Jim Kershner : Who said progress is a good thing?

Technology has streamlined our lives and saved us all vast amounts of time. We now have more spare time than ever to be put on hold by tech support.

Fortunately, my latest issue of Consumer Reports is filled with brilliant new products to make our lives even simpler and more fulfilling.

For instance:

HDTVs – Decide whether you want a plasma TV, LCD TV or picture-tube TV and then decide if you want a 1080p as opposed to a 1080i or 720p model. Then all you have to do is take it home and plug it in. It’s that simple.

Well, except you’ll also have to call the cable or satellite company, get an HD box, maybe hook up your TiVo (you’ll need a box for that, too) and then connect your DVD player. Of course, if your new TV has one of those new HDMI input jacks (and it really should), you will need to go back to the store and buy an HDMI cable, if you only knew what one looked like.

The good news: You no longer have to fiddle with rabbit ears.

Home theater – You’ll also want to purchase a home theater sound system and hook it up to your new TV. Fortunately, this is simple. All you have to do is buy a receiver and plug it in, using your HDMI cable or maybe some other cable you don’t have.

Then you need to drape some other cables around your neck and hook up your two front speakers, your two rear speakers, your unspecified number of center speakers and a subwoofer.

Then all you have to do is untangle yourself from the cables, possibly with help from the fire department, and try to turn on the receiver. When you hit the “power” button on your new remote, the ceiling fan starts to whir.

If this all sounds too difficult, an easier alternative is a “home theater in a box,” which includes all of the above components matched for easy installation. All you have to do is plug everything together, stand back and see if sound comes out of it. If not, it means you must immediately update to Dolby 6.1, which can be done by spending more money.

Digital camera – Digital cameras are so much more convenient than conventional cameras, because you need no film and no processing. All you have to do is point and shoot, after first setting the dial to either M or Av or Tv or P or a little drawing of a person or a little drawing of a mountain or a little drawing of someone playing cricket, or a little drawing of a galaxy or a little drawing of a clown who is crying.

These are all easily intuitive. Tv means, for instance, “shutter speed priority AE.” The crying clown means “landscape panorama.”

After choosing the proper dial mode you must then choose your DPOF Print Settings or else you will end up with pictures the wrong size or photos of people you’ve never met.

Cell phones – Because users were complaining that cell phones were too simple, they now double as digital music players. They are incredibly easy to use – all you have to do is program all of your phone numbers into them and download all of your music onto them. This will take less than a month.

Once you are finished, you will be able to make and receive phone calls, although you will often hit the wrong Menu Mode Control Directory button and you will wonder why Jimi Hendrix is calling you and why he wants to “stand next to your fire.”

Digital music players – Instead of lugging around that heavy gramophone, the iPod makes it easy to carry all of your music in your pocket. Simply import all of your CDs MP3s, LPs, eight-track tapes, cassette tapes and wax cylinders into your digital music library. You can do this by purchasing a new $1,000 computer, or through magic, whichever suits your budget.

Then download every song into your iPod, as well as your favorite TV shows, your family photos and the complete collection of the Library of Congress. Then you just insert little buds into your ears and fiddle with a thumb-wheel until some kind of music begins to play or someone begins to recite Shakespeare.

You will have forgotten, by this time, how to make it stop. Don’t worry. It will eventually stop when the battery dies.

The relative silence will be a vast relief, because you are also on hold to tech support, which has been playing the greatest hits of the ‘80s for four hours.