Techno New Year's Resolutions. Technically.

Next week, the quality begins.

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