Friday, July 14, 2006

Baffled by Tech Terms?

A recent Harris Interactive poll, commissioned by Microsoft, shows that 77 percent of women and 45 percent of men say they are not knowledgeable about tech buzzwords.

If you don't know an MP3 from a USB, don't feel bad. In the study, more than 70 percent said they never heard of RSS (Really Simple Syndication, which is a way to stream news feed to a site), 32 percent could not explain what VOIP is (Voice over internet protocol - using the Internet for telephone calls), and 46 percent are clueless about Internet tagging, a technique to show search results by popularity of terms in a site.

If you're stuck on a tech term, and curious to learn what terms mean, here are four ideas:
1. Go to dictionary.com and look it up
2. Use acronymfinder.com for terms like RSS or VOIP
3. To learn what the buzzwords really do, try www.wikipedia.com, the collaborative, online encyclopedia.
4. Visit my Q & A forum, and I'll respond quickly.

And remember, even if tech is a mystery to you, you're an expert at something. A store clerk knows more than I do about merchandising, I'll never be as smart as a nurse, and most Mom's are rocket scientists compared to the rest of us.

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