Daniel P. Dern

Today's coders may know how to whip up a PHP script or a Drupal extension, create a mobile app for both the iPhone and Android, and run DOOM on their car's GPS (which has been done, it turns out). But there's a lot that their predecessors knew that today's programmers don't.

Some of these skills aren't likely to be needed again, any more than most of us need to know how to ride a horse or (sigh) drive a manual-transmission vehicle. But other skills and "lessons learned" may still or again prove relevant, whether developers are banging their heads against legacy systems, coding for new mobile and embedded devices... or other devices and applications we haven't yet thought of.

PDF, the Portable Document Format created by Adobe Systems (and released as an open standard in 1998) has become one of the more popular ways to create electronic documents that retain their look, feel and content, including text, fonts, images, layouts, and even hyperlinks, regardless of computer, OS, or application.

Most new computers and browsers are likely to include Adobe's free Reader, which lets you open (view) and print PDFs.

Today's tech products are remarkably self-sufficient when it comes to accessories. Most of us are (thankfully) no longer packing a floppy drive and an acoustic coupler in our tech travel kits, or even an RJ-11 phone cable, a Line 2 to Line 1 adapter, and a phone line tester/protector.

Artwork: Nick DewarEven so, packing a few things -- or carrying them in your pocket or bag -- can mean the difference between problem and productivity... if not for you, then for some less-well-prepared member of your party.

With the ever-rising cost of electricity, we're all getting increasingly sensitive about how much power our computers, televisions, appliances and other doohickeys are using -- not just when we're using them, but also when they're allegedly turned off.

Some, like refrigerators, aren't running full tilt all the time. Others, such as computers, printers, displays and other gear, have "sleep" modes -- they power down significantly but they're still on. And some devices, like televisions and cable boxes, aren't really off when we push that "Off" button or switch. All are still drawing a small amount of power, a phenomenon that's called "parasitic load."