My ears tell me not everything new is better

This is a vacuum tube. In England, it's called a valve. It has nothing to do with cleaning the carpet.

Regardless of what you call this electronic device, it helps power guitar amplifiers in a way that professional musicians prefer over modern, solid-state components.

The tube glows. It gets scorching hot. There are usually several tubes in each amplifier. Tube-based amps are extremely heavy and expensive compared to their cool-running, lean, solid-state cousins. The tubes are glass and very delicate. They need to be replaced every so often. Most parts in a solid-state amp last for as long as a person might own the unit.

So why is it that the more technically advanced amplifiers haven't replaced these tube dinosaurs yet? Well, despite solid state amps having been around and refined for a few decades, the older tube amps simply sound better. Even with all of the drawbacks, the tubes produce a warmer, more musical sound.

There was a time when the average home stereo also contained these types of tubes. But those days are long gone, although there are still tube stereos available for astronomical prices. For playing back records, CDs or over-the-air radio broadcasts, modern transistors work better than tubes for the average listener. Yet, for musicians powering their electric guitars, ancient tube technology remains the preferred choice among pros and some amateurs such as myself.

Why am I telling you this?

With all of the technological advances coming at us at the speed of light, it's sometimes good to reflect on old technologies that still do the best job. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's better.

Oil officials have been talking a lot about the advancements that make drilling safer than ever. Yet, the worst accident in the history of off-shore drilling just occurred and apparently can't be stopped by any technological wizardry.

The other day, it was discovered that iPads could be easily breached by hackers. Apple scrambled to make the fix, but one has to wonder how this could have happened.

I still can't hear people as well on my cellphone as I can over a land line in my house.

So while it's factual that many modern inventions are far better than earlier versions, it is also true that change for the sake of change isn't always a good or workable thing. Change might be marketable, but it doesn't make it better, which explains why tube amps have survived.

I read a lot of news online and for some reason see far more mistakes, mostly typos, on my screen than I ever did in newsprint. Is reading news online more convenient? Most of the time, yes. But so far the trade off seems to be sloppier editing. Many long-time editors swear that it is easier to catch typos on paper than it is on a monitor. I tend to agree. I don't know why this phenomenon exists, but it does.

My four-year-old Jeep has power windows. Now that technology has been around a long time. You would think all the bugs would have been worked out by now. Yet, two of my windows have collapsed and broken because of a faulty motor mechanism. A third window is about to go. I don't like power windows, but that's a standard feature in most cars nowadays. Rolling up the windows with a crank has never struck me as overly taxing. It is also a highly reliable system compared with power windows. If one of my old cars with hand-cranked windows would have gone into a lake, I could have still rolled down a window even after the electronics were short-circuited by the water.

In college, a roommate of mine had a hot dog zapper. This revolutionary appliance was suppose to electrocute the meat until it was cooked. Sounds yummy, huh? You would have to put each end of the hot dog onto a metal stud. Then it was just a matter of hitting the switch and waiting about 60 seconds. Well, the hot dogs tasted like crap and I never saw one of these cookers again. To my taste buds, a frank cooked on a charcoal grill is still the best technology for the task.

Some cars actually got better gas mileage 25 years ago than they do now. Some approached 50 mpg. To get that kind of mileage these days, you'd need to move up to a pricey hybrid. With all of the advancements in cars, why can't engineers improve upon fuel efficiency? Why are advertisement campaigns bragging about cars that get 28 mpg? It's all an illusion. A sales pitch.

This is not to say that I am anti-gadgets or stuck in past technologies. I like my digital TV. I think it's cool that some people still have the vision to invent things that improve our quality of life -- things that work. I have no desire to go back to IBM typewriters -- the ones with the little metal ball with the letters on it.

But with all of these advancements in the last 10 years, we also seem to take a step backwards at times. Perhaps this particular type of oil spill wouldn't have happened a couple decades ago. Maybe the rush of today's society and the illusion that everything new is better, safer, more efficient is making our world more dangerous. Identity theft is off the charts and medical care is on the decline, according to most people old enough to remember when doctors made house calls and had something called bed-side manners.

As long as vacuum tubes are sold and telephone land lines still exist, I won't be rushing to get the latest digital amplifier or smart phone -- not because I am old or stubborn -- but because tubes and land lines still sound the better than trendy alternatives.

Feeling fatigued from too much Toyota news

My daughter drives a Toyota. I recommended the brand and went with her to buy the car a few years ago. She likes her car. It's not one of the recalled models, but obviously I have had some concerns because of the safety problems being reported.

If you have similar worries about Toyota read this. Essentially, the writer of this article does the math and the math indicates that the chances of having a runaway Toyota are pretty darn low. He also gets into why we are afraid of so many things that don't pose any overwhelming threat.

