I walked into the SHOUT (Students Helping Others Use Technology) office and looked about with only a little bit of nostalgia. I frequented this place very often my first year at Trinity Western University and not at all in the last two years. Why is that? My first year I had a PC. During that time, I ended up coming up with about 27 different ways to destroy the PC including, but not limited to, throwing it in the lake, drilling it full of nails, and dashing it repeatedly against my head. For the sake of my cranium, I ended up choosing a better option. I joined the Apple cult.

Perhaps I am biased, but in the last two years that Nino (as my iBook is fondly called) has been in my possession, it has never given me any problems. In fact, it has made my life much easier.

And apparently, I’m not the only one who has undergone such a conversion to Apple. According to Adrian Reimer, one of the SHOUT facilitators, Macs simply do not end up in the SHOUT office. If they do, it’s a really bad problem that can’t be fixed. The point, however, is that they don’t often need to be fixed; they aren’t plagued by viruses or hard drive failures like the many PCs that end up at the computer clinic in Douglas.

Unfortunately, due to the new preponderance of Macs that are flitting and floating about this campus, especially since the sleek new Macbook came out, the number of people coming to the SHOUT office is slowing down. Reimer conjectures that it might also be due to the fact that students don’t know that these services are offered, and instead of coming to SHOUT for free help, find paid services elsewhere.

Reimer laments the fact that not many people come through anymore. When asked why students volunteer for this position, Reimer said, “We like to fix stuff and we don’t like to see people frustrated.” Anyone with a troublesome PC (or Mac) is welcome to visit the SHOUT office.

“Just don’t bang your computer against the doors,” Reimer advises. If only I had known.