Computer Aversion Therapy: Teaching someone to hate computers - to become filled with dread and loathing at the thought of even having to touch a computer - is easy. Here's how: First, give 'em that old hand-me-down, freebie computer you can't use anymore. The processor should be at least four generations old, with a hopelessly small capacity for obsolete RAM, a floppy drive, a puny hard disk..... make sure it's a real doorstop, one with an ancient Operating System and equally outdated software. Next, hook 'em up to the Internet with a version 3 browser and a 14.4 modem. Wait five years and repeat (if necessary) with a newer, obsolete, outdated computer. My point is this: If you think you're doing someone a favor by giving them that old PC you replaced last summer because you couldn't use it anymore, think again. They won't be able to use it either. Make a dedicated rolodex out of it, or use it to store recipes in the kitchen. Sell it on eBay for parts, or make a sculpture out of it, or a birdhouse, or use it as a doorstop. But please don't condemn someone you care about to a frustrating experience you know enough to avoid.

Warranties and Rebates. Despite every effort, things sometimes go wrong, especially in an industry that changes as rapidly and as often as computer technology. A manufacturer's warranty may be viewed as a kind of buffer against unforeseen events, one that is as valuable to the manufacturer as it is to you. No warranty will protect against accidental damage or negligence, loss or theft, and many extended warranties are designed to do little more than pad the bill. That said, the only extended warranties worth considering are those offered by the original manufacturer, and the only extended warranty we recommend is with purchase of a notebook - any notebook - computer. The same goes for rebates: Rebates from manufacturers may serve to cushion a sudden price drop or a pending upgrade, but the practice is no less obnoxious. (Why not just lower the price?) Unless the rebate occurs at point of sale, without conditions or additional requirements, they are best avoided. Most rebates will prove to be as difficult to justify as they are to collect, and offering such a rebate tends to steer many people toward competing products with better options or lower prices. License and Registration. When you purchase software, you are buying a limited license to use that software, a license that has specific restrictions and conditions. Buying software does not entitle you to share it, distribute copies or hack it, nor does it necessarily entitle you to free updates. (A company's update policies, practices and charges should be considered before buying.) Most licenses limit the number of "seats," meaning a few users may be licensed on a single machine, or a single user may be licensed on a few machines. To be fair, I suspect at least some responsibility for software piracy rests with obscene prices charged for canned software, but nonetheless, theft is theft. Having had my own intellectual property stolen in the past, I tend to come down on the side of programmers and authors. Having paid the price, please do not hesitate to register your product. Registration might entitle you to tech support (online forums, possibly phone support), discounts, updates, and other perks. And, if you lose your registration code, a phone call or email to the company will put you back in business. (Write registration info on product's install disk with the official CD labeling device: A Sharpie felt pen.) Cookies and Browsers. Good cookies, bad cookies, cookies from strangers? Most browsers provide at least a few cookie control options (in browser's preference settings): Accept all cookies, refuse all cookies, or accept only those from server you connected to. Some browsers notify you of a pending cookie and allow you to accept/deny on a case-by-case basis; this last option can be tedious but informative. A little digging into cookies collected by your browser will reveal dates, origins, contents and destination of cookies. It's not difficult to determine which ones are useful and necessary, and which should be removed. (In Safari, open preferences, click Security tab, then click "Show Cookies" button.) A good rule of thumb when dealing with unfamiliar, unrecognized cookies (and servers) is to refuse cookies returning data to any other server except the site you're on, since you have no way of knowing what is being collected or why. Generally, cookies serve a useful and legitimate purpose - on useful and legitimate web sites. If sorting thru cookies is not high on your list of priorities, don't worry - it's not terribly important and shouldn't be a big concern for most people.

A "user interface" consists of two parts: A human-half, and a machine-half. Sadly, a great deal of computer problems we deal with here at the MacShack have more to do with the human-half of that equation than the machine-half. Thought processes range from superstition to paranormal to hands-in-the-air helplessness. Enough with the drama! It's always a joy to deal with so-called "power users" who know what's what, but some folks just can't - or won't - even attempt to understand these machines. Following are a few examples.....

Technology Stress Factor?

When I learned that a client was using the long-gone Imation SuperDisk as her media of choice to distribute data, I just had to ask why. At 120MB, SuperDisk once competed with the 100MB Zip disk at roughly $15 each until both were replaced by CD-RW drives. Today's common CD disk costs about a dime for over 600MB of storage, so if your intention is to physically distribute data the CD (or DVD) is certainly the media of choice. I tried to explain how easy it is to burn a CD - easy, fast, economical and universally accepted, but.....   "I don't need any more stress in my life ," she sighed.   I still don't quite understand that reply, but I've noticed similar reactions to technology. Even some advertising aimed at the phenomenon, describing confused and frustrated consumers forced to deal with technologies they cannot comprehend. Forget all the spectacular results achieved with proper application of modern technology; just learning how to burn a simple CD is apparently too much for some people. (How do you burn a CD? You stick the blank into your Mac, drag whatever you want to the CD's window, and eject it. Couldn't be easier.)   What strange sort of psychology is at work here? Technology = change = stress? Is that the formula? Or is it simply a matter of laziness? Lack of interest? Inability to grasp the concept? No two ways about it, some folks glaze-over faster than a Krispy Kreme when the subject arises. Have they somehow been beaten-up by computer technology? Where does stress enter into the equation?   In this case, just locating a SuperDisk drive to read my client's data was going to be a problem. Haven't seen one o'them in years. (One wonders if anybody reads the data she's distributing.) She already has everything she needs (except some blank CDs). It's a simple solution and it would be a big improvement. Better yet, why not post or submit files via the internet? Another sigh. She didn't want to hear that, either. Too stressful.

