Enjoying a High-Tech Round of Show-and-Tell

The Challenge: A Capitol Hill real estate agent and her congressional aide hubby are ready for a tech makeover. The Solution: We send in a Post tech squad to usher them into the world of iPods, digital pictures and Web surfing.

Jeanne Harrison had a simple mantra when she first met a Washington Post tech team assigned to help her and her husband, Randolph, update their digital lifestyle: She didn't want technology controlling her life, like those "crackberry addicts who spend too much time checking their BlackBerrys and not enough looking people in the eye."

"I would like to learn more about this stuff, but just to get the latest and greatest -- well, that's not me,'' she said in our initial meeting at her Coldwell Banker office on Capitol Hill.

Yet no sooner had the busy real estate agent described herself as the family Luddite than she revealed her tech wish list: a cell phone to replace her three-year-old handset; a digital camera, the family's first; an iPod; a DVD player; a digital stereo; and a big-screen TV. Eventually the couple hoped to set up a wireless network and get a laptop.

The Harrisons, like so many people, seemed tempted yet bewildered by the avalanche of shiny new digital devices rolling into electronics stores. While considering what to buy, they were still struggling to resolve glitches on their three-year-old home computer. Our mission was to help them clean up the computer, show them a few Internet tricks and help them decide what other technologies might enhance their lives. On the Post team were technology editor Dan Beyers and two technology columnists, Rob Pegoraro and myself.

Given Jeanne's hectic schedule, I thought she might reconsider the dreaded Blackberry. I showed her the color model I bought several months ago, featuring a phone, electronic calendar and Web access in addition to e-mail. But after looking it over, she said she couldn't imagine holding something so bulky up to her ear: "It would be like talking into a platter."

OK, so we take baby steps.

Her husband, Randolph, legislative director for a member of Congress, does most of his computing at work, Jeanne explained, while she uses the home Dell computer mostly to trade e-mail and manage her real estate listings. Jeanne still had no plan for regularly backing up her files, though she had recently copied her 2004 taxes onto a floppy disk after learning her lesson when her computer's hard drive failed. Fed up, she had gone computer-free for months before buying a new drive. The machine was functional again -- except for a pesky message that kept popping up at inopportune times.

Music was a passion for her and her husband, an Internet radio fan. He was eager to get an iPod, and they both wanted a new home stereo since theirs had stopped working. Those decisions were being delayed because they were preparing to renovate a Victorian house on Capitol Hill. They were still debating how to wire the house for digital sound.

Beyers, a fan of instant messaging, wondered if Jeanne might benefit from such software, especially to stay in touch with her husband and partners. "How do you talk to your husband during the day?" he asked.

"Nicely," she deadpanned.

Beyers explained how he uses instant messaging to make sure his wife and kids can reach him almost any time -- he can even have the messages forwarded to his cell phone. "I get way too much e-mail at work," he said. "I created special channels at work so my family can reach me."

"Really!" she kept saying, perhaps to be polite.