Windows 7 is out, and getting good reviews. Even the reviews that go looking for faults don’t seem to be finding that many.
A cynic would say to just give it time; Vista also got some good early reviews. But perhaps Microsoft learned from Vista. When all else fails, falling flat on your face can be instructive; it works for the rest of us.
Anyway, it is not as easy to hate Microsoft as it used to be. Apple has gone from cult to hot, Windows Mobile lags, and Google is everyone’s next world conqueror.
But Windows is not going away. Probably it will run on my next desktop, and there’s a good chance it will be running on yours. Perhaps everything will eventually get beamed up into the cloud, but a lot of people will still want or need a powerful local machine and an operating system to run it.
For most of us, for the next few years, that will mean Windows 7. I don’t need to think about it till I upgrade my machine, but if you deal with desktop computing at the enterprise level you need to start thinking about it now.
Meanwhile, GeoCities closed its doors, providing an occasion for sentimental commentary about this ancestor of Web 2.0. The Web, as it turns out, is not forever after all. Many people might be just as happy that their old GeoCities homepage, abandoned ‘under construction’ years ago, has finally disappeared. If they even remember they ever had it.
Just remember that one day your Facebook page may also be half forgotten, then disappear.