The Family Circle Circa 2011

I HAVE TO AMEND MY OLD WAYS OF THINKING. It used to be: the perfect family clan would include a doctor, lawyer and accountant so you had built-in trust when it came to handling matters of grave importance to your well-being.

Nowadays, there's one more professional needed in that arsenal: a trusted software engineer or, rather, a whole army of engineers. Like me, I'm sure you have become painfully aware of how dependent we now are on engineering expertise. It's not just for streamlining our company operations; it permeates all facets of our lives such as what one would hope would be a simple task of integrating a TiVo, DVD, TV and speaker system to work through only one remote. Not possible.

Okay, I'm emoting. I'm finding that, on so many levels, system design is not intuitive to baby boomer thought processes. Technology, as wonderful as it is, has created the need for a personal trainer who understands how to rewire our heretofore mechanical orientation to sync...