Windows 7

Wammo tells me he’s installed the pre-release version of Windows 7 and it’s like being born again. His computer (get this) actually does what he wants it to do! ZOMG! Revolutionary.

I’m reminded of my old boss at IDG Communications, Pat McGovern, and a story he tells of the first time he saw Steve Jobs demonstrate the Mac OS.

Steve had invited Pat and some other assorted luminaries to check out his new product and was, the way Pat tells it, quite anxious that they be impressed. He ran them through the demo, showed off the “mouse” and the “graphical user interface” and some other bits and pieces and stood back.

“Well, Pat. What do you think?”

Pat McGovern, for those that don’t know him, is well over six foot tall and has been kicking around the IT publishing industry since before there was an IT publishing industry. He set up IDC Research to monitor this growing market but couldn’t find any publication that wanted to take his research. So he founded IDG Communications and set up Computerworld and the rest is history. Pat was a big cheese and if you could get Pat on side, you were made.

“What do you think?” asked Steve, with (I like to think) a tremor in his voice.

Pat stood up, looked around the room at the assembled journos and said, “If this catches on, we’re all out of a job. It just works”. Thankfully, it never did, and so countless millions of pages of reviews, tips, tricks, support and help were able to be written and re-hashed over and over …

Windows 7 is best summed up, however, by XKCD and if I can make it fit, the comic is below. You should, however, go visit XKCD and look at all the comics and let your mouse hover over each one as there’s a secret message for those In The Know.

It’s mostly a fail until such time as I can move the post down below my sidebar. Hmmm. Any WordPress gurus who know what they’re doing out there?