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Sure, Microsoft Vista's new Aero GUI with its transparent "glassiness" is a nice touch, but I'll trade all that in if someone over at Redmond would spend more time hardening XP's security and making the application of patches less like a full-time job. Glassiness, in this case, are my eyes staring at the monitor every second Tuesday of the month.

Bigger is better? Unless you bought a PC within the last six months, you probably won't even be able to run Vista. Its minimum hardware requirements equal that of the small SOHO server I helped set up for a client a few weeks ago. My first exposure to the resource-intensive Vista reduced my PC to cinders and dimmed the lights of the aurora borealis. And this is just an operating system; I hadn't even run any applications yet.

Are consumers expected to buy new computers prior to buying a new operating system? Is this a conspiratorial handshake between the hardware and software industries? Bigger is better indeed.

Clients and readers are always telling me what they value most in technology: Productivity and simplicity. Unfortunately, lack of the latter defeats the former. I doubt that there were too many vendors promoting this at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. Perhaps we should stop commending those who allow their enthusiasm for bloatware and product marketability to override usability in the name of innovation, and start handing out a few kudos to those who are reasonable and practical enough to say "when." But with the billions of dollars invested in the "bigger is better" mentality, they would probably be led to the door like The Crucible's Proctor to the gallows.

Paul Chin (www.paulchinonline.com) is an IT consultant and a freelance writer. Previously, Paul worked as an intranet and content management specialist in the aerospace and competitive intelligence industries.

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