Vista and the simian brain

In addition to the Macbook Pro where I do all my daily work I have a Dell workstation that for the last couple of years has been running Window 2003 Server. Over the course of the last few months he’s started flaking out on me, to the point where I was never really sure what I was going to get when I used it.

To be fair, it really isn’t the right hardware for Windows 2003. (For instance the hard drive has always run like a pig because it really isn’t a server machine.) But I kept having this feeling that whenever I would turn my back the screensaver would switch over to a giant middle finger pointing at me.

I could never catch him in the act though. Each time I spun around and yelled “Ah ha! Now I’ve got you!” all I would see would a picture of some forest or a planet or something. I’ve gotta admit, while his performance was barely better than some of those losers on American Idol he was a wily one.

Anyhow, the time had come to start anew so I nuked Windows 2003 and put on, yep you guessed, Windows Vista.

A blog wouldn’t be a blog without moaning and complaining so here, I’ll get this out of my system fast:

1. When an install sits on 27% for about a half hour, that’s not good. Luckily I had some outside confirmation that this kind of thing would happen. I think the exact words were “Yeah, it takes freaking forever to install.”

2. Those little security dialog warning popup do-dad’s are pretty annoying, but not because they happen all the time. What’s crazy is the whole screen going black except for this little dialog. As someone who remembers the old Linux days of “Don’t mess with the refresh rate lest your monitor will burst into flames” having a screen go instantly black is a jarring experience.

3. The thing talks to you like HAL from 2001. No seriously, I came into work and noticed this little icon on the login screen:

My first thought was, “What does that do? Let’s click it without thinking through my actions to find out.” Why is it software tends to turn off the higher level reasoning in your brain? I mean, if someone walked up to me and asked, “Does this look infected?” you can take it to the bank that I’m not going to go in for a closer look. Yet an unknown button that could do anything from making me a bacon sandwich to ending all life as we know it gets clicked with nary a thought.

Turns out if you click it Vista starts talking to you in the name of accessibility. To bad they didn’t spring for James Earl Jones to do the voice over instead of some psycho killer computer voice.

But, all that being said, here’s the thing…

I find that I actually LIKE Windows Vista.

Now, before everyone falls all to pieces on me let me explain. My biggest beef with XP was that whenever I would switch back and forth from the Mac to Windows it felt like I was taking a step backwards. The XP interface wasn’t as nice, things seemed to be kind of dull in comparison to shininess of OS X. With Vista’s Aero Glass interface that feeling that I’m taking a step back to something more primitive kind of goes away. (But not completely, I mean it is still Windows right? Snark. Woo hoo! I’ve still got it baby!)

Now, I’m not saying that I prefer Vista over OS X, let’s not start talking crazy here. But, the new eye candy certainly helps. Of course all this could really mean is that I have brain of a chimpanzee and that I would be enamored by anything reflective.

*Eyes reader suspiciously*

First monkey comment and I swear I’ll fling poop at you. Wait, oh crap. (Ha! Ba dum ching!)