I've been wondering what Vienna is going to be like, curiosity over it's OS features on the one hand, but also very leery of what new types of big brother programming is going to be included with it. Die hard 98se users DO NOT like big brother XP with its' activation programming, one version of the Windows Genuine Advantage program with built in "kill switch" (zdnet.com); and with Vista: DRM, a back door for 3rd party venders such as Sony entertainment who have partial access to your Vista computer and veto power (zdnet.com, and Maximum PC magazine), a WGA which might also in the future have a kill switch, and just recently now features advertising built into the WGA so now you not only get all the benefits of big brother technology but also the added bonus of advertising (zdnet.com)! I don't understand their marketing program, they want my money, but, they insist on ever greater big brother programming--what do I look like "Soylent Green"?? (movie "Soylent Green", 1973 Heston, Leigh)

Did you know that in Eastern Germany before the fall of the DDR and the end of the East German wall, that there was a bathtub manufacturer who year in and year out produced bathtubs that were originally designed perhaps 100 years ago? They were made of solid iron or steel (probably coated w/ porcelain?) and weighed a very great deal. When the DDR fell, that company went out of business overnight because it could no longer survive in an open market, it was only able to continue in the past under the DDR because the DDR had a false closed economy with no competition, no innovation, and no desire to improve their products or make them more people friendly. How does MS come to the wild conclusion that people are going to love ever greater big brother programming? I've been a fan of MS since the start, I once knew a couple of the managers from 23 years ago, but ever increasing big brother programming does not inspire me to pull out my wallet, it makes me go looking for alternatives. Apple has been extremely successful, as they have mentioned recently that they want to "give the people what they want".

I hope MS will change their big brother ways. But here is an article on the upside of what Vienna might be like, that it will be what Vista was meant to be. Saying that Vista is like Win 95, buggy, hard to use, and unstable. All of these things the author (Ed Bott, zdnet.com) says were corrected with the release of Win 98. As I've mentioned there are still die hard fans of 98se, many believe it was the very best OS and still is. Any way, Bott believes that Vienna will be like Win 98, the bugs in Vista will be worked out and will be a solid OS. That's what has been in the back of my mind. I've been thinking of entirely skipping Vista, because of its' big brother programming, then seeing what Vienna is going to be like. Vista is extremely expensive, buggy, has even more big brother programming than xp. I think Vienna will be a great OS, however I'm just wondering what new levels of big brother programming it will have with it?? I mean, it might be spectacular, but if it requires monthly payments to use it, a 2nd mortgage on the olde castle, is full of advertisements, requires a personal retina scan, thumb print, dental records, full access to all your bank and tax records, then, I might not get Vienna either.

While I'm waiting for Vienna, I might possibly make purchases of XP (MS recently shut down the Win 98/se/me Windows Update page, I asked them several times to put it back up again, perhaps others did also, and they gave in and put it back up (whew!), if they had not done that I would not have considered making future purchases of XP as XP is going to be dropped from support in 2009), and am definitely planning on getting Linux and possibly BSD products. Win 2000 would be nice, I had it once some months ago, but (D'OH!!!) accidently tore off the top aluminum data layer from the Win 2000 pro disk. Win 2000 has the advantage of no activation programming, is NT 5.0, but on the other hand it also has the WGA, and has fewer drivers than XP.

Here's hoping that Vienna will not be big brother out of control. I'm probably going to be skipping Vista.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=261&tag=nl.e622