The Agony and the Ecstacy of Computers

My husband gave me an Apple computer for my coming birthday. Make that coming birthdays -- plural. It's a restored Apple, thus more affordable, but we don't buy computers everyday. It's supposed to be as good as new, and I'm hoping this is true.

Now, my husband has always been the expert I consulted for problems with my old PC. He works on a PC and has for years and years, and knows tons of information for when things go wrong. But even he was stymied by the last problem I had. We took it to the shop, and the man there told us it was clean, no viruses, but even HE could not fix the problem. Instead, he offered to buy it so he could use the parts. (That says something about the PC's state of being, despite years of loyal service.) I felt guilty, as if I'd sent it to the glue factory.

But then I found I was getting an Apple. None of my writing friends has EVER had problems with an Apple. No one my husband knows has ever had problems with an Apple. (I suspect this motivated him a little: the fond hope that I would not be showing up at his office door, a sad look on my face as I uttered sentences that usually began with, "My computer just....")

Since neither of us has ever had an Apple, though, we are embarking together on a journey of demystification over the instructions. I'm armed with a copy of "Macs for Dummies" (after reading the author's assurance that no one in that series really thinks the reader is a dummy). We have lots of little instruction booklets for various software alwready installed or to be installed. At the moment, my Internet favorites, my pictures, and my word documents are on a flashdrive, along with my Outlook mail, all awaiting downloading. (Thanks goodness for Hotmail.) The Apple layout is different, to say the least. When I check out icons and navigate around various sites on the Apple, it feels a little like showing up for Spanish class with a French grammar book: Yeah, there are basic similarities, but there's a world of difference.

So presently I'm working from my husband's "back-up" PC; the one he can use if his main one is in the shop for any reason; the one I could use when my old one was in the shop. This whole transition thing, has left me a bit up in the air. I am avidly reading "Macs for Dummies" in the hopes that I will soon be whizzing around with confidence checking e-mail, Internet favorites, and word documents with no problems. No problems at all. Cross fingers.

What about you? Have you ever had to make the transition from one computer to another? If so, how long did it take? Who do you consult when things go wrong? Or are you one of those lucky computer users where nothing goes wrong at all?