http://www.drozmonkey.com/2006/09/06/another_google_tool/ The Adventures of JR, Jenny, Olivia, Molly, Violet, and Red. Sun, 12 Oct 2008 07:53:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://www.drozmonkey.com/2006/09/06/another_google_tool/#comment-117 How’s the Vista? at Andrews Family Wed, 20 Sep 2006 02:06:02 +0000 http://www.drozmonkey.com/2006/09/06/79/#comment-117 [...] But before I dig into Vista itself, I’ve got a little commentary on some interesting trends in computing in general that merit discussion. A computer’s operating system is it’s foundation which allows it to do all of the basics like running programs and accessing the hardware like the hard drive. The two main operating systems are Microsoft Windows, Vista being the latest, and Apple Mac OS X. There are a lot of similarities between features in the both. Beyond the basic task generally associated with an operating system, they seem to be incorporating typical tasks that users expect of their computer. For example, most home users use their computer for email, calendar, contacts, music, photos, videos, making slideshows and DVDs, and surfing the web. Microsoft and Apple have both figured out that people expect those things to be "a part" of the computer. Now Vista incorporates all of those things into OS or applications that come as part of the OS. So for a typical home user, there would be very little additional software that you would need to install. Looking forward, for things that aren’t built into the operating system, a lot of these additional tasks will be handled by web-based applications which you access through your web browser. These types of applications are known as Web 2.0 and include sites like www.writely.com which I’ve posted on here. So I’m betting that in the near future things will either be built into the computer’s operating system or you’ll use an online application. [...] [...] But before I dig into Vista itself, I’ve got a little commentary on some interesting trends in computing in general that merit discussion. A computer’s operating system is it’s foundation which allows it to do all of the basics like running programs and accessing the hardware like the hard drive. The two main operating systems are Microsoft Windows, Vista being the latest, and Apple Mac OS X. There are a lot of similarities between features in the both. Beyond the basic task generally associated with an operating system, they seem to be incorporating typical tasks that users expect of their computer. For example, most home users use their computer for email, calendar, contacts, music, photos, videos, making slideshows and DVDs, and surfing the web. Microsoft and Apple have both figured out that people expect those things to be "a part" of the computer. Now Vista incorporates all of those things into OS or applications that come as part of the OS. So for a typical home user, there would be very little additional software that you would need to install. Looking forward, for things that aren’t built into the operating system, a lot of these additional tasks will be handled by web-based applications which you access through your web browser. These types of applications are known as Web 2.0 and include sites like http://www.writely.com which I’ve posted on here. So I’m betting that in the near future things will either be built into the computer’s operating system or you’ll use an online application. [...]

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