I bought a new iMac in early December. Cool, I thought, learn a few new bells and whistles and away we go.

I wish.

Ever since I brought home my iMac with Lion OSX, my life has been one long session in technical hell.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the system. Nope, standard issue Mac reliability from Day One. The problem is the learning curve. Or, truth be told, the vertical learning line.

You see, Mac’s new operating system is so different from anything the company’s done before, using Lion requires all new software. In addition, Apple decided that it didn’t make enough money on its handy little website program, iWeb, or its handy little host for iWeb-made sites, Moblie Me.

Never mind that lots of us were happy with what we had. Nope, now we’ve been abandoned, and you’ve got to learn more new software to maintain the site you used to be able to do in your sleep.

Same with financial software. Quicken was never my favorite program but it did the basics well enough. Nope, Quicken doesn’t work on Lion so the answer is, obviously, NEW SOFTWARE.

So everything I used to do with a click or two now requires days and days of frustration looking for a needle in a haystack. Or, more correctly, looking for the haystack.

Imagine if someone told you that from this day forward, you had to eat all your meals with your toes because of all the supposedly much-easier-to-use utensils that someone just happened to have for sale. For your convenience.

Nope, so not happy with this. I promise you, once I finally make it to the other side of this endless conversion, I will never buy another computer. When this new iMac wears out or can’t handle the technology, it’s back to pen and paper for this woman.

Pen and paper, the leading technology for the past two thousand years. Works every time.