Retweet: Microsoft vs. GM

As I was trying to think up something witty and poignant for today's entry - I came across an old story from 1997 that pitted Microsoft against the now-up-sh*ts-creek-without-a-paddle - GM.

Back in the heady days of the late 90's the computer industry was bragging about how far the technology had come in comparison to the automotive industry. That spawned a single 3 line joke with a cool punchline:

There's word in business circles that the computer industry likes to measure itself against the Big Three auto-makers. The comparison goes this way: If automotive technology had kept pace with Silicon Valley, motorists could buy a V-32 engine that goes 10,000 m.p.h. or a 30-pound car that gets 1,000 miles to the gallon — either one at a sticker price of less than $ 50. Detroit's response: "OK. But who would want a car that crashes twice a day?"

Ba-dum-bah.

The over time the joke morphed from that simple 3 liner into one that has replaced the "computer industry" with Bill Gates and the "automotive industry" with GM. Somewhere along the way, some unnamed person added some additional observations and it circulated around the (then spanking new) Internet via something called "email."

Over the years it's turned into one of those urban legends that has been repeated so many times that people think it's actually true. Well, it's not - but I think it's especially enlightening given the current circumstances with both GM and the on-going Vista controversy.

Plus, it made me chuckle - and I think we could all use a little more of that these days:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.
   
   
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
   
   
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.
   
   
4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
   
   
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT', and then added more seats.
   
   
6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads.
   
   
7. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car default' warning light.
   
   
8. New seats would force every-one to have the same size butt.
   
   
9. The airbag would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.
   
   
10. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.
    
    
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of road maps from Rand-McNally (a subsidiary of GM), even though they neither need them nor want them. Trying to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50%t or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
    
    
12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
    
    
13. You would press the 'start' button to shut off the engine.

There Is No "Apple Tax"

Call it sour grapes, call it a 5 year old "nuh uh" argument - but just yesterday Microsoft was again banging the "Apple Tax" drum - saying that people who buy Macs are basically being ripped off. Here's a snippet from a ComputerWorld article:

Microsoft Corp. yesterday again pushed its claim that consumers pay an "Apple tax" when they buy Mac hardware rather than PCs running the Windows operating system.

In an e-mail to reporters Monday, Microsoft repeated the argument it first made last October, a day before rival Apple Inc. was slated to make a major product announcement. The next day, Apple unveiled new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks.

Microsoft again pitted Mac prices against similarly configured Windows PCs from the likes of Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Not surprisingly, Microsoft's comparisons put Apple's hardware at a disadvantage, with the "tax" ranging from 16%, or $100, for the entry-level Mac Mini to 25%, or $300, for the lowest-priced iMac desktop.

Ha! That's really hilarious. Maybe Microsoft needs to look up the meaning of "tax" as defined they way we all think of a tax (from dictionary.com):

a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.

Ummmm... yeah. The difference is - that in the entire marketplace - people CHOOSE to buy a Mac even though it's more expensive than a notebook (or desktop) with Windows on it. A tax - you have no option of paying (at least I don't). I pay property tax, sales tax, federal income tax, state income tax, gasoline tax, excise tax on my phones, etc. Here's another direct quote from Microsoft:

"Windows PCs are offering the best value on the market," she argued, "while Apple continues to impose high-price premiums on their Mac designs, offering only modest discounts of 5% to 10%."

Ummmm... yeah. PCs are definitely the best value on the market - as far as PRICE goes. How about features, not crashing as much, a unified and TRUE plug-and-play architecture, based on an open source OS, looks sexy and has easy-to-use software basis?

How about: NO. Sure, you can get a cheap computer running Windows - and it's going to be less expensive than buying a Mac. Or let's talk about the other Apple hardware: the iPhone or iPod. Seriously, does anyone here who reads this blog even KNOW anyone with a Zune?

You can make the same argument about the iPhone. Yeah, it's more expensive. Yeah, the AT&T plan is a bit on the "bend over" side - but have you actually USED one? I have. I'll never go back. Why? Because it's pretty, has a nice interface that's easy to use (even my WIFE can upload pictures to Facebook from it!).

