[samslaves]

From http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/...4051_04_ue.asp

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Instead, Apple's OS provides just a classic graphical user interface, with no friendly utilities or tools to guide you through various processes. It's a desktop OS, plain and simple, and no amount of graphics technology can change that simple truth. You pretty much have to know what you're doing to use OS X. Otherwise, you'll just find yourself endlessly mousing around. To a beginner, it's almost as unfriendly as a command prompt.

Now look at how Microsoft markets Windows XP. You'll quickly notice that Microsoft's message is less about technologies and more about what the company calls "experiences." That's because Windows XP actually addresses core usage scenarios, or what we might call the user experience. So Microsoft's slogan for the current Windows generation is "Do Amazing Things: With Windows XP, Yes You Can." XP experiences include such things as Music & Video, Games, Digital Photography, and Home Movies. The company also touts XP's task-based, visual design, and the top ten reasons XP is superior to previous Windows versions. While there are still technologies and applications behind these experiences, of course, Microsoft has thought through how users will interact with the system and provided hooks in the OS to aid users along the way. It's this attention to detail that makes XP a solution for the masses, while Mac OS X is very much for the technical elite.
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But Microsoft is honing Aero, refining it, and, yes, hiding it from the competition so they can't be ripped off mercilessly in the months before Longhorn is finally released.
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Am I now in an alternate reality!? I fear looking thru the window now because probably giants Zeppeling are flying all around with Windows logos on tail rudders.

Help me please!

From an alternate reality
Sam

[Detrius]

Dude... that's really forked up.

[drive-thru]

...
Compare this to Mac OS X, an operating system Apple has been trying to get off the ground for several years. Because it was based on entirely incompatible technologies to its previous OS products, Apple needed time to bring that OS up to speed with Windows, and the company wisely chose to focus on core technologies and features in its first few releases. In late 2003, Apple released Mac OS X 10.3 ("Panther"), the fourth OS X version and arguably the first that's suitable for mainstream use.
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Ok.

Anyway, re: the first quote, a computer is a tool which I use to acomplish a task. I don't want a friendly utility, tool or ****ing paperclip asking me if I want help writing a letter.
I agree that for novice users a little help is required, but I believe this should be done through making apps simpler and having less clutter from features. Compare the iLife apps to Windows Media Player. The WMP interface makes what should be a simple app incredibly complicated with way too many features. I'm sure if Microsoft tried to create their own iLife suite it would all be bundled into one app rather than spread out into separate, yet integrated, apps which focus on one area each.


Just realised this was written by Paul Thurrott

[drive-thru]

I like the titles on his Longhorn Build 4051 Tips & Tricks page:

Use the right hardware
Stop the explorer.exe memory leak
Enable pop-up ad blocking in Internet Explorer 6.05 (ya think!?)

Also how, after talking about how the friendly OS guides you by the hand, he can't work out how to browse a network. How about reviewing what is