Software Blues

New Tools and Tool Users

The marketing of Vista operating system has had its ups and downs. Hard core XP users often rail about the bugs that have not been, or are now being worked out. The success of it has been marred with all sorts of promises and warnings from tech geeks. Be warned...and then the Geek squad at the Best Buy sell you with admonishments of being behind in security, service, and updates. We are now rolling past the last few package updates for XP and the service is for this is being dwindled away. I have a friend who claims it is motivating sales of desk tops and that is why you are being forced to update.

I know when I first looked at Windows Vista I was lost. I am comfortable with the configurations of my Windows XP Professional. It was difficult, no, it was time consuming to learn the new layout of the Vista. But that was laziness on my part.

The problem of perception is that naysayers will delight and pulling apart the program and its compatibility issues. Yet these are often the same people who know better. They know that a beta release has compatibility issues and bugs. It is part of the territory of updating ones software. But its a hardship that everyone who wishes to be current must suffer through.

But there is one area where the company has struggled to gain ground: how Vista is perceived. "There's certainly a perceptual gap there," Mike Nash, a Microsoft corporate vice president, said in an interview Thursday. He pointed to Microsoft research that shows that 86 percent of those actually using Vista would recommend it to a friend.

The numbers are going up according to Microsoft officials and that doesn't surprise me. Its human nature to bark a little and then settle down and lump it.

I wonder how taxing it is to staff in libraries whenever they must undergo a change in software. Recently here in Chicago the public library launched a new web site. It has some problems but overall I like it. I talked to a librarian who complained of searching for journal articles on it. I did not find problems with it. But how often do librarians undergo that destabilizing transformation of their tools, and what are the strains do it cause on a staff? I would like to read some studies on this.

The inevitability of change is constant. So all a person can do is perhaps develop a better philosophy and grin and bear it. After all, its what we are given to work with and we are professionals.

Any thoughts?


http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9933555-56.html?tag=nefd.lede