I've played with a Blackberry Touch. I've played with the Google Andoid phone. I've played with many other phones with Windows operating systems - almost 100% of them have WAY better features than the iPhone (expandable memory, replaceable battery, cut and paste, removable flash card, 3+ megapixel cameras, built-in turn-by-turn GPS, etc). But, I don't really care. The most important thing for me is that the iPhone just works and it's actually useful for what I need it to do.

Period.

So while PCs may be a better value (and have the "cancer" called Vista loaded by default) are cheaper - I think you really do get what you pay for in this case. If all you're looking for is a bargain - then by all means buy a Windows PC. While you're at it, I bet you can also pick up a "fully loaded" 1969 VW Bug pretty cheap as well...

Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, well maybe my mouse;

The MacBooks and Minis were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Jobs soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of video-gaming danced in their heads;

And mamma in her thong 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter's nookie nap,

When down on my Dell there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the Vista Windows I flew like a flash,

Tore open the laptop and threw up because it took me 4 minutes to come out of "sleep" because damn Bill Gates decided to do yet another hack and patch job on the crappy OS... but I digress.

Yada yada... home invasion by a stranger with a fetish for "magic" animals... sniffing and stuffing stockings... blah, blah, blah...

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

Thank You Microsoft!

In the "true spirit of Christmas" - I just wanted to take a couple of minutes and sincerely THANK (yes, thank) Microsoft for all it's done for me this year:

THANK YOU for making an operating system with more holes in it than Swiss Cheese;

THANK YOU for installing numerous patches without my permission and then force-quitting all my running applications while you performed a restart without asking - and then greet me with a "Updated!" bubble once I finally get signed back on;

THANK YOU for doing the above forced restart overnight - while I was backing up to an external drive;

THANK YOU for hosing my presentation during said restart - about 1 hour before I was scheduled to give it to a worldwide audience;

THANK YOU for not having a single iota of creative, innovative thought in your entire company - but rather just copying whatever everyone else is doing (i.e. Silverlight = Flash, Aero look and feel = Mac, Excel = Lotus 123, etc. etc.);

THANK YOU for coming out with an even MORE bloated and completely useless operating system that requires users to upgrade HARDWARE to even run it;

THANK YOU for popping up 1,000 dialogs asking me if "I'm sure" I want to launch a program, send an email or anything else that might, possibly involve anything a real person would do during the day;

THANK YOU for .NET 3.x - it truly is 100% incompatible with 1.1 and 2.x;

THANK YOU for trying to get into every sector of every marketplace ever conceived of - and mucking it up so badly - that other companies can actually compete in the space (i.e. MSNBC, Zune, etc.);

THANK YOU for the promise of even more bloatware in the coming Windows 7 - and for the complete breaking of the naming conventions you've used for all other OS releases - that'll make it even MORE confusing for my family and in-laws when they all ask if they should upgrade;

THANK YOU for increasing the stock price of 3M making sure that older people and non-technical folks cram their monitors with stickies on it with step-by-step instructions for changing the audio or monitor settings (or any other settings for that matter);

THANK YOU for waging battle against open source and for making sure all your software only works well on Windows - it's helped me to learn other software and operating systems that I would have never tried on my own;

THANK YOU, Microsoft for all you do to make life (between restarts and patch upgrades) marginally tolerable.

Increasing Battery Life by 80% "Instantly"

So, what if you could instantly increase your laptop battery life by 80% - AND still be able to access the web, instant message? Oh yeah, and be able to have your computer come on instantly...

Yeah, baby!

Well it seems like Dell (taking a cue from the "nettop" sub-compact notebook makers Eee PC, et al) is making it a reality on their newly announced Latitude E4200 and E4300 notebooks.

The magic comes by way of a fully-dedicated, Linux-based system-on-a-chip. This low-power ARM processor and flash memory compbo run completely independently of the main CPU and storage. This means you don't have to wait for your computer to go through a 5 minute boot process just to surf or have a quick IM!

The embedded OS is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 and has a built-in Firefox-based browser and customer email, calendar and contacts application, a PDF viewer, a MS office document viewer and the drivers that are needed to use the wireless radio.

There is also talk of getting an IM client and making Flash and Java work in the browser - but that may come in the next release.

