My windows XP machine has been unstable for the past year - it freezes up in email. I think there is a problem with the Outlook application and/or how it communicates with Word which is its text editor, but it could be something to do with some defect in the memory hardware; my analysis programs never report there is anything wrong.

So I bought a Mac. We first bought Macs at home in 1984 when they came out, and had them at work until the late 1990s. Finally we moved to Windows machines because our work computers were changed and we had specific software we needed to be able to use at home to work with our work files.

It is hard to go back to the Mac after all this time, but I am noticing some ease in getting things set up. There are a few things I need to figure out how to do such as getting rid of the irritating icons across the bottom of the screen, learning their cutesy terminology, and turning off some security 'feature' that asks me for a password about every 5 minutes. It reminds me of all the horror stories I've heard about Windows Vista, which is what I was trying to avoid by buying this Mac in the first place.

So far, I haven't decided to buy all new software to replace my Windows computer. I'll use this Mac for email and the Internet and try to work out what I can get by with. People have told me the Macs run Windows-based software. I realize they can read Windows disks, but I have my doubts that 100% of my software is going to run on this Mac without some emulation software shell. I'll have to figure that out for myself so don't start lecturing me about it.