If you're buying retail and go into any of the high street stores such as PC World, Comet, Currys, John Lewis, Dixons, Tesco all laptops on sale come pre-installed with Windows Vista. If you go online to Compaq, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Acer and the rest, you have no choice but to buy Windows Vista. In fact, all websites display the same message "Toshiba recommends Windows Vista", "HP recommends Windows Vista", "VAIO recommends Windows Vista", "Acer recommends Windows Vista" on and on ad nauseam.

With the consistent wording, these recommendations clearly originate from Microsoft rather than clinical engineering tests. Microsoft are heavily incentivising manufacturers to push Vista which has unbelievably been in development since 2001, consuming Microsoft people and money. Despite this, Vista, delivered three years late, doesn't perform any better than XP and needs some serious hardware just to run the graphical "Aero" interface such as 1GB of system memory and a 40GB hard drive capacity.  

Business customers running Vista Business were thrown a life buoy, being quietly allowed to "downgrade" to XP. Retail customers, however, don't have the same licensing choice. If you have it, you're stuck with it. The main change in Vista is the unnecessary user interface and an improved search function as it tries to catch up with Google. Oh, and My Computer has been renamed Computer.

With Vista OS I am reminded of the Apple II being replaced with the Apple III in the early 1980s. The Apple III was designed by Marketeers and was the beginning of the end of Apples leading market position until it started to find itself again with the iPod. Vista has the look and feel of a development being led by Marketeers, it's not an operating system of choice.

So what is the alternative? As you can't seem to buy a laptop with XP you can return to Apple and the MAC OS (once it's not the "leopard" 10.5) or you can build your own with a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, i.e. buy a Vista Laptop and uninstall the Vista OS. For the moment, my choice is not to buy.

Is it any wonder Vista is ranked number one by PC World as the biggest tech disappointment of 2007?

1. Windows Vista
2. The High Definition format War
3. Facebook Beacon
4. Yahoo
5. Apple iPhone
6. The Broadband Industry
7. Voice Over IP
8. Apple "Leopard" OS 10.5
9. Microsoft Office 2007
10. Wireless Carriers
11. Microsoft Zune
12. Internet Security
13. Social Networks
14. Municipal WiMax
15. Amazon Unbox

I simply could'nt believe it when I heard on the radio to-day that a Russian headmaster,Mr Alexander Ponosov has been arrested for purchasing computer's for his school, that had pre-loaded Microsoft software, that contained pirated software.

Piracy, in all its forms is illegal, but I challenge anyone reading this to ask themselves, if they have ever purchased or used a pirated consumer product?. If there is anyone who can say no, I'd be stunned.It is known by all the major consumer brand's that piracy exists and they wish to stop it, which is their right, but to arrest a teacher in the middle of nowhere,1000 miles from Moscow, for such a crime I feel is a little rich, especially when its Microsoft.

The affair is gaining huge publicity in Russia, and ex-president and Noble Prize winner, Mikail Gorbachev, has written in an open letter to Bill Gates on his website, "A teacher, who has dedicated his life to the education of children and who receives a modest salary that does not bear comparison with the salaries of even regular staff in your company, is threatened with detention in Siberian prison camps,"

Mr Gorbachev goes on to say,"We have great respect for the work of Microsoft's programmers ?¦ and are in no way casting doubt on the principle of punishment for intellectual property violations. However, in this case we ask you to show mercy and withdraw your complaint against Alexander Ponosov,"

Now, to most reasonable people what Mr Gorbachev says in his letter is not un-reasonable and with Bill Gates to have an estimated net worth of some $53bn you would expect a little bit of leniacy. Not a bit of it, Microsoft rebuffed the plea from Mr Gorbachev. It went on to praise Russia's enforcement of intellectual property rights, and sought to distance itself from the affair by issuing statements through its PR agency in London, it did'nt even have the common decency to reply to Gorbachev directly.

So, Microsoft is happy to see " A teacher, who has dedicated his life to the education of children and who receives a modest salary" to go to prison, and be fined, whilst it can spend millions of dollars defending itself in anti-trust suits.

Somehow this does'nt feel right.

I recently heard the Cork City Council web site was being criticized for failing to really appreciate the needs of the people who might use it, in particular it didn't consider how the site might be displayed by other browsers. This seems to have culminated in the Council putting a note on the site saying it "will only operate correctly by using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5. or greater". The user is then invited to "upgrade".

With close to 90% of browsers already using Internet Explorer 6 or above or using the superior Firefox browser the number of people this invitation would apply to is a very small minority, given that we must also count browsers such as Safari and Opera.

To change from Firefox to IE would actually be a downgrade. The W3C browser statistics for November '06, rate Firefox browser usage at just under 30%, as it continues to take market share away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The Council web site does not display properly in this browser, suggesting it was only developed on Internet Explorer and not tested on other environments.  By web standards, this is very un PC (boom boom), as it has the potential to alienate a substantial number of visitors..

W3C, shorthand for the World Wide Web Consortium, are the standards body for the web. They develop and define the language standards that ensure the universality of the web. In addition to Cork City Council ignoring users with other browsers, the website doesn't meet these standards set by the W3C. In fact, it contains twenty three errors, which realistically, would take about ten minutes to correct.

They do include an accessibility roadmap which does mention attaining AA and AAA accessibility standards. This is all very well, but it's usually better to start at the begining: Lads, aim for the A standard first, a good point to start at would be to correct the twenty three errors, and sort out displaying the site on other browsers. As a local government body you should be setting a standard. Upgrade.

