Speaking of the web developers and how they felt about the introduction of another version of Internet Explorer… over at the official MSDN blog, the comments were largely negative.  Many developers seemed to be of the mindset that Internet Explorer’s time had come and gone and that Microsoft should either ship a competitor’s browser or just make IE9 a webkit based browser.  Webkit is the engine behind Apple’s Safari, Firefox, and Google’s Chrome browsers.  Safari and Chrome both score a 100/100 on the Acid3 test and are fully standards compliant.

Perhaps the biggest complaint about the new IE9 is that it uses hardware acceleration technology that has not been ported to Windows XP, leading to speculation that XP users will be stuck on IE8 as the top choice.  While that isn’t really a big deal to the average consumer, it does mean that web developers will have to develop websites and test them for compatibility with IE6, IE7 and 8, IE9, and webkit based browsers.  Some developers have gone so far as to exclude IE6 browsers from their testing, instead directing users with the older browser from Microsoft to upgrade to Firefox.

Microsoft’s decision on IE9 to go their own route and try to force everyone into both upgrading their operating systems from XP and into developing websites that take advantage of the as-of-yet unnamed new features of IE9 while still making sure sites are backwards compatible with IE6, 7, and 8 instead of using a standards based browser make the development and eventual release of IE9 a virtual non-starter for most.

According to this article over at Ars Technica, Microsoft has begun selling computers that have had the shovel-ware and the free trials removed.  What you get when you buy direct from Microsoft is a brand name computer that has a relatively clean install of Windows 7.  There are other apps on the computers, but they tend to be programs you would download anyway such as Flash and Silverlight.

Not only has Microsoft been doing this at their one current retail location, they are also apparently expanding this practice to the online Microsoft store.  Which means that if you buy direct from Microsoft you get a computer that is ready to use out of the box.  This is a great strategy and I believe a lot more people would choose to buy a clean computer through Microsoft than a bloated system from anyone else - although they seemingly haven’t done much to get the word out.

I’m not sure how the computer retailers and computer makers will feel about this though, having Microsoft not only compete with them in sales but also by openly admitting that those same makers have been burdening their buyers with pre-installed shovel-ware.  What would be nice would be to see the computer makers follow suite and start shipping computers with a clean install of Windows 7, but it would likely be hard to break decades of bad habits.  I almost expect to see Microsoft putting out a computer of their own.  It wouldn’t be that hard for them to put together the parts, all they would need to do is come up with case designs.  Once they do that, they can control the user experience from end to end, which seems to be what they are moving towards.

The only place I’ve ever seen tablets used consistently is at my son’s doctor’s office.  The nurses use them to keep track of patient information.  Every room has a USB keyboard and mouse with a little stand for the tablet PC to sit on.  If they had just bought a regular laptop they could have done the same work without having to constantly unplug and plug everything in.  The whole thing just seems like a time waster to me.

Aside from the niche market the tablet computer seems to reside in, I just don’t see an area for growth for a tablet computer.  If there is no room for growth and the market is already saturated by Windows computers, why would Apple want to spend the money and resources it takes to try and compete?  Microsoft has been after the tablet market for years and I still have only seen a few nurses carrying them around and I have never seen anyone outside of a hospital one.

The idea that somehow Apple would be able to create a tablet computer that would revolutionize the way we work with computers is just silly.  The notion that people would want to pay money for a tablet computer over a traditional laptop seems even sillier.

Does that mean that Apple won’t release a tablet computer?  I hope it does.  If they release anything of the sort I would like to think that it would be a MacBook or MacBook Pro with a swiveling display.  That way you could get things done on your computer and then occasionally put it into tablet mode for drawing or movie watching.

Rather than learn from their mistakes with Vista, Microsoft took largely the same tact with 7, releasing an upgrade and a full install version in 32 bit and 64 bit with 3 versions to choose from - Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.  The upgrade and the full install versions would mean that retail outlets would have to carry 6 different versions of Windows 7 provided they only wanted to carry the 32 bit versions.  The price for all these versions run from 120 dollars all the way up to 320 dollars.  Microsoft’s only two competitors in the operating system market, Apple and open source Linux distributions, ran 29 dollars and free respectively for their latest releases.

My first wish for Windows 8, the one thing I want them to do differently from Windows 7 and Vista, is to release a single disc to retailers.  A single disc that contains a full copy of Microsoft Windows 8 that gives the customer the option of either installing a clean system or upgrading their existing OS in place.  I’m sure that Microsoft pays some pretty good programmers, they should be able to figure out how to get the 32 and 64 bit version of their operating system on a single disc and have it automatically choose the best option during the install or upgrade.

