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I was taking a break from my day job and I stumbled upon the latest article regarding Vista, it's shortcomings, and it's benefits.

http://it.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?id=495712&op=view

I have been looking for a new laptop now for a week and have come to the conclusion that I do not want Vista on my PC. The trouble is, it's next to impossible to get what you want from PC manufacturers. They push Vista and there is almost no other option.

Dell still provides XP on select laptops but there is the added punishment of having to pay almost $100 in state sales tax which I do not want to do either.

Yea...I know..I'm being difficult.

Look...if there is a laptop maker listening to me, "give the buyer a choice!" Let me decide what OS that I want on my new machine and if I can't figure it out, then force me to take Vista.

Why don't I want Vista? That's simple...I don't want a slow machine. I don't want the DRM. I don't want the networking woes that some of my clients and friends have reported to me. In short...I want XP, for now.

I can't use Linux on it because it's also going to be used by my girlfriend for some of her college assignments and her instructor insists on Microsoft Office products. So I'm stuck.

You know...it's easy to see how the state of computing got into the sorry state that it's in. There is virtually no choice in products. Sure there are many manufacturers and they are all selling the exact same products just in their own wrapping.

You'll find the same Turion and Dual Core Intel chips, the same ram, the same DVD burners, the same everything. You'll probably even get support from the same call center in Bangalore unless you pay extra for Gold support and then they might let you talk to someone in the United States.

I build my own desktops and it's so much cheaper than buying one preassembled. So why is it cost prohibitive for a person to do the same with a laptop?

I am just tired and would like some sleep. So if someone would please pay my bills for this month, I promise to get caught up on my rest.

Thank you

Anonymous Coward has posted a Firehouse article extolling the virtues of reducing the term of copyright protection to two years. While I agree with most everything said about reducing the length of copyright protection, I'll say that in the case of entertainment media, copy protection should be no longer than 30 months from the origination of copyright protection.

You see...copyright origination begins when the rights holder produces the first samples of work. This would encourage faster movement to the market.

Items like entertainment media items need to be protected from illegal sales and theft, yes but should Disney's Mickey be protected for more than 100 years and thus disallow another creator from creating a better version of Mickey? Is it in the public's interest that copyright lock up intellectual property for that long and thus stifle innovation and creativity?

The electronics industry and the hobbyists were lured into the PC and high tech arena because those users had a curiousity. They, like me, enjoy taking things apart just to see how they would work and how they could be made better.

There is one company that advertises on television who boasts that they don't make the things that make our lives easier. They make those things better. Well that's what we want to do. We want to tinker with the products that we buy to enable these items to better suit our needs.

Be it software, music, movies, whatever. If we cannot adapt it to suit our needs or our styles, the urge to tinker is repressed and good ideas are never born.

Finally...does anyone think that old school rappers like 2-Live Crew, NWA, or Sugar Hill Gang worried about copyright issues? They used existing music performed by other artists from other genres and reworked it to suit their needs. They did not steal an entire song but just bits and pieces. A hook here, an intro there, and an ending in between.

It is disingenuous of the entertainment industry to try to stifle the very creation that it seeks so hard to have us believe that they are seeking.

Microsoft says that they have seen a 50% reduction in the number of pirated versions of Vista as they see in XP. Well there could be a reason for that beyond the PR spin.

Most of my friends run Windows products for gaming and for ease of available software. That's why I run it but I've got clients that have purchased new computers with Vista loaded on them. They have had nothing but problems. Networking issues, driver compatibility issues, and even software compatibility issues. We will not even discuss the problems with Windows Genuine Advantage that seemingly only punishes legitimate users of Microsoft products because we all know that pirated versions have work arounds.

So maybe, just maybe, the reason why Microsoft says that there are fewer pirated installations of Windows Vista is because it's a bad OS. I mean come on..how many people do you know that rejoiced in having a pirated version of Windows Millenium Edition? Yes...Vista is just about that bad.

It's not the worst OS out there. It really does work well for someone in a one PC household with a broadband connection and maybe a wired LAN connection. But I would avoid it in a multi-pc environment and I especially would not use it in a mission critical environment.

In fact, I would expect this OS to be ignored by most organizations. I think they will wait for Microsoft's next newest offering. I think that's due out in 2009. It's got to be better than this but I could be mistaken.

Hey..I always reserve the right to be wrong.

So tonight I was looking for a new laptop to replace my old workhorse laptop that I'm "donating" to my girlfriend. I went to Dell's site, not really intending to buy a Dell due to all the problems that my company has had with their systems in the last year since we upgraded to new GX620's.

Anyhow...I got to a page where it starts asking me to pay for technical support. And after I said no to accident care the next page that popped up suggested that I pay and extra $100 or so dollars for, and I quote:

"Add peace of mind with Gold Technical Support featuring North American-based technical phone support that is designed to deliver speedy access* to advanced level technicians and fast problem resolution."

North American based technical support?

Does this mean someone who knows what they are talking about in English? I have nothing against Indian tech support so long as they are knowledgeable and able to communicate with the customer. So far, my experiences with Dell's overseas technical help has been anything other than helpful.

I actually called them once while working on a client's PC and the Indian tech, reading from a script instead of using common sense, asked me to first, check in the system's Control Panel by clicking on Start->Control Panel.

I told him, "dude...the system will not turn on"

He said, "okay, reboot the system and press the F2 key to enter the bios setup" and again I repeated, "dude...the PSU is dead and the box will not turn on."

After three more silly requests from him, he said, "it sounds like you might be having problems with your power supply. Can you please unplug it and plug it in again" and I replied with "no..you come over here and do it because it's arc-ing every time it comes in contact with electricity"

Anyway...it's very maddening to have to pay extra for the one thing that made Dell computers so desirable a decade ago. Back when Dell sold 486's, they offered lifetime telephone technical support and I never took advantage of it but then again, their PC was so solid, I didn't need it.

It's sad to see what Dell has become and I will not fork over $132 extra to speak with someone in the United States. If US technical support is considered the "Gold Standard" and if overseas technical support is inferior, then why doesn't Dell offer that to their customers to begin with.

It might just alleviate a lot of the problems and anger that Dell has aimed at it from disgusted former customers like me.

And if this is old news, I apologize. It's new to me and that's because I have not purchased a new Dell since they have become so problematic for consumers to own and since they have turned their back on the American workers that made them into one of the largest companies in the world.