Saturday (oops, Tuesday) Sermon
- The Weekend (mid-week) Blah

Ok, so I clearly goofed by not adding a reminder on my scheduler. Trouble is that with so much stuff happening around us, remembering things is surely not an easy task. Call your parents, take your dog out, leave instructions for the cook, wash clothes, take them to the laundry, fill petrol, air for your tyres, watch the match, remember who scored the last 170-plus individual score before Gibss did in that match, get the anti-dandruff shampoo on the way home, and yes, what was that boss' deadline? There we go. Forgot. Again. Our brains, it would seem, has just too many things to take care of.

So, perhaps, we should forgive Microsoft for putting in 50 million lines of code for Windows Vista even if it forgot to go faster. Windows XP had 35 million lines of code, Win 98 had 18 and Win 95 had just 15. Admittedly, Vista will have all the things that you wanted -- parental control, search, better graphics, better networking capabilities, tabbed browsing, better data management, and surely better security, well, the works. So what gives?

The problem is that it will be slow. Damn, boring slow. And equally irritating, if not more, as Win XP with Service Pack 2. As a user, why should I be forced to buy a new machine with a new OS that will force me to buy more memory and a faster-than-ever chip, all of which which would mean more cooling, and shorter battery life. Not to mention the prohibitive price.

And that's a bummer. Logically, the more advanced a product gets, you would expect it to get more steamlined. Take cellphones. They are 10 times slimmer than a phone launched in 1996, but have at least 100 more features. And yes, they are 10 times cheaper too. Cellphones, by the way, demand as much hardware and software capabilities from engineers as an operating system.

But software giants have gone exactly the other way -- their products are heavier making them slower than ever before, and have features that most people just don't use. I'd rather have two versions - a "slim" or a "diet" version of any software for quick usage, and a "power" version for those wanting to use a software professionally. This way, I could go faster with better software, and professionals would have that edge anyway since, presumably, they will invest more in hardware, too.

I don't know a single person (and I mean it) who uses even 40 per cent of Microsoft Word's capabilities. So why should that person buy a full blown version as, say, a scriptwriter or an advertising pro? Since a home user (except gamers and telecommuters) typically use the machine for surfing or watching movies or listening to music, heavy, unusable software just does not make sense. Nor is it financially viable.

I would also like to believe that with such "diet" software, piracy rates would come down dramatically. People will be ready to pay for a stripped down "Office", rather than a bloated one. It is a win-win situation for both companies and users.