So Windows 7 is coming in 2009?

It's a fact. It's here. The next incarnation of the Windows Operating Systems saga will come to a PC close to (developers perhaps just like) you reportedly in early 2009, in a pre-release, Beta, version. That is, earlier than expected. The news was officially announced in the mother of all developer's gatherings, the Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles this week, where eager developers got a copy of a pre-Beta version. But guess what? Windows 7 share the same advanced architecture of Windows Vista. So, if you are flabbergasted by how cool the newer OS is, well, that's why I love Windows Vista...!

While Vista SP2 is on its way, some 'experts' still in Beta

It is a fact that Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 are already in the initial development process. Though no formal product support is available from Microsoft you can get some hints, in a ZDNet article, on these two updgrades that will be available before the release of Vista 7. However, what I find sort of annoying is the fact the some "experts" continue to offer "advice" on how to deal with Vista peformance and stability, and I'm sure they're STILL referring to the Vista version BEFORE SP1 or just peddling misinformation in disguise. Stability problems in Vista? Poor performance? Please!

How to stay behind in IT: keep using Windows XP

And wait till Windows 7 comes out probably in early 2010 and expect an easy transition from XP and skip Vista altogether as advised by the "experts", and... right? Wrong! If you are to follow the "advise" of some so called experts who claim to have the best answers when it comes to the best choices for your IT environment then you certainly will continue to use Windows XP for a while. Yet, you will be missing the big picture: the three biggest milestones in the history of Windows OS have been Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows Vista. So, skipping Vista and waiting for Windows 7 is tantamount to going from Windows 98 to Windows XP. "Completely ignoring Vista is a shortsighted decision that may cause both usability and security troubles not too far down the line", says Sara Peters, senior editor at the Computer Security Institute. Windows 7 is simply an update of Vista, which is the foundation of the future of computing, at least from the Microsoft viewpoint.

Wall Street fat cats eaten by a sewer alligator

No, it's not Schadenfreude, but I am somehow 'glad' that the real estate bubble is finally bursting in New York and elsewhere as a consequence of the excesses of the Atlantic City, er, Wall Street, croupiers, er, investment 'experts'... Hard to tell the difference. Funny, the bubble was created by Wall Street greed and the burst was simply the expected outcome. A self-inflicted wound that reverberates throughout America and the world. And now the sewer alligator of harsh reality is here to bite these fat cats, and take them where they belong, who have been gambling with everybody's money for years and years under the purview of nobody in government... except to come to their rescue in a not so clear game plan, at our expense, we the taxpayers. Would there be a silver lining sometime? Let's hope. [The sculpture above, is one by Wichita, Kansas, artist Tom Otterness, a perfect way to illustrate this post. Actually this sculpture, found in Brooklyn's downtown MetroTech Center, where I currently work, inspired this post].

From sitting vidiots to walking vidiots and back

Sometime back in the '90s (or was it in the '80s?) someone coined the term vidiot, a combination of video + idiot, to refer to someone addicted to a video screen, be it TV sets, computers, and above all, video games. Well, today that expression can be aptly extended to some of, not all, the gazillions of people glued to their mobile phones screens. Don't get me wrong, with this post I want to allude ONLY to those who are so engrossed in their little screens that they completely forget about their immediate surroundings with unpredictable consequences. They are vidiots, period. The most glaring case of DWT (driving while texting, I just coined this, that is a 'sitting vidiot') so far, was the 'engineer' in Los Angeles who caused the death of 25 people, including himself, after missing a stop signal and crashing his train against another oncoming train. On the other hand, tell me if you don't find plain outrageous to see cashiers in supermarkets, for example, and other standing vidiots, texting while on the job! And how about those walking vidiots texting while walking on a busy sidewalk, while jaywalking in busy traffic, yes, they cross nonchalantly in front of your car... Just another example of our society's already short span of attention... Am I overreacting?

Bad press castle in the air is vanishing

Finally, the Microsoft campaign to reconnect with its users is taking off in a big way. "Hello I'm a PC and I've been made into an stereotype" is the curtain-raiser line of a new video in which people from all walks of life, who use PCs, are going about their lives. The best advertising, I believe, is when you don't resort to showing "how bad" the competition is in order to show "how good" you are (worse! When the competition is not actually that bad and you are not actually that good). Like I've been saying all along, Vista IS ALREADY a great product and the only reason for these ads in to counter the ghosts created by deceitful ads and preconceived notions. The New York Times reviews how Echoing the Campaign of a Rival, Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’. And that's precisely how this episode of the campaign is called.

Do you need 64-bit Vista?

No longer the choice of technology enthusiasts or power users, 64-bit PCs are becoming more and more prevalent, being 64-bit Vista one of the best choices. In the PC world this number refers to the amount of data the CPU can compute at the same time and the data which is transferred between memory and the CPU and between memory and the peripheral devices (the "data bus"). Having the ability to use more than 4G of memory is, after all, many a good reason to upgrade. The question is if you actually need all that computing power and I would say 32-bit computers are here to stay for a long time, so 32-bit is fine, but having a 64-bit Vista computer would be of course really nice! My next laptop computer might have... Read more: 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, Microsoft 64-bit computing, a broader view: which one is best for you.