1. An old blue haired lady in one who keeps asking for help.

2. A middle-aged guy moving his head both up and down and back and forth in order to read screen.

3. A teenager who’s more interested in who’s standing around her than she is in voting.

4. A middle-aged woman who appears to be reading all ballot initiatives for very first time.

All people described in 1-4 above are “Technological Clodhoppers.”

Example 3: You’re in line at a big discount store waiting to check out. You note credit/debit card reader that’s mounted right up next to register, and you smile, remembering that a quick swipe and a little key tapping is all you’ll need to do in order to purchase your items. Suddenly, you hear cashier say to her customer, “Mam, your library card won’t work in this machine, it takes a check or credit card.” To this, customer replies, “What’s a check card?” The customer described above is both a “Technological Clodhopper” and a goof.

Y’all now know what “Technological Clodhoppers” are. If it weren’t for TCs, there wouldn’t be a need for blood pressure medication, laws against public cursing, beer, or fuzz busters. Most of them are probably good people, but being good doesn’t hold much water when it’s ten minutes before you have to be at work, and you’ve already waited twenty on someone who’s still trying to figure out how their credit card fits into slot on gas pump. Despite that, there is a bright side to all this - if some savvy motel executive ever decides to set up a chain of motels featuring rooms with rabbit eared TVs, stand alone heat radiators, and party line phones, these TC’s will make him a very wealthy man...

Bluetooth Linking: Beyond mobile phones, Bluetooth is beginning to make inroads into other aspects of wireless communication. Although Windows support is somewhat primitive by current standards, technology is standard on Apple Macintoshes and optional on other products. Apple uses latest, faster version of Bluetooth. If Mac detects a Bluetooth enabled keyboard and mouse during startup, it will link to them automatically.

PalmOne is also a big supporter of Bluetooth. PalmOne's software overcomes most of Windows difficulties and allows their handheld devices to sync and swap files with a Windows laptop over Bluetooth. Making sync work with a new Mac PowerBook is even easier. As for Microsoft's primitive Bluetooth world, it is possible to get a Pocket PC to sync with Windows over Bluetooth, but is only for technically savvy.

Bluetooth Worth Waiting For: Bluetooth still falls short. Early promoters envisioned that you would be able to walk up to a printer with your laptop of PDA, click a button, and print. We’re still waiting for that one. Bluetooth printers are rare but we can assume that advent of Bluetooth enabled digital camera phones will spur this technology further and make for easy printing of those treasured moments.

The technology savvy users are an impatient lot. If it doesn’t catch on right away they move on to something newer and different. If anything, Bluetooth has proven that acceptance can take a while. But isn’t it worth wait?

We technology watchers are an impatient lot who tend to give up on anything that doesn't catch on right away. Bluetooth has proved once again that acceptance can take a long time -- and that sometimes it's worth wait.