things windows 7 have taught me

I've been running Windows 7 for almost two weeks now. So far everything is great. In my use of the OS I've learned a few things.

I'm reminded of how much of a dinosaur XP is.

That OS is over 7½ years old. Whenever I use my laptop, which still runs XP, I sometimes think, Wow.. this is frickin' old.

I am very happy that I didn't switch to Linux

I blog, produce audio and video for a living. The apps available to do what I do in Linux just plain suck. And no, I will not emulate/virtual-session it, because that runs like crap.

I was able to get all the apps I needed for Win 7 in less than two days. And I mean everything downloaded, installed and ready-to-rock.

I'm glad I didn't switch to a Mac

If I had a Mac right now the only thing I would have that I didn't before is debt, and lots of it.

Briefly I considered switching to Mac, and oh my God would that have sucked because of the hole four miles deep it would have burned in my wallet.

Is the only reason I didn't switch to Mac based on price? Yes. I know it can do everything Windows can do (with the exception of Windows Live Writer), I know Mac OS X is a solid operating system, blah blah blah, I know all that.

But the price tag just sucks. If I want a true-blue tower PC from Apple, you have to spend well over $2,000 for it. Screw that. I've got bills to pay.

Right now I'm running Win 7 RC which expires in June 2010 - more than a year away. And even if the Win 7 OS costs me $200 a year from now for a license, that's still a deal because I got to run it for 13 months free of charge.

Furthermore $200 is a lot easier to pay off than $2,000+.

I'm glad I don't have to mess around with "the engine"

I haven't had to mess around with any "deep" internal settings because yes, it runs that good. In addition, the only time I've had to download a driver is for one thing, the mouse. And that was optional because I needed some extra features from the IntelliPoint software. Everything else, from my digital camera to all my other USB devices including my Garmin GPSes required no 3rd party drivers whatsoever - and that's just awesome.

Windows is much closer to the point where you simply don't have to care about the engine. You boot it up and do your thing without having to worry about tweaking settings, messing around with the registry or any of that other crap.

I sincerely appreciate this because at this point of my digital life I just want to use the apps I want to use, and plug stuff in and have it work.

And that's exactly what I get with Windows 7. That makes me a happy computer user.