Windows Vista

In a word: it's crap. Why do I have it then, you may ask? Well, I had a small Windows box running XP that I built about two years ago — useful for checking how EP looks to the majority of visitors. That (Maxtor) hard drive, however, died a few weeks ago. An opportunity, I thought, to try Vista. So I bought a Toshiba laptop, which in the past I've had four or five Toshiba laptops, I'm familiar with them, and I think they're usually a good balance of function and economy. This one came loaded with Vista Home Premium. The eye-candy is only OK. In operation it's a sort of souped up XP. But as usual, per Windows, Redmond engineers have decided for you certain things that may well quickly become extremely annoying. One example: I had to change the access code to my home wireless network because Windows didn't like my old one. Or another: Firefox for whatever reason developed a vertical jitter, making it unusable. Obviously, M$ wants you to stay put in Internet Explorer. Quite a few things like that. I still need a Windows box so I'm keeping the Toshiba, but I'd echo a bit of advice I saw from a tech writer (I forget who) the other day. The introduction of Windows Vista is a perfect time for Windows users to switch to Mac! The thing about Macs is, they just work...