I’m pretty much known as a technophile around the office, evidenced by my near-euphoria over Apple’s announcement of its latest gadget, the iPad. (I must have one. Now.) My staffers come to me with tech issues before calling the IT department, because 9 times out of 10, I can fix whatever ails their computers (and 9.5 times out of 10, the answer is “restart it.”).

Surprising, then, that I’d never used our office fax machine until this week. Granted, it was brand new to us over the summer, and I used the previous one often enough to know my way around, but I hadn’t had occasion to use this new and improved model in the last six months.

Why would such a self-proclaimed geek not know how to use a fax machine, you ask? BECAUSE IT’S TWO THOUSAND TEN!

That’s right, folks, much like scarcely anyone remembers how to change the ribbon on a typewriter, it’s because the technology is hopelessly outdated. In the world of e-mail, scanners and PDFs, there’s really no reason to make paper copies and transmit them over phone lines in the year 2010.