How Hard Can It Be, Bill?

I wasted 4 hours this morning with a PC problem. I had my laptop on standby over night, got to the office and plugged into it a couple of USB devices before waking it up. Being of a cautious nature, that's not my normal routine: "restart first, add USB plugs second", is how the mantra usually goes.

Anyway, net result was the thing threw a wobbly and it took me forever to get it back to a stable state. Coincidence that I did things differently? Perhaps, but not an experiment I'm willing to try again just to see.

I had hoped Vista, in all it's bright-and-shiny newness, would fix something as fundamental as this, but apparently not. According to reports, it still takes 3 minutes to boot on a decently-specified machine, and warm-starts aren't much quicker either.

Why waste time with fancy graphics when fundamental usability issues are ignored? Bit like GM wasting time on stuff like add-on plastic spoilers instead of building a worthwhile auto box or giving their cars halfway decent handling. Oh, right. Bad analogy ...