The wow is not yet!

My house, for all its sins, has good quality window frames that really were built to last. The underlying woodwork is preserved against the elements by a tough primer, several layers of resilient undercoat and a highly polished gloss exterior. The smooth surface hides a multitude of hidden stratas; each coat of paint provides a robust foundation for the neighbouring coat above it.

Many times, the effects of driving rain, wintery gales and sub-zero temperatures have been wiped away with the stroke of a cloth and the occasional squirt of polish. However, over time, the relentless onslaught of the weather gradually erodes this painted armour. The once pristine surface begins to look aged and imperfect and the challenging maintenance cycle begins.

With care and attention, the frame can be restored but each repair introduces subtle imperfections that accumulate over time. Of course, other parts of a house are prone to this gradual degradation and even the most dilligent handymen struggle to keep everything in showroom condition. Corners are cut and compromises are made to patch up a problem because of other more pressing maintenance and decorating issues. Ultimately, the patching, redecorating and restoration can no longer resolve the effects of an ever ticking clock and the window frames have to be replaced.

It is at this point that the inevitable analogy with PC based windows can be made. The question is, does Vista apply just one coat too many in the continuing search for a new glossy finish? Sure it looks pretty with its 3 dimensional application browsing and fancy widgets but look beneath the surface and perhaps the undercoat is beginning to crumble a little. For my laptop, applications run more slowly when they can actually be bothered to run at all. The entire system locks up with more regularity than ever before and refuses to reanimate itself unless rebooted. The continual need to reaffirm my identity, even as a system administrator, is annoying at best and common tools and features have been juggled around to the point of obscurity. Many of the once promised features have been omitted leaving a pretty shell with an aging interior.

Everyone around me is busily reinstalling Windows XP as new hardware manufacturers grudgingly offer alternative operating systems.

I have always supported Microsoft in their endeavours and continue to do so but the problem of beauty only being skin deep remains. A pretty face will always turn heads but this fascination soon fades especially when there seems to be little inner depth below the surface. My expectations of Vista have far outweighed my experience and I can only hope the disappointment of this flagship product is not repeated. The wow is most definitely not now!

Preparation is everything

During a particularly engaging World of Warcraft quest last month I decided that it was time to find a 'proper' hobby. This dawned on me as my fellow guild members started calling me old timer and logging off at 7pm on school nights. I'd always had a distant fascination with astronomy and chose to prefer star gazing into the heavens as a more intellectual alternative to star gazing in Hello magazine.

Armed with my battered credit card I went online shopping and 2 weeks later my new telescope arrived with built in gps device, object database and goto facility. My enthusiasm was not diluted even by the prospect of a multi-lingual, 200 page instruction manual.

After a hasty assembly I cursed and scowled my way through the remaining 5 hrs of daylight hoping sunset would deliver me a cloud free northern hemisphere. My prayers were answered and I found myself wrestling with a 100 pound glass / metallic hybrid which possibly outweighed the instruction booklet.

The next problem was to point the telescope at true (not magnetic) North, ensure it was aligned horizontally and then validate its position with one or two predetermined reference stars. This seemed like a daunting prospect but the next 30 minutes reaffirmed my belief in technology. The attached handset was intuitive to use, it found my local time and location (using the inbuilt gps device), and happily pointed the scope at true North. Whirring back into motion, the motorised mount pointed me at a reference star from its database of truly stellar proportions, a slight manual adjustment and I was ready to go.

This typifies, for me, one of the major benefit of software systems. They help you prepare quickly and efficiently for the real task at hand. Don't get me wrong, watching a telescope engaged in an automated, robotic dance while it aligns itself with an object 200 light years away is certainly an impressive experience...the first time around. On a cold, damp night it soon becomes a process that you would happily perform instantly given the opportunity. The real experience is looking at the comet battered surface of the moon or the perfectly formed rings around Saturn.

So do software systems prepare us for the tasks we need to complete and the activities that we enjoy rather than performing them for us? I would like to think so. After all, once your forecast reports have been scheduled for printing and your manangement reports have been automatically generated the real work can begin. Efficiency improvement discussions, marketing campaign brainstorming sessions, sponsor driven board meetings, the day to day human collaboration that constitutes the organic nature of an organisation...these are the processes that really make a difference. It's comforting to think the polished oak table that decorates the board room will not be replaced by server racks and an air conditioning system. So perhaps we should think about how our systems can assist rather than replace next time we are struggling to put realistic requirements together. It could save a lot of effort thinking about something that really isn't necessary.

And if the monthly reports find their way to the MD's desk a little earlier because of the new accounting system then so much the better. You can contemplate how software helps rather than replaces your daily functions as you walk down the first fairway on your sunny afternoon off. In fact, thinking about it; preparation isn't everything - it's just something that software systems are particularly good at. :-)