I need your help so I can fall in love again.

When I first started my courtship with computers, everything about them seemed magical. But between fighting viruses, getting spam e-mail and ridding my machine of adware and spyware, I'm feeling a little cranky lately.

Maybe it's old age. Or maybe just common sense. Maintaining a computer and a home network really is a chore.

But there's still magic, and I think the relationship can be saved.

Here's how you can help me: Write me an e-mail. Let me know whether computing is magical for you, or whether it's a daily chore. Be as specific as you can in telling me how computing makes your life better --- or how it's a burden.

I'll print the best e-mails.

To get things started, I'll tell the story of my love affair and when things started to go sour.

It started for me with a computer that did not have a keyboard. The monitor could display any color of the rainbow as long as it was green. Instead of a hard disk, data storage was done on a RadioShack tape recorder.

But it was love at first sight. I'll admit my lover was high-maintenance. The programs I used were either created by me or were painstakingly copied --- typed in line by line --- from computer magazines of the time. Back then, if you wanted a program, you had to create it.

The computer --- a machine called an Altair that came in kit form --- didn't do anything that was useful. It could play "The Game of Life," where colored dots blinked on the screen in strange patterns. By clicking away at the toggle switches that it used instead of a keyboard, you could display varied patterns of color on the screen.

When the IBM Personal Computer --- the machine that created the term PC --- came along in 1981, things got a little better. I could write letters. I could have created spreadsheets but didn't. I wasn't smart enough to understand Lotus 1-2-3.

As time moved along, bulletin boards and online systems like Prodigy and CompuServe let me exchange notes and information with people all over the world.

So my love grew.

Nowadays, computers are finally useful --- necessary, even. But they seem harder to love.

My e-mail is more likely to come from a crook than from a friend. I get daily spam: stock tips touting companies that won't be around next week; offers to sell me sexual aids or subscriptions; Web sites offering child pornography.

Checking mail isn't much fun.

It's a miracle if I go through one day without a problem with spyware, viruses or some inexplicable glitch. Even my mom needs an arsenal of tools to protect herself: anti-virus and firewall programs, something to remove adware and spyware. It's way too hard for ordinary people to keep a computer running, and it isn't much fun even for us hobbyists who grew up with the machines.

Don't get me wrong. I think my relationship with computers is worth saving.

I'm sitting here at work facing two monitors, one connected to a Macintosh, the other to a PC. Sure beats banging on an old Royal Office Standard typewriter. If I typed too fast the keys got stuck, and changing a ribbon gave me dirty hands that would do a mechanic proud.

My wife sells real estate and --- because of computers and the Internet --- she can see every house for sale in a specific neighborhood at the click of a button.

Because of computers and the Internet, I keep up with friends on several continents. Even the computer games I play at home are less mindless than most TV shows.

So it's a big mixed bag.

But enough about me. I'm most curious about how things are for you.

So tell me why your computer is worth loving. Or, if you don't love it, this is a great opportunity to get back at that maddening machine.

My e-mail address should be with this column. Just in case, it's bhusted@ajc.com.

I'll select some of the best e-mails and print them in a column. Who knows? Maybe you'll put some romance back in my computing.

Or you might convince me to trade mine in for a second-hand bass boat.

tecbud@ajc.com