You know I don’t speak all of this tech talk, but even in my sheltered little world of describing computer problems with language like “jacked,” I’ve noticed this anti-Microsoft sentiment. To some, it’s as if they’re expressing loyalty to Steve Jobbs by hating Bill Gates. I saw “Pirates of the Silicon Valley,” so I kind of get it…Jobbs (and I’m fully aware that I may be spelling his name wrong) is sort of like Captain Ethics of the computer world, and Bill Gates is just a manipulative crook. There’s truly a moral ideal at play.

Yes, it is annoying when a person is forced to listen to some fanboy proclaim Steve Jobs is the second coming, but that doesn’t make Microsoft innocent. While Apple has been tripping over their own feet lately due to their growing popularity, Microsoft has been making mistake after mistake on an epic scale.

When Vista was released (pre-SP1) it was an unusable load of garbage. Thankfully, after some time, Microsoft has “fixed” Vista enough to be a usable OS. During this same period, Microsoft has allowed Apple to wipe the floor with their name brand with their “I’m a PC” ad campaign.

This time period has been ugly for Apple computers also. Their recent surge in Mac/iPhone sales have left them dealing with huge usability issues. People are starting to see Apple as a company who operates in a secretive environment, and a company who uses abusive legal tactics to hush unhappy consumers.

It is easy to hate on Microsoft with their recent blunders, but Apple is not that far behind (blocked iPhone apps anyone?). It’s a damn shame the Linux community is unable to get their heads together and form a solid offering. Ubuntu is close, but their is some major usability flaws that is preventing Linux from taking that next step.

As far as Google goes with their Chrome browser, they made a mistake. The line from their EULA was taken from their *fixed* copy. This is where I’m thankful for the vocal community who stand up to these developers. Google admitted to their mistake and fixed it. Too bad their browser is falling out of favor as many users are switching back to Firefox and IE.

I’d like to point out that it was just Xerox that developed the window interface; both Apple and Microsoft were inspired by the work at Xerox PARC. That’s also where SmallTalk came from, which introduced the idea of object-oriented programming.

I do find it very saddening to read all the mindless bashing of Vista. I’ve been using it now for several months and I really enjoy it, and I’m sure others out there have the same experience. I think people forget all the bad press that XP had when it first came out. It was exactly the same complaints you hear now: you need a faster machine, more memory, it doesn’t work with my old devices and software. I was amazed to find that Vista supported my several-year-old printer out of the box, recognized my old Canon camera, even ran an old DOS program I like. Maybe I’m in the minority.

I really like The Mojave Experiment site. It allows people to look at Vista with new eyes without all the bad things they heard about it. Have you see the site or seen any of the commercials? The site is great because they have the actual guys that gave the demos, and they show you what they did on the actual laptops they used. It wasn’t any super-computer.

I did try out Chrome, and I was not impressed at all with my first day of using it. It seemed to load up everything slow. Then, the next day, things sped up, until eventually they were as fast as my usual browser, IE7. I still don’t see the blazing speed that people are claiming. To me, after that first day, it seems as fast as any other browser. What are your experiences?