I have always depended...

...on the kindness of people who know what the hell they're doing.

At least in computer-related matters. My own competence in such matters has never risen to the level of the abacus, and I'd rather be tortured in a secret Yemeni interrogation cell than reconfigure a new computer. Yet, every now and then...

Well, this time we're jumping out of the plane blindfolded, and that weight on my back might be a parachute or an Acme-labeled anvil.

For the past several years I've been tapping away on a venerable Dell laptop, bought cheap from someone who refurbished a bunch of corporate cast-offs. It's been a faithful friend, but sometimes even the most dependable of friends just dies of old age. It's past time for a replacement, and inertia and finances may have caused me to wait too long. I'm a little surprised every time this old horse successfully boots up.

Also, though I've never been one of those who just hates hates hates Micro$oft on philosophical grounds, I have grown to loath its practices - especially since it decided the copy on my computer wasn't sufficiently "genuine" (no fault of mine) and forced me to work around a "genuine advantage" virus it planted on my machine some months ago and slowed everything to a crawl.

So - and you'd have to know my fear and loathing of new computer stuff to fully appreciate how radical this is for me - I'm kissing Micro$oft goodbye and going Linux. I've been assured this will be utterly painless, an assurance I take with as much salt as every other "this won't hurt a bit" I ever heard in a hospital.

The transition will take several days at least, possibly a couple of weeks. I don't have the "new" computer yet, so there'll be no immediate change. If I disappear entirely, bear with me - it's just my cluelessness at work.

And if there's a computer god out there somewhere, I'd like to state for the record right now I never meant all those horrible things I may have occasionally muttered against him and would appreciate his not holding them against me.