My neighbour recently bought one of these and rather than reading the instructions, he tried for 30 seconds and then called me to help. After reading the enclosed instructions for a couple of minutes, I transferred a few minutes of audio, cleaned it up and split it into 2 tracks with no problems at all... Having said that, I am a bit of a computer addict and the menus are similar to other recording software.
There is no cover with the USB turntable, so a cloth or something would have to be used.
If it's tapes that your husband would prefer to record, you might prefer to have a look at this:
http://www.firebox.com/product/1700?src_t=t20
Post back if you need any more info!!
Matt