So, over this weekend I recently upgraded to Windows 7. It is a smashing program, chock full of goodies and extreme personalization with a side of much needed revamping. Now, don't get me wrong, I liked Windows Vista despite what the rest of the world was saying about it. And though I can understand where some people were coming from, others I could not help but think: "Did they really spend any longer than five minutes of open minded examination, or just five minutes of biased hatred of change from an outdated operating system?"

As I was going through school, the operating system I spent the most time with was Microsoft Windows. I started when I was about five or seven on Windows 95 or Dos... I can't really remember. As the years went on, this was the operating system I knew the most. It was the operating system I could break down and force it to grovel before me. Then, around the age of fifteen or sixteen I believe, I inherited an old Mac. I think it had Mac OS 9 on it or something really ancient by today's standards. With this operating system too, I was able to force it to grovel before me and break it down. With very little effort too I might add.

It was at this point that I began to understand something. There is very little difference between Mac and Windows at the most basic level. I know true enough that they are both made from different programming architectures and are used for different purposes, and have a different layout. But when you break both of them down, they are virtually identical, and their differences are superficial at best. I say this because is there a person here, on this planet who is capable of simply touching a computer and instantly understand what it is saying and how it is saying it? At last check no.

Operating systems are simply a graphic interface which allows a user to understand what the computer sees, thinks, and is capable of. An operating system is to users what the matrix code is to those who understand it. Operating systems are simple enough currently, that the 1's and 0's the computer thinks in, can be translated into a user interface. It is for this reason that Mac and Windows are virtually the same.

So what then, if anything, is the difference between them?

In a word: graphics. There are only so many ways to translate the same thing before the different techniques begin to overlap.

I say this because I am comfortable with just about any operating system. Be it Linux (which I personally dislike), to Mac. It really does not matter to me because I know that basically, all of them are doing the same thing except in a different way. Neither operating system is better than the other. Those who say that one is better than the other is biased. I say I dislike Linux not because I think the others are better but because I just feel more at home with the others.

When people say that Mac is better than Windows I get frustrated, even a little angry because they know not what they say. Indeed, when people say Windows is better than Mac I get frustrated. Even more so when Linux is brought into the discussion.

When people ask me which operating system I think they should go for, I ask them: "What are you looking to use it for?" If they say for games and office things, I say "Go for Windows and make sure to get Trend Micro Anti Virus" (Trend Micro is the best antivirus out there because it doesn't bog down your computer the way Norton and all the others do). If the person says: "Well, I do a lot of graphic design and video authoring as well as editing" then I say "Then go out and get yourself a Mac".

It really depends on what you want out of your computer. When people say they don't like Windows, I generally find that it is because they think it is too slow and vulnerable to viruses. This may be true, but I have been using Trend Micro now for about four to six years and have only had to repair Windows once because of a virus.

I think what some people don't realize is that your computer is like a car. It needs regular maintenance every so often and because it has access to the internet, it needs protection. (With all due respect, I would not purchase a Mac simply because it does not get viruses. Any one who knows hackers knows that when they get bored with Windows, the only thing left is Mac OS. When it happens, it will be like the moon crashing into the earth.) If you perform regular defrags and keep your anti virus up to date, about 99 percent of most of these problems are taken care of.

In conclusion, I think that Windows 7 is really the best of what Windows has to offer at this point. It is clean and crisp, and I am really liking the way it organizes things. Indeed, the amount of personalization is enough to keep one going for half a lifetime. If I were the Microsoft CEO, I would leave things at Windows 7 for a while. Let it speak for itself, spend time on ways to make it better, not come out with a completely new program.

I measure how much of a computer person I am not by how much I know about one, but how much I know and understand of the many.