Actually I do. Despite being in management I make sure that I keep my skills current. Over the past couple of years I've done commercial development in C, C++, perl, Python, SQL... including spending much of the last year doing Python development. So please don't imagine I'm some old fart who's never moved on from VAX/VMS. I talk to lots of recent CS graduates, and the majority of them don't come out with any useful skills beyond web-design. That's why so many are unemployed or on "do you want fries with that" wages.

My experience is that recent graduates don't have knowledge of the current tools. Most of the "IT" graduates churned out in the UK are taught PHP and Java and that's about it. The laws of supply and demand mean that yoiu can get programmers in those languages for not much more than you could offshore the work.

Having worked around computers since shortly after Xerox first suggested the idea of a paperless office I'm unimpressed by the idea and therefore religiously file everything that comes in and copies of all my outward letters etc. However, just because I file all my incoming mail that doesn't mean that I don't also scan it. I originally wrote (very simple) DIP software under Python/Linux, but these days use Nitro PDF to create PDFs direct from my scanner. Given that I only get a limited amount of post or other items which need to be scanned then it only takes a few minutes at most per day to maually scan everything. On those occasions when I have many documents or pages to scan I put something undemanding but enjoyable (e.g. classic 'Doctor Who' or old Sci Fi movies like 'The Quatermass Experiment') on in a window on my PC and watch that as I scan. I then have PDFs of all my inbound and outbound correspondence on both my PC but also synced with my NAS and my laptop. Which is great if ever you need to look something up or are dealing with some recalcitrent authority. One minor point, though, is if you have all your mail stored on your laptop encrypt the disk with something like TrueCrypt to reduce your vulnerability to identity theft.

No. I'm just pleased to see you...