Apple offers a service that seems to combine short-term assistance from the Genius Bar of its retail stores (described as "Getting Started"), with the longer-term assistance provided by its AppleCare service. The service is called "Mac Pac" and is available to those who buy a computer from any of the company's retail stores (except in Florida, for some legal reason).

The "Getting Started" service includes:

• product and AppleCare registration at the store
• installation of memory, Airport card and software purchased with the computer
• set-up of a new Earthlink or existing AOL account
• instructions for home set-up of new or existing home Internet account
• help with Airport base station set-up if purchased with the computer
• connection and demo of printers, scanners, cameras, music devices, etc.
• set-up of a trial .Mac account and demo of its features

These services are offered free for five days from the date of your computer purchase, and only at the store where you made your purchase.

By the way, Apple offers a similar service for buyers of its new G5 desktop computers, calling it the "Pro Card."