Time to clock out.

The only mystery here is whether it was a right cross or left jab*. Yup, someone got so frustrated that he punched this poor notebook, shattering the display and breaking its frame. What caused his frustration? Not that it matters, but he said he was trying to setup an online account which kept giving him errors and forcing him to reenter information over and over. So, he punched the screen. Damage was about $600.   Here's the thing about computers: They're only tools. They do what they're told to do. Do the same thing over and over, and you're most likely to get the same result, over and over. There might have been a problem with an IP address, or perhaps the site was down, or maybe some setting somewhere was interfering. Possibilities are legion; in fact, it's a wonder the internet works at all. When an internet problem is encountered, consider checking preferences and settings and permissions, see if a different browser behaves any differently, or give it some time and try again later. Do _something_ different (f'heaven's sake!), but please don't destroy the equipment. Okay? Pretty please?   * I've just been informed that it was a right cross, in case you were wondering.

Determined to have a bad day.

Some human interface problems solve themselves in a matter of seconds, right over the phone. First in this category was a gentleman who called the shop repeatedly, getting our voice mail system each time and hanging up. Since he didn't leave a message, I didn't return his calls.   A word here about the shop's phone system: It's not your typical answering machine. Voice mail presents only two options; press 1 for info, or press 2 to leave a message. Deceptively simple. It's Patty (a Mac) who screens out telemarketers, spoofs and autodialers, routes and responds to specific personal and business calls, dispenses data, handles FAXs, messages and more. She logs every step and records everything she hears (bless her lil' silicon heart).   Call logs showed this caller did nothing but hang up each time he called; he never pressed a key and never said a word. Long about the 4th incoming call, I had an opportunity to answer before voice mail picked up.   Soon as I said hello, he complained. "I called earlier but you never called back." As I apologized about being busy, I pulled up the call logs. "I see you called, but you didn't leave a message. No matter. What can I do for you?" "I left a message," he insisted. "I left a few messages. You didn't return my calls."   So now I begin playing each of his (short) recordings prior to hangup. I hear faint classical music in the background, some breathing and a click - no message - and told him so. He seemed a bit unnerved. "If you can't even operate an answering machine," he sputtered, "I don't think I wanna bring my computer to you," and hung up.

Another Self-Solving Human Interface (SSHI).....

Returned a phone call from an unidentified woman pleading for help. After some confusion, we got around to the - alleged - Mac problem.   "We badly need a copy of Internet Explorer," she stated. "Do you have one?"   That simple question told me all I needed to know. But, just to make sure, I asked about their current system. Each question was relayed to another woman whose reply was echoed back to me. They had an old (grape) G3 CRT iMac running System 8. Hard to believe it wasn't infested with a dozen or more copies of IE, but I digress.....   I tried to explain that IE went extinct years ago, that a current OS would allow use of modern browsers like Safari or Firefox, but before I could complete a sentence, she cut me off. "Foxfire," she said to her companion who corrected her. "Firefox. Oh, yes, that's what the other guy said, too. Do you make housecalls?" Other guy? I had to laugh. "No, sorry, I quit making housecalls when I opened -" "I know, I know. It's funny, huh," she said. "No, it's not funny. It's just that -" she cut me off again. And that was when she said it: "We know what we want. I guess you can't help us. Good-bye."

A tale of two newbies: Rod and Randy.

