It’s been about 3 months since I wrote my first impressions of Windows Vista (over here). I did not take the easy way out and just bail out back to Linux. For the last 3 months I’ve continued to try to live in Vista… And I’m sure Jack, who shares an office with me, is getting quite tired of my complaints.

Its ironic how there are so many users who cling to Microsoft Windows and then proudly tout that the first thing they do is run out and load up on free or open source applications. Every year, we see lists of "best free apps" or "essential apps" for Windows, and every year, the apps become more and more like watered-down versions of what is available on almost any Linux-based system.

e Ubuntu Linux distribution now includes virtualisation software Parallels in its partner repository. The move by Canonical, commercial sponsors of Ubuntu Linux, is a first for Ubuntu as Parallels is a commercial package and not free to use. However, by including Parallels in the partner repository Ubuntu users are able to easily install it should they want to use it. Installing Parallels using the Ubuntu package management tools will make it much simpler for users to install the software rather than installing from the command line.

What happened and why open formats matter! Tucked in with the many security updates (and the restoration of one’s ability to paste text from a web page into a Word document!), a very interesting modification to the Office 2003 software waits quietly for installation with Service Pack 3. These events with Office 2003 should act as a cautionary tale of proprietary product, vendor, and platform lock-in.

You’ve heard it before, back up your hard drive. And kind of like the adult voices in Peanuts comics strips, you tend to tune out the droning noise and attend to more pressing matters, like getting stuff done and making deadlines. Before you know it, you have a full year of important work, photos, files on your hard drive and it’s still not backed-up. Time creeps along, and suddenly BAM, you’re staring into a blue blank screen and find yourself repeating over and over, “I shoulda, woulda, coulda.” To get life again, you even re-install Windows, but it still won’t reboot.

The open-source KDE desktop environment is making the jump across platforms with broad support for Windows and Mac OS X. The core KDE desktop programs, the KOffice suite, and the Amarok music player are actively being ported.

This is the year I kiss Windows good-bye. Well, maybe not entirely, but the writing is on the wall for Microsoft's flagship operating system, and all other desktop bloatware: The future of PC software is open source. (I'll add that the future of PC applications is on the Web, which I'll cover once we've got Ubuntu in place.)

XP's been acting up lately. So when I read on Engadget that Microsoft is giving away a free copy of Vista Ultimate, I immediately signed up. But as I was waiting for the client to download, I tried to find out more about getting my free copy. To my chargin, there was nothing on the Windows Feedback Program site. So I dug a little deeper. Still nothing. This seemed fishy.