I want to like Windows Vista. I really do! Not that I’m a Microsoft fanboy. In fact, I pride myself in the fact that after using personal computers since 1980 and email almost daily for about 20 years, this Monday when our IT staff migrates my corporate email account to Exchange, I will be using a Microsoft email client for the first time. The real reason I want to like the latest Windows release is that I’ve grown attached to too many small but extremely useful software programs that I can’t bear the thought of using a computer without them.

I’m not talking about big office-type applications, I’m talking about little programs like StrokeIt, SideSlide, Launchy, Total Commander, Sandboxie, CLCL and my favorite text editor or two. I understand that as you’re reading this you might find it hard to believe that these programs can be essential but the fact is, giving them up would be a big productivity hit for me and I won’t want to use a PC without them.

A few months back I did a fresh install of Microsoft Vista Ultimate on my primary home PC. I did experience some of the annoyances that made many hate this new Windows OS, but I’ve learned, mostly from searching the Web and reading PC Magazine, tricks to fix those annoyances and to a degree, I managed to make Vista not get in the way. However, for the past two weeks I kept getting random BSOD’s with a bad_pool_caller error and finally yesterday, Vista won’t boot. Using System Restore was no help. I kept going back from one point to an earlier one without success and when I finally restored to the earliest available point from 4 days earlier, the PC won’t start!

This really pisses me off especially considering the following:

• I have very few Windows applications installed as 90% of the software I use is portable. No Registry entries, no files in the Windows or System directories.
• I use a virtual machine to test software. Installing and uninstalling software on my PC is not something I do frequently.
• Windows Update, as well as a 3rd party firewall and AV software are installed and regularly updated.
• I am an IT professional. I know what I’m doing.

So on this Independence Day I sat watching the Yankees-Red Sox game and reinstalled Vista on my PC. Sad that I can’t get myself independence from Windows!

If I got my coffee from T-Mobile, it would probably come in a 3 oz. cup, look and taste like muddied water and cost $7 a cup.

Don’t get me wrong.  My family’s T-Mobile plan has four phones that we got free and costs about $100 a month.  But this is for the bare minimum. Maybe the coffee comparison is a little off but consider this:

• My daughter can purchase from an online music store a High School Musical song for 99 cents.  Why does it cost $2.49 to get a ring-tone of the same song from T-Mobile for a  low bit-rate clipping?
• I can get a 4×6 hi-res printout of a picture on glossy paper from my local drug store for 29 cents.  Why does a postage-stamp sized, low-res electronic picture from T-Mobile to use on my phone as wallpaper costs me $1.49?
• We don’t have a text messaging plan but when we receive a text message from someone, we have to pay for it.  When I call T-Mobile and ask them to turn off text messaging altogether on our phones they tell me it can’t be done! Why not?
• According to Wikipedia, mobile phones were invented in 1947. The technology for a call to travel through several cells was invented in 1970. The first commercial cellular network was launched in 1979. Why do I still get dead spots and dropped calls on regular basis?
• When I wanted add a line for my daughter, she picked the free phone she liked from the T-Mobile website.  I went to the local T-Mobile store only to see that the same phone costs $79 at the store!  Why won’t the T-Mobile store have the same prices as their website or honor their own online pricing?

I realize that these are rhetorical questions and I’m sure other mobile carriers have similar issues. How are they getting away with this?