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I don't use computers so I can run the operating system, I use them so I can run applications. Vista does not do that well at all. Right now, I'm typing on a Vista laptop (AMD Turion TL-64 X2 2.2 GHz; 2GB RAM). My old laptop (1.7 GHz, 2GB [of quite a bit slower] RAM) was much snappier with XP than my current laptop with Vista. The manufacturer won't downgrade me to XP (yet), but I'm pretty sure I can get a refund on the whole thing --- just need to jump through the hoops.

I may be able to salvage the product code from my old (broken) XP laptop. Anyway, I'll be pricing MacBooks real soon now; I suspect they're too expensive --- even with the usual caveats about better speed, efficiency, quality, and service. Since I've been using linux for about ten years, I'm at least going to see how my laptop does with a live CD of fedora 8 64bit. If that works well enough, a Mac may have to wait, and warranty be damned at this point.

I suspect that if about a half-dozen top rank games ran really well (i.e. native) on mac/linux, windows desktop dominance would be history in six months. With all the virtualization, emulation, and dual-boot options now available (all second tier choices, to be sure) ... we'll see how the landscape looks in about a year. Who wants to guess which gaming console will steal the most market share from windows desktops? One thing I'd bet on: xmas 2008 is going to be relatively better for Apple than for MS.