This doesn't mean that as a father I have no worries about my daughter's Corolla. I wish Toyota would have paid more attention to safety and less attention to the bottom line in recent years. I don't want to let the car company off the hook, nor do I want to ignore a country (Japan) that is so pro-business that it hasn't yet recalled a single Toyota in its homeland. But I also think that Americans are overly jittery about far too many things lately. Heck, we mentally fall apart, close schools and shut down the government whenever a snowflake falls from the sky. The risk of slipping in the snow seems to overwhelm us.

There are risks in life. I don't believe companies should knowingly create and lie about those risks like cigarette manufacturers have done for decades. We need consumer advocates and government regulators to expose and police companies that have bad intentions or cut too many corners. I am glad Toyota's over-the-top ambitions and greed have been exposed. However, I don't think this particular story deserves the media attention it has received. I don't think we need another thing to be overly anxious about.

There are plenty of things in life that fail far more frequently and have dire consequences when they do. Politicians fail us every day in profound ways that lead to recessions. Toyota cars aren't creating the infections in hospitals that kill tens of thousands of relatively healthy people each year. Camrys aren't wiping out the rain forest. We have convicted pedophiles living in our neighborhoods. We barely give any attention to the food we ingest or the factory farms that create it. Yet, we're obsessing about Toyota?

As the author of the column writes, the problem could lie in the software of these runaway cars. We are relying way too much on technology, in my opinion. It's seeping into everything. Frankly, I want to make the decisions on how my car drives, handles and brakes. I don't want a computer telling the engine when to accelerate or steering mechanisms how to turn.

Perhaps one good thing that might come from these Toyota headlines is that technology needs to be managed better. Just because something is new and shows potential doesn't mean it's ready to go to market or will ultimately improve the quality of our lives.

Are we almost there?

The road to landing a job these days will mostly likely begin online.

As I sat in Starbucks today, a young man came in and asked a couple employees if they were hiring. Knocking on doors was a proven way of finding a job, particularly in retail or the service industry, in the not-so-distant past. I expected the Starbucks workers to give the young man an application, maybe sit down with him for a chat, but I was wrong.

I should have guessed it. They directed him to the company web site. Told him he can get information and apply online. He nodded sort of knowingly and departed. I know the look.

I have called human resource departments at universities and major companies a couple times to get information on hiring. I was quickly rerouted to their career web sites. I've also called top hiring managers at smaller firms. Same results.

Most help-wanted ads these days instruct job seekers not to call. Some are pretty darn hostile about it. And god forbid you show up in person with a resume in hand. You could find yourself escorted from the building by security guards.

It seems the web is the perfect method for employers to screen the many unemployed people looking for work in this recession. Just navigating through some company career sites serves as a way of making sure one has the technical skills needed in today's job market. If you can't do that you obviously won't be hired. Fortunately, I haven't had any difficulties creating PDFs of my resume or directing employees to web sites that feature my work or references. I am good at that stuff, but not so good at getting positive replies.

Most employers warn in their ads that they probably won't contact applicants unless they want to hire you. Just not feasible, I guess, with all the applications they receive. The lack of a human touch in this process is sometimes difficult to cope with. Some employers, I have found out after applying, withdrew the position for budgetary reasons.

I remember looking at Guitar Center's web site several months ago when I was considering finding a "fun" part-time job with a retailer just to get out of the house and bring in a few extra dollars. The music store went the extra mile on the Internet highway, actually having a mechanism for conducting the initial interview online. I didn't want to try selling myself to an electronic interviewer, so I passed.

No wonder it's so difficult to find work. Along with the high unemployment rate, the efficiency of web-based job applications is only efficient for employers who don't want to look beyond a few keywords that their computers identify in resumes. For employees, it's easy to get lost in all the traffic on the job-site expressway.

Yet, I offer a warning to those who seek back-road shortcuts or alternative routes. Proceed at your own risk. Most employers frown upon people trying to circumvent the process. You won't get any initiative points for not following the rules of the road in most cases. I've tried it and found myself right back on the Internet entrance ramp, trying to merge into oncoming traffic.

I suppose the best way to find a job is to know someone in a hiring position -- or at least it was a decade or two ago. I do know a few of those types of people in those types of positions. In fact, at one time, I hired some of them. In one or two cases I actually saved their jobs. Another story for another day. But now they tell me there just aren't any openings. No opportunity to return the favor, sort of speak. I believe them but still can't help feeling disappointed that we're now in an era where people who want to help can't. I am sure it's not a good feeling for them, and I know it's a rotten reality for those seeking work.

