Letter to the Editor of PC Magazine

[Updated 12-4-07: PC Mag printed my letter, omitting the highlighted portions. While I understand omitting my ‘tone,’ it’s wicked to omit the actual features I mentioned.]

Perhaps for every 10 or 20 columns vaguely denigrating Microsoft Windows Vista, PC Magazine would print one letter finding anything specific to like in Vista. Take your thumb off the scale for a moment — you’re overdue.

Vista has several features I use and appreciate every single day and miss dearly when I am forced to use XP. Start menu searching is very useful. New options in Windows Explorer to sort, group and filter files are very useful. While searching needs considerable improvement, the simplest searches are very easy and fast — a big step up from XP with a huge step left to make. (Watch that get better as Google and Microsoft compete more directly after SP1.) Searching within Control Panel is brilliant!

I’m really puzzled by the carping at PCMag. After 25 years on the bleeding edge, how can so many of your columnists be utopianists? I don’t expect anything humans do to be perfect — ever. Software will always change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. I like having choices — even those I won’t take. Your readers deserve to know that there are some benefits to Vista. If you can’t find anything good to say about Vista, you’re missing a lot.

peace,
mjh

Mark Justice Hinton, author,
PC Magazine Windows Vista Solutions
www.mjhinton.com/vista/

[With “PC Magazine” in the title of my book, one might think that PC Magazine would listen to me — or, at least print one of my letters. So far, no such luck.]

Windows XP: Still the One - Columns by PC Magazine, by Sascha Segan

All day long, I swivel back and forth between multiple screens running multiple operating systems. I do my writing on a Mac and my testing on a Vista machine. But every day, I find myself swiveling back to get tasks or hobbies done on the greatest operating system out there right now-Windows XP.

I know, you’re wondering if I’m out of my mind. But it’s true. We’ve all got a love-hate relationship with XP, but it’s the only PC OS that can satisfy 100 percent of the people, 100 percent of the time.

LOL! 100%? Does anything satisfy 100% of human beings 100% of the time? What an absurd generalization. I don’t hate XP, but it never, ever satisfied me 100% of the time — and no software ever will. mjh

The Vista Death Watch - Columns by PC Magazine, by John C. Dvorak

Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP because Vista has simply not shown any life in the market. …

How did this happen? And what’s going to happen next? …

So what went wrong with Vista in the first place? Let’s start off with the elephant in the room. The product was overpriced from the outset. Why was it so expensive? …

To make things worse, there are too many versions. Exactly what is the point of that? Don’t we all just want Vista Ultimate? The other versions seem like a way to maybe save money for some users who cannot afford to get the real thing. You can be certain this version glut results only in complaints about what each variation is missing.

I find it ironic that the incendiary Dvorak can be more reasonable than Sascha Segan. At least Dvorak is thinking analytically. I agree with him that Vista (1) is too expensive and (2) has too many editions. One cheap Ultimate edition would be ideal. mjh

Note: This blog entry was originally posted on www.mjhinton.com. View original post