Vista .....

I've always been a windows user. More out of a default position rather than anything else. The first computer I actually did any work on was at university and that was (I think) a windows 3.1 running word perfect for writing reports - we had 3 in the entire biological sciences department for student use.

The first time I ever really started to use computers, just before I got one of my own was at Lordswood Girls' in Birmingham - windows 3.1 and then 95. My first machine was a Windows 95 machine. My second a Windows 98 and my third (this one) Windows XP.
(Of course, since then I've gone back to Windows 98 through using the 1995 era Libretto.)
And dammit I like XP. It's stable. It's easy to use. I'm used to it and it's comfortable.
I can't ever see my fourth machine being a Vista though.

In fact, my biggest fear at school right now is that at some point in the future we're not going to be able to get a machine with windows XP on it.

My four experiences with Vista so far are when people come to me with their problems on their vista machines. And I've been reminded of these by a recent Neil Gaiman post where he neatly sums it all up thus:

Sitting in an airport, getting really sick of Windows Vista on a laptop. It doesn't work -- I'm tired of waiting seconds for things to appear on the screen, of taking half a minute or more for something that ought to happen instantly to occur. The poor computer obviously can't run Vista, and shouldn't have been Vista certified, and the author isn't impressed with the way that a number of things that were easy in XP have got harder, nor with the fact it took most of a day for Vista to run a search on the hard disk to find a mislaid introduction I was working on, nor with its refusal to read or copy a bunch of files on a DVD Dave McKean burned for me.

It just seems like another bad idea from Microsoft. But what's my alternative?
Apple Mac?
Linux?
I just don't know. Never having used either I'm naturally a little unnerved by the prospect of having to relearn what little I know.
Of course all of this would be solved if someone at RM reads this and decides I'm just the person they want to give an Asus eeepc to. I'd use it at school, review it for anywhere they wanted me to review it for - honest! That way I'd get a nice introduction to Linux.

But Vista. I don't think so.