So, I have decided to stop whining about how the tools 'just are not there' or 'just have so many shortcomings'.

From now onward, I am building a system - a dependable (ok, ill settle for pretty reliable and mostly stable) environment within which tailored workflows can be semi-automated to the best of my ability, and to the furthest extent possible with the available tools...

I remember years ago, talking with Ryan* about my vision for tuals. A scalable, user-adaptive environment within which the user can identify and use what is important to them. Markup (Annotate, Code, Tag, Analyze, whatever), Visualize, & Mobilize the Multiple Dimensions of (Text) Data. He said, ? "You mean an operating system." I was bemused, because God knows I don't want to build my own OS.

But after 10 years of dealing with ever slower-crawling systems, 3 years of ridiculous problems with HP tablet hardware, then The Vista Debacle, I have come to realize the immense significance of the OS. It is key.

Consequently, making the switch from an OS and hardware which I bitched about continuously to a system which is, for want of a better description, backward (yet beautiful)...well it was not dead easy (but it was...pleasant). For me, much as I imagine it would for any other switcher, it involved mirror-reversing much of my computing UI instincts.

From the mouse color and 'pointing' direction, the 'up' and single menu bar location, the strange keyboard symbols and new shortcut conventions, the opposite close/minimize/maximize window button locations, OSX is backward to the fresh switcher. Option click instead of a right-click mouse button? You've got to be joking.

But I had hope. 5 years ago, I peeled back my muscle memory mappings and learned to type using the DVORAK keyboard. So I know it is possible to become even more productive using alternate technologies. And even that it is possible to become effectively bi-fingual; maintaining high proficiency with multiple mappings. So an OS should be no problem. Right?

Well, it has taken some time. I no longer feel the blush of impatience or annoyance with (my lack of knowledge of) OSX. But its a higher order reaction that guides a hand to a mouse, a mouse to a menu, and governs a series of clicks and micromovements towards the goal of seeing or doing some thing. Muscle memory is there, to be sure, but remapping of means onto ends seems somehow more cerebral.

And, oh, how wonderful it feels to stretch and run and play (and, yes, work, too) and not feel your body hampered by the cold steel bands of technology! Most days, anyhow. After a year, I feel nearly up to the power user status I had laureated myself with as a lesser Lord of XP & Vista.

Yet OSX, my new preferred working environment, hides a fair deal from the novice user. And that is great! For the fresh switcher at least.

At first I was stumped: How do you install a program in OSX? What do you mean, you drag an icon into the applications folder?!? It cannot be that simple! Can it!?

And its slightly darker corollary: How do you uninstall a program in OSX? Dragging it to the trash nukes the app (yes, I no longer call them programs) but... Snooping has shown me that this approach leaves files behind...grr.

And so, the long process of Matching Knowledge began. How can I even begin to articulate all the tweaks, customizations, workarounds, and idiosyncratic little ways of doing things I had developed for working on Win4.0/95/98/Me/XPpro/XPproTablet/VistaBusiness? I wouldn't want to.

Articulating or surfacing such innate knowledge, embedded as it is in the specifics of interacting with certain systems in particular and extended contexts, is nearly impossible to recall or recreate without reentering that very specific environmental context. I dont have my Win4 laptop, or kludgy old Win95 tower (my first own computer!) to reanimate that old muscle memory. Even if i had 'a' Win95 box, it would not have the 'Programs' and settings of my old box, and would seem a little alien.

Every major system change since then followed the acquisition of new hardware; all of which I have, but each of those systems became so drecky over time that constant fresh installs mean those systems (and the myriad problems they had) are now (thankfully), too, gone forever.

So how could I even begin to match knowledge so tacit I did not even want to consider articulating it?

Well, I used a problem-based approach. Here & now. What am I trying to accomplish? If I knew how to do this in XP, I can find out how its done in OSX. A lot of googling "description of problem or task" + OSX.