Your only hope is to stick with systems that are supported by the majority of the market and a multiplicity of suppliers. This is true even for companies such as the mighty IBM (remember how WorkPlace Shell was going to solve all our problems?) and Microsoft (did anybody buy a copy of Bob?).

Think of it this way: You can still buy new and fairly cutting-edge video, Small Computer System Interface and drive control cards for the Vesa-Local Bus interface, despite the fact that manufacturers largely switched over to the Peripheral Connection Interface local bus two years ago.

That's because Vesa-Local Bus was an open industry standard -- dozens of manufacturers shipped millions of machines with Vesa-Local Bus.

On the other hand, seen any cutting-edge cards for the Apple Macintosh Lcii or Lciii lately?

Though Moore's Law -- which said the power of computer chips doubles every 18 months -- seems to be slowing a bit, no end is in sight in our lifetimes. With hot new technologies like the Universal Serial Bus and the Intel MMX series in the pipeline, there will always be something a little bit better available six months from now.

So, here's a little tip: We're not in the computer business, we're in the publishing business. You should no more wait for next year's technology than you should wait for next year's bagel. You'll starve while waiting.

It works like this: Some stupid company actually ships a product. The competition responds by announcing a product that will be available Real Soon Now(TM).

This stalls the market while everyone compares the real -- and therefore flawed -- product against the press release for the vaporware.

Top examples include Microsoft's Windows 95, which was more than two years late, but always seemed to show up in product comparisons against IBM's OS/2 and Apple Macintosh System 7; IBM's Workplace Shell, which was going to allow you to run Windows, OS/2 and Mac software, and never showed up; and Apple's Copeland, which was supposed to be here in 1992 and now is the subject of both a massive effort to get it out the door in late 1997 and a continuing effort to compare it -- rather than System 7 -- to Windows 95.

Don't fall for FUD.

Now that we've scared you half to death and taken all the fun out of spending other people's money, we thought we'd put together a shopping list -- with your money.

Here are some technologies that you ought to consider for the coming fiscal year:

It wasn't all that long ago that RAM was selling for $50 a megabyte, and outfitting a machine correctly could double the base price. Lots of shops squeezed more machines out of the budget by going easy on the RAM.

Unfortunately, a minimal allocation of RAM cripples a machine. An i486DX2-66 with 16 megabytes of RAM will perform roughly equal to a Pentium 100 with eight megabytes of RAM.

Now's the time to rectify that. RAM prices have crashed -- 16-megabyte Single Inline Memory Modules that were clipping $800 last year are now going for under $150.

Tom Croteau, the Newspaper Association of America's director of newspaper services, said a good rule of thumb for RAM is to quadruple the size of the largest file that you process often. If you often handle 20 megabyte files, shove 80 megabytes into your machine.

When was the last time your system people had any advanced training? Or, play this fun game: See how many people in your organization have had training on the software they are using. Lots of newsrooms spent money training people on Quark XPress 3.1 for Macintosh, lost half to employee churn -- then installed Quark XPress 3.3 for Windows.

In too many newsrooms, the people actually paginating have hand-me-down training from people who were never trained on the same operating system or the current revision of the software.

You needn't send your entire newsroom out; instead, consider sending a lead person out for a refresher course, under the tried-and-true practice of training the trainer.

Of course, you can save a lot of money by cutting out maintenance -- just like you can save a lot of money by not changing the oil in your car. Yes, you'll be very, very happy ... right up to the day where your engine (or press) seizes up.

"There's got to be a rebirth of maintenance programs," said Croteau. "There are a lot of folks who have bought new equipment over the last few years. There are a lot of new presses. They have to be maintained, or you won't get that color reproduction that you're looking for.

"The trick is to inflate the budget. Then when the publisher said 'cut 10 percent,' you're OK."

Sure, digital cameras were in use more than a decade ago -- but they cost as much as two or three cars, and delivered results that made over-developed Tri-X look like it had been shot on a 4 x 5.

Are digital cameras now as good as silver-based film? Definitely not. Are they good enough that you should consider switching? Croteau said most newspapers need to at least experiment with a digital camera, even a mid-level camera.

"You don't need to replace every camera in the shop. There are lots of great cameras out now for under $10,000," said Croteau.

On the other hand, some people have gone whole hog. The Vancouver Sun switched completely to digital photography in June 1995, and it's going great, said chief photographer Jerry Kahramann. He said that he was skeptical at first, "but now I'm a digital boy."

In reality, the Sun is about 95 percent digital, he said. While full-time photographers shoot 100 percent digital, "part-timers use film," Kahramann said. "We can't have one of these expensive cameras hanging around for a part-timer."

