trained by rote to do things a certain way. During our working lives we go on to perform the necessary tasks using the equipment we have been trained on.

We get used to doing things a certain way and fall into habitual behaviour.

That's when it becomes harder to see outside our little boxes we have built around ourselves. But sooner rather than later these days some new technology comes along which transforms the nature of the way we do things.

It's then time to step outside of our boxes and take a broader view of things, extrapolate a bit into the future and see the possibilities. Yet, it's difficult to make the human transformation.

Too often we find some sort of excuse to continue with the old methods and machines. Perhaps the older ways were better. But more often we're just trying to avoid learning a new trick. It's too much effort to start all over again.

Our schooling was supposed to teach us how to adapt, to use what we learned to help us learn anew. Perhaps this is why it might be better in some cases to revisit the old technologies, to learn how they worked, and then move on to the new.

That's the way printer Horst Augustinovic, 58, learned his craft in Vienna at the former Research and Training Institute for the Graphic Arts. The institute was founded in the mid-1800s to promote and teach the new technology of photography but soon grew to embrace the whole range of media. It became the main training centre for printers in Central Europe during its heyday.

When he arrived there in 1953 Mr. Augustinovic remembers his teachers making him learn the old methods of lithography using stones, then taking him through to etching and other ways of printing before he was introduced to the new equipment and methods.

"It gave me a much broader view of the process,'' he said. "Technology is based on what came before. You have to know what goes before and what comes after.'' As a printer and engineer, Mr. Augustinovic grew up setting type by hand -- actually placing various letters on a form which was then used in the printing process.

He came to Bermuda in 1961 eventually working for both Bermuda Press (Holdings) Ltd., which publishes The Royal Gazette , and then at Island Press.

During that time printers were still using linotype, a process which used hot lead to set type in strips which were then used for printing. The process was an unhealthy one for printers.

Methods were developed which advanced the craft. One method was a strike on system which used a punched ticker tape to set the type. The next major advance in the 1960s was the development of the photo typesetter which used exposed film to set the printing plates.

Then came digital typesetting, a process in which digital information is run though an image setter. The film is then used in the normal way.

Now printers are beginning to use digital printing which eliminates the image setters and film. Digital information is put directly on the printing plate.

Chameleon Digital Press, a subsidiary of Engravers Ltd., became the first printer in Bermuda last year to bring a small $500,000 version to the Island.

Digital printing allows small print runs, and personalised print jobs to be done more efficiently and brings down the cost. A digital press can change what it prints with every sheet of paper. A digital press also eliminates ink, using toner instead, which allows every revolution of the press to print a new image.

A digital press could for example in the future allow a printer to publish copies of a newspaper personalised for an individual or a company. Real estate agents with a data base of 400 properties to sell and 2,000 potential clients, could target properties to individuals in the same print run.

Mr. Augustinovic went on to found with a partner Print Link, a small publishing company. The Internet blossomed. He like other publishers mulled over what the Internet meant to the industry.

He decided early on he needed to jump to the new communications link immediately. The company's name was changed to Net Link Ltd., concentrating on publishing on the Internet.

Net Link now hosts such sites as Bermuda Tourism, the Post Office, and magazines such as Dining Out in Bermuda, and Bermuda Dateline. He believes the Internet has a similar historical significance as the original development of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg. "The Internet is an extension for me of the book, but it's a tool where you can access anything,'' he said.

He believes the Internet is going to reduce, but not eliminate, regular printing runs. For example companies will send out fewer annual reports as the information will be able to be accessed online.

"It's really going to change everything,'' he said. "It's a global development which is going to help Bermuda break away from its 20 or so square miles.''