Out the blue, for the - I don't know how many times - Xp crashes on me. I know, I know. Every time when I write, I should do it on a notepad or a word pad. Save it and copy then contents and post it on blogger so I don't waste time and run the least risk of losing my post in case Xp crashes.

Well my previous post was about 12" inches tall. That's a foot of thought - not a footnote but a foot's length of post lost because Xp crashes for no apparent reason. Amazing software.

What's more amazing is that, Gates is touting that Vista is the cure for Xp.

Cure for Xp? I didn't know that Xp was a disease! A billion dollars spent on development and nothing for its customers to say "they changed that and made it better", it's as good as Xp. Perhaps even worse.

Here's a review by a smart woman, Erika Jonietz, for MIT telling us how she, an avid supporter of all things great for humanity, at least she thought it was (read: Windows Vista), lost her fervour for Windows and became a Switcher. She switched to the Mac right after she did the review. That's a HUGE thing.

Here's what a committee has to say, a group of Microsoft apologists trying desperately to undo her work by telling us that Vista is imperfect for a very good reason: Great computing by letting others do their job of building software and hardware. Thing is, no matter how good your design and coding rules are, there will be mistakes due to a large number of people working on it. Remember this kids, numbers doesn't always come to great decisions.

Of course, there's no such thing as a perfect operating system or OS. There's no perfect anything come to think of it. But there's such a thing as well thought-out, elegantly developed, user-centric OS. Many flavours at that. The Mac is such an example. But you knew that I was going to say that already didn't you? Well what you didn't know is that, the Mac, however proud they are at advertising its Unix underpinnings, is not nearly perfect. But at least, it's going in that direction with stability, practicality, by stepping aside and letting the user do their work and not to mention elegance. Some say that elegance is moot from a practical POV. Nothing could more impractical than saying that. Here's a fact: However practical something is designed for, it's hardly inspiring when elegance is out of the equation.

But what they fail to understand or acknowledge is that, elegance IS the one of the key points that makes a product stand out as a, product.

If attention to detail says a lot about a person, then that is a lot for a computer designed by a bunch of people who's anal about attention to detail. Can you say same thing for Xp? Or Windows in general? The Mac is an expensive acquisition. No doubts about that there.

Am I upset? You bet. I've lost a good amount of time over the years from unexpected crashes, worms and viruses. From retyping my posts and notes. Thank God that my office bought an iMac and lets me use for work daily.

"What about Linux then?", you say. After a few months of actively using Ubuntu Linux for work and entertainment, I have come to a conclusion that it needs more work to be accepted by the masses. Being free and open does not always entail a good user experience.

It doesn't crash and take down everything that you were working on with it. A simple command followed by a passworded permission let's you install or remove a program and almost every single program out there for Linux is open source. Great computing for the masses who can't afford to run buggy Windows or an expensive Macs.

But the problem lies in the implementation.

How many users would actually go out and read and download programs that they need online. They're used to buying it at software retail stores or from an online retailer. Or how about setting up internet sharing? Think it's easy on Linux? Think again.

Downloading for free can be a problem when no body is policing the development and a lot of companies are not moving to Linux as fast as we wanted them to - so there's not much of corporate or street cred to rely on as word of mouth - or even elegance.

This story is not about expensive Macs or user-centric but hard to use Linux. It's about spending a billion dollar and coming up with nothing revolutionary. Might as well roll out a new OS by 2010 instead of today because there's no point in just selling a pretty interface minus the goodies underneath the hood. That's like going out with a beautiful girl and have the dullest conversation in the history of dullest conversations.

So what's point? Here it is: Buy an expensive Mac and be free of virus or network related worries OR download a Linux OS, burn it onto a CD and install it - minus the elegance of design or thought - yes it works but no it's not inspiring and there's also a steep learning curve.

However, I venture to say that by the time Windows comes out with Vienna, Linux would have reached a phenomenal stage in it's development life. Till then.