So it's back on the Internet freeway for me, trying to get noticed amongst all the other electronic applications and professional networking colleagues, hoping that one of these exits is the right one. Hoping the traffic subsides soon before my fuel gauge hits empty or the kids in the back seat ask yet again whether we're almost there.

Taking typing to a new level

I believe my typing skills have vastly improved in my year off from work. A modest silver lining to an otherwise humbling and difficult year.

As much as I typed in my job at USA TODAY, it doesn't compare to how I burn through a keyboard now. I am almost always typing. It's how I apply to 90 percent of the jobs that I seek. Employers generally loathe when you call or show up uninvited to inquire about a position. They will redirect you to their web sites with lightning speed. Of course, web sites weren't so prevalent the last time I was looking for work, so this has been a change for me. Thus far, a fruitless change. I've applied to 223 companies, some of them several times. That's a whole lot of typing and navigating through multi-layered job applications.

Typing is how I primarily stay in touch with long-distance friends and colleagues. I do the social/professional networking thing and blog when I have a few spare moments. I cover a lot of ground on any given day. There is a sense of efficiency in doing personal and professional business this way, but there is also a feeling of losing human connections.

Despite the speed and efficiency, technology has its drawbacks. For instance, I have pains in my hands that I never felt before, probably from overusing my laptop and mouse. Nothing severe. But nonetheless annoying. When I worked at the newspaper, I was behind a nice desktop Macintosh, writing from one of those ergonomic chair-desk combos. Now I am on an aging Dell laptop with a bad screen, sitting in a $50 chair at a desk that is way too high. My questionable posture isn't getting any better working this way.

When technology fails or a server crashes it can mean even more time in the chair, retyping a job application or refiling an unemployment claim, literally adding insult to injury. It's no fun losing your tax information because of a software glitch or having your cover letter zapped from an employer's web site just as you're putting a period on the final sentence. Universities and government employers have a particularly technical and grueling process for applying to jobs. Better hope your internet connection is stable before getting started.

I am not sure what my typing speed is up to now. I am guessing I'm at least 10 words per minute faster than I was last year. As an English major, I've always been comfortable behind a keyboard, but have taken my game to a new level lately. Instant messaging is particularly useful for building up typing agility. Of course, I am not looking for data-entry or word-processing jobs -- at least not yet. But if and when the time comes for that sort of employment, I will be ready.

You can't escape technology

I like technology for the most part - particularly when it works. I know some folks my age or older stay clear of anything related to computers and can't even craft an e-mail. But I generally find technology to be just another creative tool at my disposal. Another way to communicate or receive information. As practical as a toaster in a sense.

Though I am far from the engineering type, I am fortunate to have always had an intuitive understanding of new software and various gadgets. While my budget doesn't allow me to buy every new thing that comes down the pike, my curiosity helps prevent me from feeling like I am ready for the glue factory and saves me some time when executing every-day tasks like job searching.

If, however, your comfort level with gadgets is limited to old 45-adapters (pictured), you probably aren't in a field that requires you to paginate a page or convert documents to PDFs. Or at least you shouldn't be.

There continues to be an ongoing struggle in many workplaces where older workers are resisting new technologies. That bothers me because folks over 50 are being painted with a broad brush as technical illiterates by young whipper-snappers who grew up with Nintendo controllers in their hands. In some cases, it's a deserving label. Everyone knows of someone who seemingly is always at war with their laptop or the printer. Usually, it's the old guy or gal in the corner cubicle, next to the coffee machine, with the foot-long calculator on their desk.

While technology can raise frustrations, it is also a huge time saver when used properly. That is very important in an age where companies need greater efficiencies with fewer employees. Unfortunately, some people never learn to use the scanner or the web cam. These folks tend to bog down operations because they insist on using "Stickies" rather than Instant Messaging. They want to scribble something you can't read on a faded message pad rather than send you an e-mail. And it gives all of us "baby boomers" a bad rep when it seemingly is always the people over a certain age. It's even worse when it's your boss! They don't seem to understand that their reluctance to enter the 21st century is making your work life miserable.

In an time when companies are looking for technical skills, it's good to know what an MP3 is or a JPEG. Having a skill like digital photo or video editing can open doors and it can also provide you with some pretty cool images of your grandchildren or your dream vacation. And all of this stuff is available to the "average Joe" on any home computer.

There really is no excuse not to be technically proficient. It doesn't mean you have to give up your vinyl records, but you should know what a Podcast is and how an iPod works if you want to stay relevant. These aren't cultural things like movies and clothing and other passing fads, which change with each generation. These are essentials of the workplace and items becoming as common as a 45-adapter was in 1965.

Now, some may ask, "What is a 45-adapter?"