I've been thinking a lot lately about switching to Windows Vista. That is, I've been thinking of not switching to Vista. Everyone that I talk to seems to not really like Vista at all, and after reading about it, I don't think I will like it either. I won't go into the details of why, but I'd like to explain my conflict.
I really like working with XP. I understand how to tweak and administer the XP/2003 environment. It's a valuable skill these days. Vista doesn't appeal to my geeky side at all, and I've been meaning to become familiar with Linux for ages. This may be the opportunity for Linux to win me over. I'm a IT professional working in business. The value of knowledge of Microsoft products in the business and 'real' world far outreaches that of the *NIX environment. There definately is value in understanding Linux. For one thing, the only way to earn the title of uber-geek is to know Linux better than your spouse (assuming that you know your spouse pretty well).
The problem simply is that I just don't have enough time to become highly professionally proficient with Vista and Linux. I must use one operating system on a daily basis for everything from surfing the web to administering the server. Therefore, I must choose between something that is stupid but makes good business sense and something that is incredibly cool and geeky but doesn't make as much sense to my career. I would like to get my MCSE or MCSA, but I don't know if I can start taking tests before Longhorn rolls out. I don't want to be mediocre with both operating systems either. I would like to be mediocre with one of them, though.
So for now, I'm sticking with XP on my older box. The laptop I purchased in August has XP on it too. I think I'm going to take this chance now before Vista goes widespread to learn and understand Ubuntu Linux on a virtual machine and worry about picking up Vista later.
