Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Saw Bill Gates Last Wednesday...

Bill was in town (Vancouver) for the U2 Concert.

Great concert (as can be expected from Bono and company). Political messaging abound: from Gandhi, MLK, Bishop Tutu, An Sohng SuXi, the "Red Campaign" (to fight HIV, which U2 and Billy Gates are key sponsors of), etc.

Loved Bono's message urging the 60000+ crowd that WE are the people who have fought for peace and change, be it in North Ireland, the Middle East, Africa, or now, in Iran...

Bono referred to a computer term, and used "Mac" phraseology... I'm sure Bill Gates noticed. He had to - he was sitting right there.

Which brings me to Windows Vista, Windows 7, and just Windows in general...

Why, Bill? Why don't your OS's work? I had half a mind to ask you myself last week... Your box was... right... there... so close... I would love to bring a KISS philosophy to MS. There is so much potential for such a great company, with so many great causes it supports...

I started my IT life on the Timex/Sinclair OS, then the IBM PS2 OS, moving to Windows in the 90s. Windows 98 was perhaps the best of the bunch. ME was "scary" at best. XP? How many cracks or SPs does one need? Vista?

Vista?

I spent the better part of a day troubleshooting a client PC that won't "boot" into Vista. Looking on the web, and I see that it is a common problem. I mean REALLY common. So common that PC techs were dual booting into XP (that "great, stable" OS of the past). Tried at least a dozen fixes, and still nothing... Can't even get to restore, and unable to reinstall the OS (not that one would want to - I'm going to advise Ubuntu)...

Is it really too much to ask that someone create a bullet-proof OS that does what everyone needs? We pay so much for authentic copies of these OS's (mind you, we know MS thrives on the "illegal" copies that young compu-rats scam for their home-jobber PC builds).

Seems this argument worked it's way through my mind a couple of years ago. After spending university years working with PCs, I was able to work with Macs during a college stint at the phone company. I went on to do post grad work in software, and using C++, VB, Java, Oracle, etc. Sticking to the PC world, I was able to spend time working in a large tech support/IT department for a few years.

Back in the business world, and self-employed, I was in the market for a new "PC". Sick of fixing my - and everyone else's - PC, I went Mac. I bought my current Macbook, and haven't looked back. I'll soon be buying an iMac and/or MacMini. My business works better with these machines. I "Time-machine" to back up regularly, and have yet to have any issues (had this Macbook two years now)... If I really miss the aches, pains and hardships of Vista, I can "dual boot" my Intel Mac, and run a copy of whatever OS I feel (although, why bother, since I can do anything on my Mac - and then some - far better for photo editing, video, graphic content, etc.).

Isn't it great when companies can make gadgets that actually WORK, and LAST? C'mon Bill, we know you're a genius. Instead of trying to immitate the Mac OS (Windows 7), why not just go visit Steve and see if you can license his OS?

Say it with me... "Snow Leopard", "Snow Leopard..."

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