I think this is one more nail in the coffin in the long-term prospects for Windows as we know it today. If this concept catches on (and I really can't see why it wouldn't) - people would be getting a free test drive of Linux and I'd bet that people would use this type of browse-only functionality (if they make it EASY to boot) about 30% of the time - maybe even more.

That means as people get used to using Linux, and have confidence in it, they may just opt to give it a try on the desktop as well.

That would mean you could actually USE a computer with Vista on it...

How Ubuntu Could Take Over The World

Ubuntu is getting a lot of good press - and it's a terrific, easy-to-use Linux distro. With some extra software included in the default install - it could just take over the world.

Let's face it - no one really "likes" Vista. I don't care who says they love it - they really don't. It's the gas guzzler of operating systems - it takes the equivalent of a Hummer in terms of hardware to run the damn thing correctly.

The Mac OS is really great. It's pretty, it plays nice with others, and is pretty fun to use. The problem (as demonstrated by Apple's suit against Psystar) - is that you have to drink from the Ferrari-inspired Apple well and fork over huge bucks for their hardware (whether you want to or not).

Then there's Linux. Fast. Stable. Free. Runs on damn near any hardware. The problem is - it's only used by wonks.

It's like getting one of those old Radio Shack do-it-yourself radio kits. You get a printed circuit board, some transistors, resistors, and other parts - and then you need to solder the stuff together and pray you read the directions right - or nothing works.

Granted - the novelty and pride of ownership of building an AM radio the size of a bread box from scratch is cool - but not when you can buy one the size of a USB stick for $10 - AND get a FREE FM tuner as well.

That's basically the state of all the Linux distributions. Red Hat started to go down the "for everyone" route - and then decided it's better (and easier) to sell "Enterprise" stuff to a bunch of wonks looking for job security rather than real people who just want to check email and surf the web.

The various distros of Linux - while good - are missing the one thing that makes it useful: applications humans use.

Guys - just bundle OpenOffice, Firefox (with bookmarks on where to find other Linux stuff), Acrobat Reader, Thunderbird with the Google Calendar extension, a media player, games, a notepad equivalent, anti-virus, screensavers, and most of all - some drivers (or a good clearning house site of where to find them) for peripherals.

Hey Ubuntu - you have Dell on your side - why is it you think people who buy Dells still don't get Ubuntu on their machine by default? I mean, after all, the price is right. Right?

Right - but it doesn't do any good to get something for free (or low cost) but have it be completely useless. When you get a new box (or install a new OS) - you expect to at LEAST be able to fire up email and surf the web.

And while you're waiting for your favorite browser plug-ins to install - you want to play some games. And maybe play around with some spreadsheet stuff, read boring PowerPoint-esque presentations and the like.

Give people the power to become productive right out of the box. Help them get used to the retarded-sounding application names that no one has heard of. Make an online forum for new users to get help from other new users, etc.

I think as time goes on - and people are looking for alternatives to Windows (just wait until Windows 7!) - Linux will be able to be the great equalizer - if only people could use it.

Independently Independent

It's the 4th of July - the day that we in America celebrate our independence from Britain (no offense guys, we just wanted to do thing our own way).

It all started with a tax.

Back in the old days the British were hurting for cash due to the huge national debt they had run up fighting the Seven Years War - so Parliament decided it would be a good idea to tax the colonies since they were getting the benefit of military protection and... well... the British folks were tapped out (after having multiple taxes already raised).

The thing they passed was called the Stamp Act. The act required all legal documents, permits, commercial contracts, newspapers, wills, pamphlets, and playing cards in the colonies to carry a tax stamp. The only problem was - no one from the colonies was represented in Parliament when they decided this.

And that - taxation without representation - was the beginning of the end.

The British then kept on raising taxes on tea - and if you've ever been in England before you know how they LOVE their tea. Now, the colonists of the New World were used to drinking a bunch of tea (hey, they came from England!) - so they started smuggling tea in from The Netherlands (the Dutch ROCK!). This caused the incumbent tea folks to go crying to mommy (Parliament) and so they got their English tax waived - and only had to pay the American tax.