When Rod reluctantly encountered computing for the first time, he approached it with dread. He was certain it would be expensive, troublesome and frustrating. Intimidated by technology he refused to even try to comprehend, he thought it best to follow the masses flocking to Windows from DOS. He bought the cheapest equipment he and his friend could cob together; a computer built from quirky, low-cost, no-name components with minimal specs. His resulting experience was 100% predictable.   Rod "It's all crap," says Rod. "If you have to buy one o'those things, ya might as well buy the cheapest you can find, 'cause it's all crap anyway."   That's Rod's spin on things, and he's proven it a thousand times. From computers to household goods and appliances, you-name-it: He buys the cheapest thing he can find, and when it breaks he just nods. "Told ya so." Some things escape Rod's maxim, but not many. Being a craftsman and machinist by trade, he appreciates quality materials and precision when discussing certain objects - tools, firearms and engines, for example - but that's where it stops and no one can tell him any different. For most other things, quality is the last consideration: It's all disposable, and it's all the same. When it comes to anything electronic, especially anything with a computer chip in it, it's all crap.   To hear Rod tell it, he came by his first "real" computer when a buddy of his put a PC together for him out of unwanted spare parts. They went shopping for a cabinet, then stuffed it full of yard sale hardware. Rod was enormously impressed by his friend's expertise; they installed Windows with copies of outdated antivirus and repair utilities, added a load of pirated software, and overcame countless difficulties. When it was done, Rod reluctantly entered the Information Age. He'd avoided it as long as he could, but he considered himself lucky to have arrived so cheap.   Yup, sure enough, something is always going wrong with Rod's PC. It doesn't recognize peripherals, files seem to vanish into thin air, it slows to a crawl, then freezes and crashes. While his son makes repairs and tries to explain what went wrong, Rod ignores advice because he already knows the answer: It's all crap. He can't be bothered with technical details, he's not interested in how any of it works. He couldn't care less about platforms, versions, protocols, capacities, file types, bit depth or anything else with a voltage. It's all the same, and it's all a load o'crap.

Rod's buddy Randy had a somewhat different experience.   Randy Randy started out with endless questions about connectors and software and file types, "how to" this and "how to" that. Since his first love was music, his first computer was a Mac. It wasn't long before he had a professional recording studio up and running, where he and his band produced their first CD. They posted a few tunes online, and began landing some pretty impressive gigs. Randy thought it was the coolest thing ever. Attitude, I think, is responsible for at least half of everything that happens to these two guys. Those who look at information technology with an open, logical and analytical mind tend to approach the subject with purpose, a certain amount of zeal, and a goal (as Randy did). Both of these guys are intelligent individuals and goodhearted souls. Both have the means to use a computer in whatever way they wish. But..... while Rod is given to fits of doom and gloom, Randy is rockin' out, looking to expand his horizons and excited by new developments and capabilities. Randy finds constantly changing technology a bit overwhelming at times - frustrating even - but he studies it until he has a good working understanding, irons out the details, and adapts.   The answers are out there, if you're willing to hunt for them. If you look at the computer as a not-so-necessary evil designed primarily to expand you vocabulary of swear words (Rod), you're not going to get much from the experience beyond what you expected - especially if you're getting bad advice. If you are goal oriented, creative and resourceful (Randy), you'll see the computer as a tool - which it is - and you're much more likely to select the right tool and use that tool to your advantage.

Use your Macs to the max.

I've used the Mac to remodel my house, design and build furniture and mechanical devices, make motorcycle modifications, create artwork, design databases and produce printed circuits. It edits and stores audio and video, photographs and graphics, text and data of all kinds. Plus, it keeps the books, manages communications and provides endless material for research purposes. I mention this because there are still people out there who wonder what they'd ever do with a computer.   The first "killer application" was word processing; the ability to type and edit a document _before_ printing was reason enough to buy a computer, just to replace that old typewriter. Today, most folks recognize internet access as being a whole new window on the world, with email serving as the new means of written correspondence, both of which are excellent reasons to invest in a computer. (If all you use a computer for is email and web surfing, using a Mac provides a big advantage due to security features and ease of use.) But there is so much more you can do, it seems like a waste of power to stop at communications without branching off into other uses.   Your Mac comes equipped with software designed to manage a great many basic necessities, such as communications, photos, text, music, addresses, all sorts of things. It even comes with a set of developer tools for creating your own programs. All the basics are covered right out of the box, but for specialized applications you may need to purchase additional software.   One odd thing about software: Good programs always seem deceptively simple, with a tasteful, coherent interface, easy to use and understand - which tends to conceal the program's power. If you can accomplish a given task with one click, it's because the program's designer has dealt with all the details for you. If, on the other hand, you have to wade through an assortment of buttons and dialog boxes to accomplish that same task, then the programmer has decided to let you do all the work. Easy for them, not so easy for you. And somehow, bad software seems to leave an impression of "sophistication" due to the complexity of dealing with it.   It pays to shop around and test drive applications before buying. The cumulative effect of using bad software can translate into a considerable waste of time and repetitive effort, which will more than offset any money saved in its purchase price. (Also true of Operating Systems and hardware, by the way.) Having said that, you may find you already have a program capable of assisting with whatever project you have in mind and additional software won't be necessary. I've often used simple graphics apps for remodel projects and design work, starting with MacPaint way-back-when, then I used Aldus SuperPaint for many years (until it became extinct). Photoshop is currently my app of choice, but not because it's easy to use - it's far from easy - only because it has become _the_ graphics app by default.   Be creative! Apply the power of the Mac to whatever holds your interest. You might find an app onboard that can handle your project, or you might decide to invest in specialized software, but please don't look at the Mac as an ordinary computer or some sort of appliance. It's far more that that.

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