Last month TMV launched a “bailout” (fundraiser) to try and raise $900 to cover some needed tech work and contribute to less than half the cost of a laptop, since much of what I write on this site is done via laptop while I travel and my five-year-old Dell was dying. The fundraiser has only raised a small part of what was needed (so it’ll resume Monday and be extended for a few more weeks in March) but I had to buy the laptop anyway. This new one is an HP that was on sale at Best Buy…but it had Vista.
I have seen Vista and know people who have it — and with the exception of one teen who likes it, most can’t stand it and two techs I know say to stay away from it. So I took the computer from the store — carton unopened — and gave it to my techs to convert it from Vista.
Is Vista that bad? Apparently yes although some contend it is misunderstood. Here’s a video that shows how Vista has been a problem throughout history (WARNING: this rare, historical footage contains some adult language that we do not normally run on TMV):
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.