When you start your computer the chances are you could actually go away and make a coffee while you wait for it to complete. Overtime your computer becomes so slow that you either replace it or you take a hammer to it in a moment of angry frustration. You only have a 256K or 128K memory card when they seem to be churning them out now with a 1GB card as standard.

Of course, this will help, and you will see an instant difference at start-up. Until, that is, you start to install all the other programs you used to run on your old computer.

The majority of these programs think you want to use them every time you start your computer. They also think it's perfectly ok to communicate with "VGER" when you're connected to the internet and even try to automatically restart your computer if they find and install an update. Marketing are likely to consider it beneficial to have the program load automatically. The user isn't likely to quickly forget the software or the maker or use an alternative, you're right there in their face every day.

This is fine if you actually want to use the program every day. If you only want to use it periodically then you should be able to easily turn it off, and when I say "easily" I mean you don't need a computer degree to do so or have to type "msconfig" or "regedit" into the start and run menu. Personally,  I would prefer my computer to start with only one program, Kaspersky anti-virus software. Everything else I would like to choose to start when I am ready.

However, the default on the majority of software installations seems to be to run when windows starts and to automatically search for updates or newer versions of the software when you're connected to the internet without giving you the option to change it.

I was actually surprised that MSN Messenger 7 included the ability to un-tick "run this program when Windows starts" in the options tab. Prior to this version this wasn't included as an option. Instead you had to click start and run. Type in regedit.exe and click ok. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion un. Once you're there click on the MSMSGS entry and select delete. Then click yes to confirm.

At least one piece of software has made a positive change, if only the rest would follow.

The good news is when you uninstall IE7 you revert back to IE6 with it's familiar navigation.....

There is an article on the Microsoft website by Mark Walker entitled "Windows Internet Explorer 7 Toolbar: It's your option". It was penned in June and claims IE7 "has a monitor full of choices....to customise the browser.....to suit your personal tastes". The article includes screen shots where it looks as if a user can toggle back to the classic view, the one we're familiar with in using Microsoft products; with the file menu on top etc. But things seem to have moved on since June. 

Now the final version of IE7 is due to be released this quarter, distributed as a high-priority update via Automatic updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites, but on the copy I downloaded today some of the reported options have been clipped back. It wasn't, for example, possible to revert back to the clean, classic view. When I was first presented with the screen I was immediately frustrated with some of the changes, but in particular in not being able to customise the layout. In fact, I must admit, having used Internet Explorer for over ten years, today is the first day I downloaded alternative browsers. I was so annoyed I figured, "well, if I must learn to use it again, I may as well look at alternatives". Browsers of course are free, so there is no reason why you can't download and run alternatives. I picked Netscape and Firefox. 

Netscape for some reason drew an association with IE and ended up presenting me back with exactly the same IE7 screen, only it said Netscape. "losers" was all I could mumble as I immediately uninstalled it. Firefox, on the other hand, which you can download from here, has a superior user interface to IE7. In fact, in a very short time, I almost had it configured back to looking like classic IE, only better. 

What's the problem with IE7? Well for me the main thing is you can't customise the appearance. The address bar stays on top, presumably the developers having read Joel Spolsky's book "User Interface Design for Programmers" or his blog liked the idea of being able to bounce your mouse off the top of the screen and end up in the address bar. However, they seem to have missed all points on user familiarity and navigation. 

Two icons for "favorites" now, irritatingly, appear in the far left, where the more frequently used home button would be better placed. All the other icons are right aligned until you turn off the tab browsing feature in internet options, which you have to do to get them back on the left. And of course, they've added in search - No Thanks - I have a clean google homepage. Some added security features are bundled in but these should be handled by your virus protection software or you end up getting conflict errors instead.

I genuinely believed the browser wars had ended long ago. Microsoft were the clear winner with a superior product. However, if IE7 is released with the rigid user interface it has today I would bet the wars start over. There seems to be some strategic effort with IE7 to more seriously engage the search market and I think the browser feels diluted as a consequence, in any case, I it would seem to be surpassed by the Firefox browser. 

The good news about IE7 is you can uninstall it and revert back to IE6 with it's familiar navigation, or you can download the Firefox browser for free.

Why would anyone write a program that..........

Why would anyone write a program that would automatically restart your computer? A program so persistent that, when you click "Restart Later",  you only get a moratorium of ten minutes before the message pops up again with the same determined prompt? Every ten minutes, as though it were taking orders from the atomic clock. The message gives you five minutes to act. This is less time than it takes to go to the toilet, make a coffee and return to your desk. In which time, the relentless program has shut your computer, ignoring your unsaved work, like the spreadsheet or letter you've been painfully composing.

It doesn't even take a trip to the toilet.  You might be retrieving a file, or talking to someone or pacing the room on your mobile. Why would someone write a program that can restart you computer, and wipe your work, as you do that?

Before anyone says, "Well, you can change the settings", I already know that, and that's part of the problem. In an age of hot desking and shared computers you inherit the settings of previous users. Some, not unsurprisingly, might select the recommended setting, which will run this program.

For those that might not know how to change their setting click Start followed by Control Panel. Look for the icon below and double click.

Change the settings. My preferred setting as pictured below is to not download automatically. I like to decide what to install and run on my machine. I learned this after installing Service Pack 2, to discover afterwards my DVD drive didn't work anymore as there were no supported drivers.