Kahramann said that has led to the one complaint he's heard about the digital cameras -- the part-timers want them, too.

But we're all journalists here, worshiping at the altar of fairness, balance and an utter loathing of blow-dried anchor creatures with helmet hair. So without further adieu, here is the Other Side of the Story.

Croteau is troubled by the Mac disappearing act already in progress in newsrooms across America. He's pretty much written off arguing for Macs outside graphic arts, but would like to issue a plea that newspapers at least consider Macs there.

"I still feel that the Mac OS for graphic arts applications is better than 95 or Win 3.1," he said.

Hey, here's a radical suggestion: Why not test it? You'll find it is enormously more stable than any rev of Windows 3.X or, for that matter, today's latest rev of System 7.

We can name good-sized software companies that have standardized on it as a development platform. It's easy to use, has a slick user interface, menus on demand, is the best laptop operating system by miles and miles, and runs just about every old DOS and Windows 3.X app without a hiccup.

It's definitely worth at least the price of a test copy.

Some highlights: The very fast Internet Information Server (Web, Telnet, FTP, web indexing); symmetrical multiprocessing support for up to 32 processors right out of the box; the FrontPage World-Wide Web authoring, development and management package, and Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol, which allows the construction of secure virtual networks across unsecured broadband.

For the record, Brown adds that while he feels good, he is not The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. "That implies money for a server, money for software and money for personnel to do WWW projects," he said.

"Why not put out a CD-ROM product with long stories and some of your best photography in a package suitable for schools? Get those young people thinking about the organization that produced such great content -- your newspaper."

"This also implies training. Make sure that once you've spent the money on training that you allocate time for your staff to get up to speed with computer-assisted reporting and research, web production or what ever."

Like Brown, Ross feels that newspapers can best help themselves by improving their content through the use of techniques such as computer-assisted reporting and research. One of the best ways to facilitate that, according to Ross, is to allow every reporter access to the vast newsgathering resources now on the Web -- resources that seem to expand by the minute.

The Internet has always provided exemplary access to scientific data. Journalism organizations and schools are rushing resources on-line, including Investigative Reporters & Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Iupui and others too numerous to mention.

Ross and Brown both point out that there are few better, cheaper ways to improve your content than to give reporters Internet access -- and few better ways to defeat that purpose than to limit that access to one terminal in a back corner with a three-day waiting list.

Well, dear reader, now that we've admonished you with Rules to Buy By and made a shopping list with your money, we offer a bit of perspective from Maggie Ballough.

No stranger to the media rat race, Ballough was editor of the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman until last year. She has since stepped back a bit -- she's now editor of Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists.

She both knows whereof she speaks and has a bit of a perspective on the question of budgeting, which, after all, involves betting your money on the future direction of your newspaper.

"First, I'd advise people to stop looking for the Atex of today. It doesn't exist. If you're still looking for the one perfect system, stop," said Ballough. "Look at what your people do and what they need, then look for tools that fit together."

Like Brown and Ross, Ballough feels that newspapers need to put more thought -- and money -- into the newsgathering end of the process.

"Traditionally, we've divided employees into people who gather information and people who put that information together and produce the newspaper. The common thought was that reporters put words into terminals, while editors need high-end terminals to make it look pretty.

"It used to be the thinking that the information gatherers just needed machines for words. Today, reporters need machines that can assemble data, manipulate spreadsheets and databases, and extract meaning. They need sophisticated high-end equipment, not just something to put words into."

Ballough also echoed Ross and Brown's sentiment that it can be cheaper to spend money. That may seem paradoxical, but it isn't -- it's no savings to skip buying a $100 piece of software if that decision will cost you thousands of dollars in labor, said Ballough.

"Another thing people miss the boat on is saving money on software. Make a bigger investment; it can allow people to do things a lot more efficiently," said Ballough. She especially decried the practice of buying one copy of vital information and then letting everyone in the entire newsroom wrestle for it on deadline.

"The tendency has been to buy one copy of a lot of CDs and supplemental information," said Ballough. "Get lots of databases on CD-ROM, rather than buying one copy and everyone needs it and has to wait to use it. Get lots of spreadsheets and other software that would really help reporters process information."

Ballough said she's come to the conclusion that there are two big flaws in the thinking behind the planning for most newsrooms.

First, she said, managers are still looking for old-style systems where everyone has to have the same type of terminal. Rather than exploit the increased productivity to be found in a customizable system based on personal computers, she said, managers are looking to re-create the old mainframe and dumb terminal systems where everyone had an Atex terminal on their desktop.

Second, she reiterated her point about the misconception that information gatherers and reporters need machines only to put words in.

"That's just inefficient," Ballough said.

-- Christopher J. Feola

From THE COLE PAPERS, September 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.