Posts from — July 2008

What is new, shiny, temperamental, epitomizes change, represents a complete break with the past and has been rushed to consumers with insufficient testing:  Microsoft Corporation’s newest operating system, Vista™  or  Senator Barack Obama?

To my way of thinking, both!   One promises to cripple personal computing for years to come; the other  to cripple the American Way of Life forever, I’ll let you choose who will do what to whom.

Consider the comparisons: Both Vista™ and Obama^{‘Change We Can Believe In’} are

• New
• Attractively Packaged
• Full of promise
• Ubiquitous
• Personify Change

they also

• Heavily burden existing systems
• Become increasing erratic over time
• Portray change as a virtue unto itself
• Are subject to frequent updating
• Have little regard for their impacts on existing infrastructure
• Hide the true cost of ownership until after delivery

The decision to field either Vista™ or Obama^{‘Change We Can Believe In’} is fraught with grave consequences. 

A decision to ‘upgrade’ to Vista™ requires the user to completely change the way they interact with the operating system. All the familiar controls have been moved, renamed or both. After upgrade,  existing applications may be prevented from operating.  In many cases, existing hardware is not compatible with Vista and the lack of driver support is widely discussed in the literature. Fortunately, viable alternatives exist and provide the same functionality; often with improved performance and reduced maintenance.

A decision to ‘install Obama V1.0′ is also fraught with grave consequences.  Higher taxes on the ‘rich’,   increased ‘free trade’, porous borders,  a ‘which-way-is-the-wind-blowing’ Iraq policy, an explosion of new Federal entitlement programs, a Commander in Chief totally unprepared to wield the military power that comes with the title ‘Leader of the Free World’.  Here too , viable alternatives exist but provide vastly different functions and performance; in short a big government vs limited government choice.

All decisions have consequences; some more profound than others. Make the unfortunate mistake of purchasing a new computer with Vista™ installed and there is always the option of reformatting the hard drive and installing a fully functional operating system such as Windows XP Professional or Linux.  At worst, this poor decision merely involves the cost of a new OS: a few hundred bucks at most.  No lasting, irreparable harm has been done.

Make the unfortunate mistake of ‘installing Obama V1.0′ and the options for fixing the resultant mess are far more limited and the potential costs astronomical.  Unlike computer operating systems, Presidential upgrades are released on a four year cycle; barring emergency patches delivered by Congress in the form of Articles of Impeachment. (Think mandatory security upgrade. Service pack 1.0. )

The premature release of a “not ready for Prime Time” OS is a mere inconvenience easily remedied for a few hundred dollars. 

The premature installation of a untested, inexperienced Commander in Chief in time of war, is a national disaster in waiting.

“Change we can believe in” is not leadership.

America, We The People,  deserve more.