I want to spend some time talking about Windows Vista.

Imagine, if you will, a company that produces a product that is touted to be so revolutionary, so new, that it should boggle the mind and everyone should desire the product.

But then, the product emerges, and it’s a disappointment for most, but wonderful for some. The product crashes frequently, has many incompatibilities, and even more shortcomings. Experts and pundits cry out about the features that should have been included, but weren’t.

But as time goes on, the product is revised and upgraded. Stability is added. Features are added. …

Have you seen Microsoft Surface (http://www.surface.com)?  It’s really cool, but probably not for the reasons you might think.

The basis of Microsoft’s new Surface technology seems to be multitouch.  But that’s nothing new.  Not at all.  Heck, the Apple iPhone is supposed to have multitouch and that’s due out any day now.  As well, some other peeps (http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/) have been working on this technology for some time too.

So what is it?

Well, Microsoft, in a bold move outside of their usual realm (this is hardware and Microsoft is a software company), has seemingly developed a table-top interactive display.  There’s nothing …

Okay, I’ve been using Windows Vista on a few of my computers for the last few months, and I have to say, it’s growing on me.

The first thing that grabs any hardcore user of PCs is the file manager and the changes there.  Vista adds several features that should have been there in XP.  For instance, the “burn” button.  This allows you to select something and press this button to put it on a CD-R(W).  Of course, all this really does is copy it to the CD drive’s temporary folder for burning.  It’s nothing more than an easier way to …

I must say, I am not eager to switch all of my Windows machines over to Vista for several reasons, not the least of which is cost.  But for purely academic purposes, I purchased and installed Windows Vista Ultimate edition on my old gaming machine, just to see how it is.

All in all, Vista seems like a pretty robust offering.  I haven’t gone into every nook and cranny yet, but I have kicked the tires and poked around a bit.  The interface seems solid and the Aero Glass interface is slick.  But in the end, it’s just some eye candy …

We talked about DRM as it applies to audio.  What about video?

Video is far trickier to deal with in terms of DRM.  There is no established DRM-free format for video like the audio CD is for music.  DVDs come with an encryption scheme called CSS, which was cracked years ago.  This is good and bad.

Now, with the advent of software for your PC that can get around CSS, users can rip video off of their DVDs to do with as they please.  This should be the way things are, and indeed this was perfectly legal (and sort of still is, …