This made the tea cheaper than it was in England - and made the New World business people (some of our country's founding fathers) really pissed off. They dumped a bunch of tea in protest - and that was the beginning of how we came to fight the War of Independence.

I'm seeing the very fist stages of this in the technology world as well. People are getting tired of having their operating system dictated to them by a power they have no control over (Microsoft).

They are sick and tired of paying the OS Stamp Tax (Windows) and are tired of being ignored (really - Vista sucks!).

There are the rumblings of the smugglers (Mac OS X, Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird) - and they are slowly gathering support from the "average Joe." Every revolution start with a single person.

So - if you're tired of the Microsoft tyranny - become part of the revolution! Download OpenOffice, switch to Thunderbird and Firefox (or Safari or Opera or Camino) and stick it to the warlords of unfair taxation!

Happy July 4th.

Microsoft: Let It Go

I just KNEW that Steve Ballmer couldn't just walk away from the Yahoo deal. As I mentioned in a previous entry - I was shocked at the time - and actually proud of Mr. Ballmer for being an adult and just walking away.

I should have known better.

Now it seems that Steve's big idea is to hook Time Warner and News Media into coming up with a partial bid - just for the search part of Yahoo. They basically just want to gut the company and divvy up the bits between themselves.

They know that Carl Ichan is STILL on the war path - and with the shareholder's meeting date less than a month away - I can't figure out if this is just a cruel joke on the part of Microsoft - of if they're actually serious.

The shares of Yahoo were up $3 on the speculation that somehow, maybe, the shareholders might make some money out of this. I bet Mr. Ichan was happy about that!

The deal STILL makes no sense. The PR value of it is gone. Everyone agrees: it was a crazy move to begin with - and Jerry Wang is still insisting (with hookah pipe in hand) - that Yahoo is a viable company that is going to take off (any day now).

Meanwhile - back at the Google Camp - Eric Schmidt must be laughing his ass off. He struck a deal to put Google's ads on Yahoo's site - so even as Yahoo's stock tanked after the original Microsoft deal fell through - Google is making mo' money.

It's still not all smiles and balloons for the Googlehoo alliance - they're getting the strip search treatment from the feds at the moment - but I don't think it's going to amount to anything.

But even if it did - Google will still have made money on the "temporary agreement" they had with Yahoo. I'm sure it's not much - a couple of million bucks - but enough to buy a nice latte for all their engineers who are actually working on stuff they can sell.

Steve (Ballmer) - it's time to let go. Here's a list of the 5 stages of grief - you're making good progress! Only two more stages to go:

1. Denial (check)
   
2. Anger (check)
   
3. Barganing (check)
   
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The depression thing - I know you're probably saving it all up on the inside - after all, Bill's gone into the jungle, Vista sucks, you just pulled the license plug on the only thing people wanted to buy - XP, now this whole Yahoo thing.

Let it out. Buy some Chunky Monkey, grab an Xbox from the guys next door, steal your neighbor kid's copy of Guitar Hero and let it all out.

Then, come Monday morning, you'll finally be able to accept reality: this deal stinks as much as Vista does.

Want XP on a Dell? That'll Be $50, Please...

Well, it's the last official day to get XP installed on a Dell without paying a "downgrade" fee. If you're looking for the low-priced Vostro line of desktops and notebooks - bring your piggy bank.

It'll cost $20-$50 more to have XP Professional installed as a downgrade to Windows Vista Business or Vista Ultimate. Oh yeah, and if you want to downgrade to XP Home - you're S.O.L. - you can only choose XP Professional (which is better, if a little more expensive).

You could, however, choose the more expensive Latitude, OptiPlex and Precision systems and downgrade for no cost - but those machines will set you back the extra $20 to $50 anyway.

Also notice that you have to pop for Vista Business or Ultimate versions in order to be eligible for the downgrade. Those two options are the "high end" of the Vista scale in terms of price. Here's a for example:

If you add Vista Ultimate to a Vostro 400 desktop it'll cost you $149 more than the default Vista Home Basic; choosing to downgrade from Ultimate -- Windows XP pre-installed and the Vista Ultimate installation disc in the box -- costs $169, a surcharge of $20.

