a google of apples a day 57 Now I can start to find out what software works with the new machine, what doesn't, and--sometimes worst of all--what sorta, kinda works, until it doesn't. It's hard to exaggerate the amount of tension the process can involve; these applications and documents include my professional work--my bookkeeping, bank account records, and more. If I can't get the applications to work on the new machine, I'll have to go back to using my old, slower, crashing-three-times-a-day machine. Or I'll be forced to painstakingly export my data to another program that works with this new but exceedingly particular computer. Throughout the process, there's no centralized help. No prompts on the screen to warn me if my software is out of date or if what I'm doing is wrong. There's certainly no hope that if I call Apple on the phone they'll be able to help me in a timely fashion. In fact, they proba- bly won't be able to help me at all, thanks to all the third-party intellec- tual property that is involved, even though it was Apple's technological ``improvements'' that feel to me, the customer, like the cause of the