I’m not exactly sure how they did it, but I know that I can choose which kernel my computer boots into - either 32 bit or 64 bit simply by holding down two keys on my keyboard during boot-up.  I’m positive that Microsoft has the ability to do the same thing, which might help with running 32 bit applications on a 64 bit system.

My second wish for Windows 8 is to get rid of the annoying “Windows Genuine Advantage” program.  I get that Microsoft is concerned about piracy, but it does not make me feel good about a company that treats me like I am a potential software pirate.  If I’m using your software it means that I paid for it and I should be able to install it without having to jump through hoops just to get it to run.  I’m not saying I wish I could just buy a single copy of Windows 8 and then be able to upgrade all of my computers, all of my friends computers, and the computers of people I may or may not have met at a Windows 7 launch party.  I have no problem with buying a single copy of Windows for a single computer, if there are people that want to install the latest version of Windows on a couple of computers in their home, give them an option for a family pack - one that isn’t a “limited time only” offer.  Getting rid of the type of copy protection and activation headaches that have plagued Windows since XP will help the average consumer to have a better computing experience, the people that might abuse the system and pirate Windows would do it regardless of any copy protection system that has been put in place.

I don’t expect any sort of media response from Apple about this attack, but I do expect that they won’t be happy about the coverage.  For a company that works so hard to control their image, it is surely a major annoyance to have a story like this hit the press.  Even though the phones in question have been jail-broken and are no longer supported by Apple, the fact that every story will say “Apple’s iPhone” will be damaging.

I would fully expect the next round of iPhone software updates to include something that will break the jail break software.  They’ve done it in the past, I would expect them to do it again - soon.

I knew that I could get a reasonable Windows 7 computer for around 500 to 600 dollars and that it would be able to do most of what I wanted it to.  I have done technical support for both operating systems and I am perfectly comfortable using both: this was not a case of someone only knowing one operating system and just being afraid of change.  The question then became: “am I ready to move back to the world of Microsoft?” I knew that Windows Vista had gotten terrible reviews and I remember how terrible XP was to use and to look at, I knew that the registry was still in place and that the old system of .dll files had not gone anywhere.

The OEMs would still load up their computers with shareware and shovelware that would need to be removed, the threat of viruses and malware had not gone away, and I would still need to do regular maintenance on Windows to make sure that it did not bog down.  I would have to install virus scanners and spyware scanners.

If I’m honest, there was a lot to think of when it came to deciding on whether or not to move back to Windows in order to save a little bit of cash.  There were plus sides as well though, I could probably find some cheap games to play at any electronics store, I could have a reason to play with Linux again (because every time I run Windows on a PC I invariably start thinking about wiping it and running Linux), and I could not have to worry about any browser incompatibilities with sites that only allow access through Internet Explorer with ActiveX controls.  In my mind, those were small things that really wouldn’t contribute much to my productivity: if anything, having access to games and trying to run Linux would only hurt my ability to get things done.

Just before Windows 7 officially launched, Apple had released some new hardware - including the newest MacBook.  OS X Snow Leopard was not as exciting an upgrade as Windows 7, it wasn’t as flashy and it didn’t promise to be better and easier to use than 10. Leopard - it only promised to be more compact and faster.  When I installed 10.6 on my old MacBook, it had gotten faster and it did free up space on my hard drive, which is just about all it said it would do.  My decision now was whether or not I wanted to get another computer that looked largely like my last computer and ran the same operating system, or whether I wanted to get the latest and the greatest OS from Microsoft that promised to finally get it all right?

It was a touch decision because as a geek I tend to always want what is new and exciting.  Windows 7 was clearly the shiniest choice in the room, Snow Leopard was the same OS I had been using and it looked pretty similar to OS X from 2004 - the wow factor had long since worn off.  In the end I decided to go with the new MacBook running Snow Leopard, with the student discount it came out to just over 1,000 dollars.  Could I have gotten more for my money had I gone with Windows?  I certainly could have gotten more stuff, but I can’t say whether or not it would have made for a better computing experience.  Snow Leopard, for me, was a known quantity and almost everyone who is tech savvy says to wait for the first service pack before every trying out a Microsoft operating system.  For the same price I’m sure I could’ve picked up a 15 inch laptop and a netbook, but I can’t say that I would have every been happy using either.