And, the best part is - you don't get the XP re-install disc! Hey, great move Dell! I guess this is so that when (not if) your hard drive fails, you can see the error of your ways and install the most hosed piece of crap ever invented "true" operating system - Vista.

To be fair, it's not really Dell's fault - at the end of the day, Dell is only doing what it's supposed to do according to their OEM license with Microsoft.

Microsoft will stop giving computer makers an OEM licesne for XP after June 30th (12 days from now) and will stop selling boxed copies to retailers on that day as well.

My advice? RUN down to BestBuy and get as many of these things as you can afford. Then you can charge all your friends, co-workers, in-laws and relatives cost + $75 to get XP after their hard drive fails or when they realize they need to have a four processor, 32 core system with 8GB of RAM to get Aero to work properly.

I can understand Microsoft wanting to get people on to the "new" code base. It's going to be the basis for their next OS version - and it makes life much easier for THEM - in terms of upgrading.

The interesting thing - is that Microsoft has relaxed the XP OEM licensing until June 2010 for these new subnotebooks like the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and the Eee PC.

Ah, so I get it. Those low-cost, ultraportable notebooks don't come with four processors and 8GB of RAM! So for those people, XP is the ONLY alternative (short of Windows Mobile!) that Microsoft has for them.

Good thing Dell also offers Ubuntu Linux right out of the box - NO extra charge... no downgrade B.S....

XP Death March Is On (UPDATED)

Well folks, we're into the last 30 days that Microsoft will allow OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) people put XP on new machines.

There will be downgrade rights will still be available to some customers, and system builders can ship PCs with XP through January 2009 - but even then, it's still only 6 months away.

UPDATE: Apparently I'm not the only one that hates Vista. This just in: At the Computex trade show that opened today in Taipei, the company said it would allow computer manufacturers to pre-install Windows XP. Home on what it called "net-tops" -- which it defined only as "low-cost desktops" -- through June 30, 2010. Source: ComputerWorld.

I know that there are a bunch of you who are holding out hope that Microsoft will grant a reprieve to PC makers and allow XP distribution beyond the limited time frame.

Don't hold your breath.

Microsoft would be crazy to do it - it's much more their style to force their Vista crap down everyone's throat - if for no other reason then to boost their "units shipped" numbers. Last week, CEO Steve "Stevie" Ballmer coughed up the total number of units shipped: 150 million.

That's not a bad number - but there were over 330 million PCs shipped (minus servers) between Jan 1, 2007 and March 30, 2008. That's roughly 45%.

But that's probably generous. Let's say they shipped on a third of the machines - with the rest going to Linux, Mac, and lots of people with pirated Windows copies. Now if Microsoft has a 92%+ share of the PC marketshare - that equals a bunch of folks who are not upgrading to Vista.

So - OF COURSE! I bet this sounded good at the management meting: "I know - let's STOP shipping the OS they like (or will at least tolerate in relation to crappy Vista) - and FORCE them to use Vista. Our numbers will skyrocket overnight!"

You had better get your new XP machine now while they're hot - or you'll be doomed to Vista until Windows 7 comes out...

Vista Sucks

The main reason I didn't post on Thursday is because I got my first experience using Vista. Mind you - I'm a diehard XP user - and I'm not about to EVER install Vista on my own personal machine - but I set out to help a colleague who needed a print driver installed.

It was easy enough - or so I thought. Just go to the Dell site, download the driver, double-click, put in the printer IP address and done.

OK - so finding and downloading the driver took about 10 minutes (not bad). The instructions from the Dell site for the 1710n print driver installation:

1. Double-click the new icon on the desktop labeled R147083.zip.
2. The Self-Extracting window appears and prompts you to extract or unzip C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R147083. Write down this path so the executable (I.e. Setup.exe) file can be found later.
3. The Self-Extractor window appears.
4. Click OK.
5. After completing the file extraction, if the Self-Extractor window is still open, close it.
6. Click the Start button and then click Run.
7. Type C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R147083 in the Open textbox and then click OK.
8. Follow the on-screen installation instructions.

These directions are very specific, and on the surface, look very helpful. Until you actually try to follow them.

