Installing Windows on a Mac is not for the faint of heart.

Assessing possible purchases of Macs for people in our
account management group, I enthusiastically offered to install Windows XP on my
Powerbook, using Virtual PC. Little did I know this required the patience of a
National Geographic cameraman documenting the hibernation of a berserker grizzly
bear: long stretches of nothing punctuated by cataclysmic
hiccups.

When it was finished, I ran
Internet Explorer. It told me I needed a Java update, and gave me a link to
click, so I could download the update. I clicked. A Microsoft page appeared and
told me I needed the Java update to view the page that was supposed to contain
the download for the Java update.

And
people wonder why I fled into Steve Jobs’ user-friendly arms.