One of the biggest problems I have with XP is that it is a pain to manage more than 4 or 5 open windows at a time.  On the Mac and in Windows 7 there are great options for navigating through open windows but in XP my only real options are to either remember which of the cryptic “internet exp…” task bar buttons belongs to what window or I can right click on the taskbar and tell Windows to tile my open windows.  Once I do that everything shrinks down to the point that I can’t use them.  It is a workable solution and, had I not used OS X or Windows 7, it would probably be acceptable to me.  But I have used Windows 7 and OS X and the XP way of doing it looks like ass.

The second biggest gripe is level of security and paranoia that is required to run XP in a corporate environment.  In order to make sure that the whole network doesn’t become infested with horrible viruses or spyware, most of the sites that you might want to go to have been blocked.  There is no YouTube, there is no Facebook, there is no Flash gaming, there is no MySpace (not that I disagree with that one), and there are no “non-professional” sites allowed.  At Apple, we had free reign to go to any site we wanted to, safe in the knowledge that we were all but malware proof.  That isn’t to say that there aren’t companies out there that use XP that don’t allow you to go wherever you want to, but the one I am at won’t.

Another problem about living with XP again, and this one just might be confined to this business, is that we have to use Internet Explorer 6 for everything.  Yep, one of the eight largest companies in the United States and they still only allow Internet Explorer 6.  Downloading and installing Firefox is prohibited.

My final issue with XP is that it is ugly.  Yes, I’m used to the Mac interface and it bothers me when I see poorly designed interfaces and some might say that eye candy isn’t important, but if you have to sit and look at that computer every day for 8 hours a day, it can at least try and not be ugly.  The windows are slow to update when you move them around, the fonts are big and bulky, it requires entirely too many clicks to get anywhere in the control panel, and the entire experience feels like using a computer that is outdated - but that’s probably because Windows XP is close to being 10 years old.

It is these problems that lead me to hope and pray that businesses that chose to stay with Microsoft adopt Windows 7 as their platform of choice.  Not just so that I can work without the headaches of XP, but so that we all can.

The promise of Windows 7 seems to be that it is better than Vista and slightly faster than XP.  Saying that the operating system that is better than the train wreck that was Vista and faster than an operating system released 8 years ago isn’t exactly high praise.

I’ve used Windows 7, it is a good operating system and it is much better than XP.  However, I don’t have any peripherals or software that I wanted to use with it, all I asked of Windows 7 was that it ran and connected me to the internet.  Whether or not in can slip in seamlessly in a Windows XP environment without any huge headaches has yet to be determined.  But creating a good operating system isn’t everything, it also has to be marketed to the public - this is where Microsoft seems to go nuts.  From little girls making cheesy powerpoint shows with kittens to campy release party ideas, Microsoft is doing their best to make us laugh at them without really giving us any reason to buy their product.

Is Windows 7 a good upgrade?  Yes, for some.  It is very possible though that small and large businesses will stick with XP because all their stuff still works perfectly with it and consumers will avoid it because Microsoft will run yet another cheesy and poorly thought out ad campaign.

Some manufacturers are not happy with the decision to increase crash safety standards.  While auto makers are seemingly never happy to have any sort of standards imposed on them from the government, in this case I can see their point.  I would normally applaud the move towards safer cars, but in this case I think they are taking a step in the wrong direction.  A spokesperson for Volvo was quoted in the article as saying that the best way to improve car safety was to help the drivers avoid accidents, not assume that they will get in them and then try and beef up the cars from there.

Simply by working on things such as traction control, stability control, automatic braking, and ergonomics to make sure that the driver’s head is looking outside and not at the dash is a much more efficient way of protecting drivers.  Leave the crash test standards as they are, and add separate ratings for accident avoidance technology, that will avoid confusion with different ratings for different model years and give the NHTSA something new to test - and that should make them happy.

I have seen quite a few postings over at the Apple.com support site and a quick search on Google for the phrase “Flash crashing Macs” yields quite a few results dealing with this issue. You can easily get around the crashing issue by disabling browser plug-ins, but then you are left browsing the Flash heavy Internet without Flash - which isn’t all that useful.

I’ve downloaded the latest Flash player for the Mac directly from the Adobe site but that hasn’t remedied anything; I’ve run a complete permissions repair on my system twice now, and each time there have been huge numbers of permission problems with the Adobe Flash player. Even after the repair was complete the browsers are still crashing immediately on Flash sites.

Is this a huge deal? Not really. If my only computer problem is my inability to look at Flash videos on the Internet for a few days, then I’m doing pretty well. Adobe or Apple will have a fix up soon. Who knows, I might grow to like browsing the Web without Flash; I’ve always felt that it should be restricted to YouTube, Homestarrunner.com, and kept out of everything else.