First of all - it assumes you're using a circa 1998 OS that doesn't have the built-in .zip utility that treats the file like a folder. Second of all there IS NO "Setup.exe" in the download. Instead, there are two .exe files with stupid names that mean nothing to a person that doesn't work at Dell.

OK - so I do what any self-respecting geek would do - pick the first one, and double-click and see what happens. This is where the glory of the Vista experience starts to play out.

As soon as I double-click - Vista gives me a warning dialog that verifies I want to run an installer. It helpfully suggests that installers can "install applications" and those applications can do bad things to your computer - so don't blame us if you hose yourself.

With a chuckle, I murmur "cute" under my breath and proceed to install. As soon as that dialog is dismissed there is another one from "Windows Defender". I need to click to give this program access to install itself - because, you know, installers can install applications, and applications might hose your computer, so don't blame us!

Slight chuckle again.

So this beast installs itself and opens the "Add printer" wizard. Of course there are no Dell print drivers on a Toshiba machine, but the "Have Disk" option isn't there (like on the old Win 2000 and below wizard). Then I notice that Dell helpfully launched an instructional window with instructions that include the admonition to click the "Have Disk" button and follow the prompts.

Ummmm... there is no "have disk" button. So, I clicked the "Cancel" button to exit the installer (so I could Google and find where the "Have Disk" button went in Vista.

Then, Vista helpfully tells me it appears as if the installer didn't finish all the way and do I want to re-launch it. Ummm... NO. That's why I clicked "cancel." Thanks for trying to be helpful, but if you don't know what I intentionally did (click "cancel") - then don't try to "help" me.

OK - so I found out that you have to click "local printer" (even though this was a network printer), and then when it can't find anything, you click "Next" and then you have the "Have Disk" button.

Right. That's intuitive.

So, I relaunch the installer - get the same helpful warnings as before, get to the "Have Disk" button - specify the directory the driver is in... everything says it's ready - and I print a test page.

Or try to. Nothing happens.

Then the print queue errors. The good news is that I get a helpful Vista dialog telling me that there was an "unknown" print error. HEY! Thanks! Wow! Helpful!

Now, I'm not the most geeky geek ever, and I only have a novice understanding of Windows (after 10 years using it) - but I know how to go into the printer control panel and muck with the port settings. So I go to the control panels - try to open the Printers - and Vista gives me yet another "warning" and asks if it's OK to modify the resource.

Slightly cursing under my breath now - I click yes, and muck with the port setup, etc.

So it now works - and printing is fine.

Then there was an issue with the wireless network - it wasn't connecting. So, I went into the wireless connection panel, and simply wanted to check the settings for the wireless setup. Guess what? Yep, Vista helpfully informed me that WiFi is dangerous and people can steal your crap and don't blame us if you hose your computer.

Ok. The connection settings were correct - then it showed a "Wireless connection troubleshooter" link. Finally! This is helpful! In context! When I actually need help! Click...

The help loads - cursor spins, the "Wireless connection troubleshooter" help topic appears... then... a message:

"The help file you requested cannot be found because you are not connected to the Internet."

I am NOT kidding. If I were able to connect to the Internet, I wouldn't need this help topic!

I get the fact that Microsoft is getting its ass kicked for being a leaking toxic tank of security flaws, patches, fixes, bubble gum and bailing wire - but if they take 6 years to "re-write" their operating system - you would think it would be better, not worse.

If you want to include these "helpful" dialogs and wizards - make DAMN SURE that:

1. They actually work
2. The user has the ability to turn them off in an EASY way
3. Make them smart enough to know what the user intended to do (or has intentionally done)

or SHUT UP and don't try to be "helpful."

I finally got everything working in SPITE of Vista, not because it helped, nor was easy, nor guided me through the process. I got it (and everything else I tried) to work because I'm a bit geeky and generally know what to touch and what not to touch - after 10 years of experience.

I just absolutely SHUTTER at the thought that new computer users - or people who upgrade - or people like my parents will be assaulted by this utterly confusing, dialog-laden, piece of crap as their main way of trying to get their work done (or just surf the net, or whatever).

I'm going to recommend both Macintosh and Ubuntu Linux to all my friends, neighbors, in-laws, and family the next time they ask for OS advice... in fact, my next box just might be a Mac...