It's time to escape the jargon jungle

I've learned over the years that when you write about technology, you end up being a bit of a translator.

Just trying to make someone understand the basics of a computer system can be difficult. You can't just come out and tell someone they need a multi-core CPU (the brains of the machine), 2 GB (that's just an indicator of the size) or more of RAM (the memory the computer uses to think), a 100+ GB HHD (the box that stores all your information) or 64 GB SSD (like an HHD but faster), with a 512 MB GPU (it makes videos and games run faster). You can't just say that to someone - minus the bits in parentheses - without most people's eyes glazing over.

It's also not what people want to hear. Most consumers - with the exception of geeks like me - want to buy a computer that runs well and won't give them any grief. Would it really kill tech companies to cut down on the alphabet soup?

Just look at what we have to deal with today. You see it everywhere from gaming systems to cameras.

If you buy a phone, you need to learn about GPRS (an analogue way of sending information by phone), 3G (a digital way of sending information via phone), and HSDC (high-speed connection to send digital information). You also will have to learn about SD cards (it stands for Secure Digital but it's the same kind of memory, called Flash, you find in a lot of gadgets today, such as iPods), mini SD cards (smaller than normal SD cards), and mini SSD (I think you get the pattern now). There are also a few other names for the little memory cards you put in your phone, but it really all comes down to shapes and sizes.

Once you've learned those, you can graduate to cameras where you'll encounter megapixels (a way to measure the resolution of your pictures) and file formats such as TIFF (tagged image file format) and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the guys who came out with the format). I know the difference, but judging by the conversations I've had, most people don't want to.

Unless you work with photos regularly, you probably don't need to either.

Of course, if you really want confusion, talk to some of the guys in the enterprise area, especially the guys who work for companies, such as IBM (International Business Machines) SAP (System Analysis and Program Development), Sun (Stanford University) or AMD (Advanced Micro Devices). These came out firing words like IOPS (input/output operations per second, which measure how fast a computer can save and retrieve information) and FLOPS (floating-point operations per second, which means the number of instructions a computer can, well, compute per second).

Now, I'm not advocating that we stop using these terms. It would be harmful if we did. With new technology comes new concepts, and we have to have intelligent ways of expressing them. But sometimes I think marketing people are just throwing these words around because they think that's what people want to hear. If it sounds technical, it must be good, right?

That's not true. There was nothing in this column that couldn't be explained in a few words. There is no reason technology companies couldn't find an intelligent way of doing the same.

However, that doesn't mean I don't want them to stop telling me about computers with quad-core chipsets running at 2 gigahertz with 4 GB RAM, 1TB HHD, and dual 512MG GPUs cards. I just don't want to do the translation anymore.

Most consumers - with the exception of geeks like me - want to buy a computer that runs well and won't give them any grief. Would it really kill tech companies to cut down on the alphabet soup?