Here is what will happen. Out of the blue, you will begin to have unprecedented crashes or conflicts. You become totally unstable and distraught, and waste several hours. Instead, collect your thoughts and proceed patiently and systematically through your problem-solving. Learn how and where to go for help. Read your *friendly* manuals.

Next, you will receive phone or email "Help me!" requests from friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Walk them through the fix-it process, cheerfully and calmly. Learn when to keep going and when to advise them to go elsewhere for assistance.

I have been thrifty (or a real tightwad, depending upon whom you ask) my entire life. As a homeowner on a limited budget, I have invested plenty of sweat-equity in do-it-myself chores and projects. This method usually does *not* work in the world of computing.

My advice is to buy and use the best hardware you can afford, with the appropriate productivity and utility software for your particular situation. Keep current with commercial and shareware updaters and upgrades, unless you won't actually benefit from them. Read, read, read print and Internet source material.

Establish a rough budget for both your time and your expenditures. Computers are expensive and very time-consuming. Period.

What did I learn from the Joshua Tree experience that I can apply to daily computing? I now attempt to approach each new situation with a notion of what has preceded it, with a sense of humor, and with a knowledge that time-and-materials will be required. I welcome your responses, and tales from your personal mouse-travels.

Oh, yes. Here is an example, which I call "Dotty's Dilemma, or How the Cookie Crumbled." I'll let my friend Dotty explain her side of the story:

It was an average day on the PowerBook. I did a little Quicken, got my email, then sent some outgoing mail. When I went to shut down my computer, I was puzzled when it didn't turn off. What had I screwed up? Nothing like this had ever happened. I tried again. Same result.

I noticed a strange icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. Oh no! A weird thing I'd never seen before. Was this something I was supposed to know about? I went to Show Balloons to identify it, feeling uneasy about this strange visitor that had appeared, uninvited and unwilling to leave, on my screen. Turns out it was a cookie. Terrific. I'd never heard of such a thing.

So I looked it up in the manual - nothing. In the Help menu - nothing. In Macs for Dummies OS 8.0 - nothing. I kept trying to shut down. Regardless of whether I used the Finder in the corner, used the power button, or clicked on Shut Down, the damn cookie appeared in the corner while the machine stayed on. Did a restart. Tried to shut down again. Nada.

I'm getting pissed and scared at this point. These machines are supposed to save so much time!!!! Did I break my computer? I called Mr. Nemo Wizard. Through a series of investigations he discovered the cookie was from my Jaz Drive. We tried to trash it, but we couldn't get rid of it.

Finally, he recommended that I contact Iomega. I had to go to the Post Office, so I put my computer to sleep and left for a while. After doing my errands and enjoying a relaxing swim, I tried again. Same deal.

I tried Iomega on the Web. The help they blithely offered in their manual wasn't obvious on their Web site. I decided to try a human, so I called them up on the phone. It took about 15 minutes of listening to recorded messages to figure out that I might have to pay $20 to speak to a real person and find out what this cookie was doing. I was getting frustrated. Fortunately, I had made arrangements with my friends, Beth and Barbie, to go out to the desert and watch the sunset, and I left my computer sleeping on my desk.

I returned several hours later, having bathed in the beauty of the desert and the sunset, feeling really good. There sat my computer.

OK, one more try. Lo and behold, on the screen was a message from Iomega - had all that time on the phone and the Internet produced something somehow? Had they read my mind? It was a reminder to fill out my registration which, dinosaur that I am, I had done by snail weeks ago. I marked the appropriate box, and the registration form vanished. I shut down my computer, and it turned off! The offending cookie was gone. It took 8 hours from the time the cookie appeared and blocked my ability to shut down my computer to the time the Iomega reminder showed up on my screen.

I know I am no computer whiz, but you are, Nemo, and this one had even you stumped. Iomega needs to be a bit more thorough in explaining what's up, or fix their program. Imagine if you had this experience without the support of your friends, the relaxing exercise, or the beauty of a desert sunset! Or if the dreaded cookie appeared during a thunderstorm, or if you were on an airplane. Could you wear down your battery and screw up your PowerBook by losing the capability to shut down? Thanks for all your help.

Dotty

John Nemerovski
nemo@mymac.com