The past couple of weeks have been lively. I gave Jay his own computer for Christmas, and he's going through "new user anxiety" with it. He has discovered that this computer, like most others, do not work "right out of the carton"; there are many things other than screen savers and wallpapers that need to be done to get it set up to his liking. He's been used to my machine, where everything is already set up and loaded...now, he's figuring out how to download, install and work with software. His original OS was Windows 98 SE, and it worked well, but there was a problem with the graphics and display that were causing discomfort as well as frustration. The other day, Adam came over, and we reformatted his hard drive and installed Windows XP Home edition. Much better! He's more accustomed to XP anyway, and there is better software selection available for it. He is much bettter with hardware that scares me to death than with software; I am more comfortable with software, so it's a balance.

We both use Firefox, and I have freeware and software that he also shares without violating EULA's. Both machines share the same internet connection. Next up is networking them to share files and the printer.