This blog is rated R for thinking aloud ...

The reality is amazing: Windows 7 is available for pre-purchase.
I do not plan to buy it, unless MS has a solid gold performance record with it.
I'm still an XP Home user. One of these days, Microsoft is going to discontinue
the support.Then i will have to rely on some one else for security updates .
Almost 1 year ago, my sister was having a problem installing a new printer driver
onto her less than 1 year old laptop, which runs Windows Vista . Being the
computer 'whiz' I am, she asked me to take a look at it:
The computer would 'auto-run' the setup disk, but it couldn't find the driver.
Odd. I minimized the install, and went to find windows Explorer to seek out the
files location...and suceeded pretty quickly. I pointed the program in the proper direction
and it seemed to load up and finish its tasks.
No printer. Yes, it was attached, or No, I can't remember the directions at the moment.
I rebooted the laptop,and still no printer 'attached', according to Vista.
Okay, so 'we' did an uninstall of the drivers, and then rebooted again.
Before the reboot, I wanted to terminate any programs associated with the install...
So I pressed alt-ctrl-del keys, and nothing happened.
"You have to..." my sis told me, but I really didn't get over the lack of Alt-Ctrl-Del.
Reboot...
Put the install disk in, and let the autoplay do its thing.
Once again, I had to manually browse to the driver file location.
But it was worth the effort, as now Vista found the printer, and the test page was good.

Windows 7? I already have a Win 98 disk, so is that about 10 times better ?

When I first ran my 'new' P4 system, i was still using Win98SE. It booted in about
25 seconds... XP gets to the desktop in around the same 25 seconds, but it continues to load
files into memory ( the hard disk busy light is flashing) for another 45 seconds.
I wait for 'the burst' ; the HD light stays on for 3-4 seconds, and then it goes off.
After that, programs load a little faster,it seems.
Vista...well. In the few minutes i had with Vista on my sisters laptop, there were at least
5 unnecesarry popup warnings. It was insane, the stupid crap.
I'm not buying it. Every other program has gone to idiot mode, so why not Windows ?
Obviously, it was at the forefront of the MS engineers plans. Cynical, yes. I am.

It's like the whole world has gone into "Rated PG-13" mode, and it's just plain retarded.
Remember when you had to read a manual, or press F1 to get help with a program ?
Not now; some 'idiot genius' figured out how to put a puppy dog into the search pregram,
just to help your sorry a$$. By default, you 'take the tour' before you use a program.

Movies, music,it's all tainted with statistics which tell the marketing people that
13 year-olds buy more stuff than adults.
And its a 'catch-22 ' , because how many adults want to then buy into the
PG-13 movies and music these 'entertainment' companies shovel at the public ?

I guess that is why, when i look at the TV Guide, the schedules are loaded with
relics of the movie history; Jaws. Apocalypse Now!. Alien. And tons of really,
honestly, pretty bad flicks from the 1970s and 1980s. Way back when we still had
"R-rated" material. The kind that 13 year olds were dying to see .
Oh. Well that was me, growing up. Our local theatre edited the films themselves.
No nudity, so nearly anyone could go and see the weeks feature.
Nudity was so common, you never even thought about it, until you see them again, in 2009.
A skinny dipper gets eaten by a shark. Classic Jaws, was rated R.
Wish that shark would eat PG-13 movies...every last one of them.
And the companies that made them...
If civilization could find its way back to the 'adult' R-rated world, maybe .Just maybe.