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It could happen, but I sure hope it doesn’t. Itanalyst makes a prediction for Microsoft Vista:

My Bold Prediction
Vista will be released sometime in 2007… won’t say when because Microsoft can’t commit to a release date any more than Bush can commit to a pullout date in Iraq…. Vista is released to fanfare and Microshills everywhere have a simultaneous group orgasm over its release, people start buying it… then the nightmare begins…

People suddenly discover that in addition to the overbloated price of Vista, they will have to upgrade their memory, processors, video cards, and possibly just buy an entire new machine to accommodate this massive piece of junk code and scrap Vista and go back to whatever OS they were using. People on limited budgets who cannot afford to upgrade their machines or buy a new one demand a refund of Vista, hailing it as the new “Windows ME”.

Businesses on limited budgets see Vista as no improvement over XP and balk at upgrading their systems and stick to their existing OS, especially in light of having to choose from 7 different versions of an OS that should have just stayed with three versions (Media Center, Professional, and Home). Three to six months after release (or sooner) the vulnerabilities start showing up and hackers attack with vigor and enthusiasm, causing more people to stay with their existing OS.

By the end of the year, Vista ranks up with Microsoft BOB and ME as the worst OS release in Microsoft history. Steve Ballmer pulls what little hair he has left out and throws a chair at himself.

I don’t remember anyone getting excited over Windows ME. Vista will be fine, but Microsoft will be lucky if its adoption rate is 50% by January 2009. XP was not adopted quickly either. Vista won’t be a bad release like BOB or ME, but I’ve been saying all year that early adopters like myself will not pay for Vista twice; that is, I won’t buy a 32-bit version now and then be charged for an upgrade to the 64-bit version later when I can afford a new system (whenever that will be). It’s reported that both 32- and 64-bit versions will be on the same DVD, but you’ll have to pay to activate one or the other, not a single price for both. If it were $99 or even $125, I’d buy Vista 32-bit. But I’m wanting the Ultimate Edition (a quick look at the feature set says this is the only one worth having; the Home Premium does nothing) and even with a discounted street price well over $300, I will contentedly wait. XP is fine and I can wait for years if I need to. Besides, the number of features dropped from Vista makes this an “I’ll-wait-thank-you” upgrade for most everyone.

And for more fun reading predictions and scenario, here’s another funny one. Ed Bott posted this Slashdot commenter which is funny:

— Windows Vista Ultimate 1 leg 1 arm
— Windows Vista Business 1 leg 1 ear
— Windows Vista Home Premium 1 arm 3 toes
— Windows Vista Home Basic 1 eye 1 ear (you won’t be getting Aero anyway)
— Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade 1 arm 4 toes
— Windows Vista Business Upgrade 1 arm
— Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade 1 ear 3 toes 2 fingers
— Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade 1 eye
    *All prices include your soul.

I just want to know whether my soul has to be activated first.

Good find Ed, my favorite Go-To Windows man.

I completed a new look to the front page of the site, making the list more readable and accessible. I’ve needed a quicker list fo a while, but have only now had the time to work on this. I separated the descriptions with tables (yes, yes, a CSS no-no) in order to make the program names easier to skim through, since the descriptions are negligible.

A new RSS feed should follow later this week. Let me know what you think. I need the feedback if I can make it better.

Been watching way too much anime lately. You choose:

Girl 1, Yuka:

or Girl 2, Mika:

Shameless, I know.

On Microsoft’s wise decision to roll back the ribbon in Office 2007, Marc Orchant argues: “The fact is, it’s smaller than the menu and toolbar setup in Office 2003 by 5-8 pixels.”

Marc, that’s a goddamned lie and you know it. Here’s proof of a 47 pixel difference (even in the beta 2 version of Office 2007)

or this one:

where the ribbon clearly takes up a menu bar, two stretched out toolbars, and one category/label bar — that’s equivalent to the menu bar plus three toolbars in 2003, and that’s 47 extra pixels the Office 2007 ribbon needs over the Office 2003 toolbars! I’m just happy someone listened to me (and many others). But you cannot argue how much text/page space the ribbon eats up. It’s ridiculous. The ribbon had to be devised for non-typists, for monkeys who can’t use keyboard shortcuts but can pick out a picture. It’s ugly, fat, and unnecessary.

Now if we can just fix terrible shortcut keys in 2007 — they obscure the very item you’re trying to find, such as document names in the recent files menu! What the hell is this garbled mess? Why not use underlined letters? Oh that’s right — they’d make sense! They worked for fifteen years, but now they’re out of “style?” Look at this nasty crap.

Any way you slice it, that’s ugly. Fight keyboarders, fight for your keyboard shortcuts goddamnit!

Since May I’ve been working on and off and being interrupted by multiple beta tests, house repair chores, weekend travel, legal problems (yes, yes, I owe money and the lawyers are after my ass again), even illness. But after sinking time into almost 150 apps over the past five months, the Great Software List is now updated with some kickass apps! I added a new Usenet, P2P/File Sharing Tools section, found/updated 40 fantastic new programs, and managed to ditch 65 old ones for various reasons — unaddressed security issues, lack of development, overpriced in latest version, somehow it got shitty, and so on. I’m excited and completely exhausted.

