USA Today covers Windows Vista

Here's an article in USA Today that explores some of the questions users are
likely to be weighing out after Windows Vista launches for consumers at the end
of the month. I think the writer does a good job of spelling out what people
will be wondering--and he did his homework to try to answer those issues (he
even had a phone interview with BillG about Vista upgrades and security).

Here's the link:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-01-21-handling-vista_x.htm

Waggler:... I think the writer does a good job of spelling out what people will
be wondering--and he did his homework to try to answer those issues (he even had
a phone interview with BillG about Vista upgrades and security).Remarkable!

What is even more impressve is the level of access he got: Bill Gates! 

Methinks that Vista is sorta important to Microsoft, eh?

Generally apart from that droid at the Seattle PI - I know, I know, he's a
homer; but he gets it, and he's generally factual, whose name I forget right
now, most fishwraps and general-interest glossies tend to get it absolutely
wrong.

In the armpit of California where I reside, the Cowtown Crier, aka the
Suckramento Bee, always gets tech news wrong to the point that is is not usable
even as confetti. (Don't get me started on sports!)

However, that is not as bad as supposed industry 'experts' who cannot review
stuff at all, but are pandered to since they command a lot of eyeballs.

Example 1: The headline reads: Compatibility Concerns Hinder Vista Upgrades, IT
Pros Say. 

But reading further you find:

Only 68% of IT pros contacted will upgrade to Vista in 2007. Since when is a
12-month, 68% adoption rate a failure?
Concerns over App compatibility 38%. So 62% don't have any qualms with
application compatibility in Vista? Those who do, If they haven't beta'd Vista
and used the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) now in version
5.0, need to be publicly flogged, and relieved of their duties ASAP.
17% have issues with hardware compatibility. 17%!

Example 2: This 'review' about Vista versus OS X. Could the writer be, ahem,
wronger, on some of his 'facts'?

It seems that when Microsoft involved, the pens are put away, and out come the
flensing knives.

John, remember some of the comments from cnet that I sent you on messenger? I
think that really set the pace for the general dimwitted nature of most people
"reviewing" vista. 

That second "review" is just plain dumb

For Mac OS X, it's the classic English butler. This OS is designed to make the
times you have to interact with it as quick and efficient as possible. It
expects that things will work correctly, and therefore sees no reason to bother
you with correct operation confirmations. If you plug in a mouse, there's not
going to be any messages to tell you "that mouse you plugged in is now
working." It's assumed you'll know that because you'll be able to instantly
use the mouse. Plug in a USB or FireWirehard drive and the disk showing up on
your desktop is all the information you need to see that the drive has correctly
mounted. It is normally only when things are not working right that you see
messages from Mac OS X.

Windows is...well, Windows is very eager to tell you what's going on.
Constantly. Plug something in, and you get a message. Unplug something and you
get a message. If you're on a network that's having problems staying up, you'll
get tons of messages telling you this. It's rather like dealing with an
overexcited Boy Scout...who has a lifetime supply of chocolate-covered espresso
beans. This gets particularly bad when you factor in things like the user-level
implementation of Microsoft's new security features.

It's a bad thing to know if something is working? and it's not really like
windows puts a huge message on the front of the screen to say it's working, a
little tiny baloon saying "your device is ready for use" isn't really
that much of an issue. Apparantly autoplay is a bad thing according to this
reviewer also because things that pop-up on screen when something is plugged in
is a bad thing...

Those with some experience in Vista will note correctly that I'm not running the
full Aero interface with all the transparency effects. Two points on that:
first, there are a lot of home computers out there that don't fully support
Aero, yet are able to run Vista. Second, in my usage, the window transparency,
while nice, is not what I'd call an "instantly obvious" indication of
window status.

"I'm not actually running vista on a level playing field with os x but then
i'll complain some about the UI"

Although it doesn't take long to get used to the new UI, why change such basic
UI controls? I know it seems a minor thing, but if you have to go between XP and
Vista, as might happen if your work and home computers have different OS
versions, this is the kind of thing that just trips you up a dozen different
ways. Mac OS X doesn't do that, and if I had to guess, I'd say because there's
no reason for it.

Well by using that logic we should all still be using command line for
everything or was it different and somehow more acceptable the changes from OS9
to OS X, which is far more like xp to vista than os x's charged for service
packs...

In a similar example, I wasn't sure why Word 2007's "Office Menu"
button was throbbing bright orange in a new blank document, but it really wanted
my attention. The reason why? To tell me what it did. Well, if the button has to
do the electronic equivalent of jumping up and down and waving its hand so it
can tell me what it does, then that's a sign that its function is perhaps not
obvious enough.

Oh yeah I keep forgetting it's a bad thing knowing what's happening and that a
far superior solution is for stuff to happen without your knoweledge...

Another UI annoyance, and one I had hoped that Microsoft would have improved, is
the hoops you have to jump through to get basic information from the OS. For
example, if you're having a network problem, and your help desk wants to know
your IP address, how do you go about finding it? Well, with Mac OS X, it's about
three or so clicks at most. Click on the Apple menu, click on "System
Preferences," click on "Network" and you get all the information
you need.

Well the IP you grab from there is going to be next to useless especially if you
use wireless because chances are it will be internal to your network anyway, in
XP at least (which he claims has an issue) I can get to my ip in 2 clicks which
is well less than 3 or so clicks (click on the connected network next to the
clock then support wow that was hard)

The other thing is, is until I deal with this dialog or it goes away on its own,
I cannot do anything else in Vista. The Mac OS X version won't let me interact
with System Preferences until I handle the authentication request, but I can at
least keep working in other programs.

Usually I dunno I open stuff for a reason so i'm hardly going to open something
then want to ignore it just for the hell of it.

I've yet to see anything in Vista that blows away the Mac OS, even a version of
the Mac OS that's over a year old. Microsoft still can't manage to make
something simple and easy to use. Vista reeks of committee and design by massive
consensus, while OS X shines from an intense focus on doing things in a simple,
clear fashion and design for the user, not the programmer. 

Gee like he hadn't already decided that before he even started writing the
article... writing right into the fanboi