If you know me, then you know I work on manic energy. When I feel good, I feel great and can get a mountain of work or writing done. My wife says I’m manic/depressive, but I’m never “depressed”; I just lack will and energy and purpose and money. When I’m average, I’m well below the average human in daily accomplishment. Now I have to go meet with a lawyer and file a bunch of fast paperwork. Fuck me! The past year has been a struggle to keep up, but hey, who knows, if the sheriff doesn’t confiscate my computer to pay off old debts, then I’ll still be online! If he does, then you won’t hear from me for a long while, ha, as it will take me a long time to save up enough to get another computer.

One last thing. I’m considering changing the “Text-Only page” to a categorized, single-spaced list without descriptions to make the site quicker and easier to read. This monster has become as big as I can handle right now, as it takes an unfathomable amount of time to keep tabs on over 150 apps plus constantly be on the lookout for new and better ones with which to replace them! Take care, and hope you like the new section.

What the fuck is becoming of the whole Firefox religion? I like the browser, but when online applications like AjaxWrite (and to a lesser extent Google Calendar) forces you to use another, specific software app in order to use their program, then things are getting fucked up. So I’m going to check out AjaxWrite when this little suprise pops up:

Fuck you, Ajax. Do you even care that hassling people about which browser they’re using (Opera here) is a major turn-off? Maybe you motherfuckers will want me to use OpenOffice and Thunderbird and all-Google apps, all the time? I bitched about this in an earlier post, but the point still holds: DO NOT force me to use another software program for your app! Oh, I know, they want to simplify things by coding for one browser, but not all of us bow to the for-profit monster that has Mozilla become. I got nothing against the browser, but this is the same shit many coders pulled when we were forced to use Microsoft’s IE for years. It was bad then, how come Mozilla folks get to redefine the rules for themselves? This bullshit behavior justifies the very horse shit behavior that Microsoft pulled on everyone year after year. So please don’t tell me it’s okay because it’s Firefox.

Damnation, and I was going to write about something pretty and soft. Now the whole mood is gone.

So you think you’re happy with your current file manager? Wanting to move up with more power, but not wanting a program that invades every part of your system? Donald Lessau of Köln, Deutschland (or Cologne, Germany for we “englisch”-speakers) wants to show you his XYplorer file manager, which according to its PAD file, “XYplorer is a multi-tabbed file manager featuring a powerful file search, versatile preview facilities, a highly customizable interface, and an array of unique ways to efficiently automate frequently recurring tasks.” Basically, that mouthful tells me XYplorer is a powerful tool. The more you dig into XYplorer, the sooner you discover its power to save you time and manage your files in ways no other file manager allows. Like some of you, I’m a huge Directory Opus fan. But the greatest strengths of Directory Opus — its complexity and multitude features — are in turn its weakness for some. In other words, it can be a bit much. Still XYplorer shares many of the same features of Directory Opus, even though they are implemented in different ways. Both sit at the top of power user file managers.

XYplorer has an extremely high level of customizability combined with power. Some users of Directory Opus tend to find this quality maddening, but XYplorer provides a clearer approach to its options. All changes can saved on Exit if you want, and are written to an .ini file in the install folder. XYplorer has an intelligent and active forum of users who have made many suggestions. It helps to have a responsive and flexible developer. And when he wants to change or delete an old feature, he announces it in advance and puts many of the changes up for a vote. Also, almost every time I thought, “If only XYplorer could do this,” it was already part of the program. Every coding decision must meet a speed criterion, i.e., any new feature must not slow the program down, and if it does, it becomes an option to toggle on/off. XYplorer’s file operation speed is noticeably faster than most other file managers.

In the end, it’s the little things that make XYplorer stand out. For example, CTRL+-D allows you to “Copy Here With Suffix Number” (duplicate) to a file; CTRL+S allows you to Copy Here As (i.e., “Save As…”); Tabs can be locked. Tabs (for folders, much like a text editor or browser) can be locked or unlocked. A wide variety file information can copied to the clipboard, not just the filename. The “Go” and “Favorites” menus provides access to a history of files and locations, system folders, the application folder, color-coded files or folders, allowing you to work exclusively with either certain type of files or an entirely self-defined project of files and folders. All configuration, layout, and customizations can be saved with two files: xyplorer.ini and catalog.dat, making XYplorer easily portable.

Try the latest XYplorer beta yourself over its entire trial period and see if it doesn’t make an impression on you. It takes some getting used to if you’re accustomed to another file manager, but the transition is not difficult, and you’ll love all the keyboard shortcuts built into the program. XYplorer is shareware, but like WinRAR, comes with a Lifetime license.  If nothing else, it’s well worth a try.

Additional screenshots: http://www.anova.org//target/xyplorer/
DonationCoder.com Mini-Review of XYplorer: http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=4849