When I came to America fifteen years ago and saw a PC with 286 processor and 40MB hard disk in my friend “s house, I told him, “You are set for life with this PC rdquo;. I came from the country, where I had the same PC being a lead programmer in one of the research institutes. Boy, I was wrong!

PC “s and laptops are getting much faster and every new Windows OS runs a lot slower. Two years ago I “ve had a 1.7Ghz/1Gb RAM single CPU laptop with Windows XP, this year I use 1.7 core Duo 1.7Ghz/2Gb laptop with Vista, and it “s a lot slower than the old laptop. I “m constantly in a time crunch and just do not have time to erase Vista and install XP. Actually I might be better off installing Windows 2000. What “s wrong with this?

Independent software vendors do not bother with memory optimization – the memory is cheap and they force consumers buying more memory, which does not help because a) max memory size in your laptop is limited and b)users run several programs at the same time, which leads to memory swap and slows down your work.

People who create Web applications assume that their user are sitting on T1 or cable modems alone. But when kids come from schools, your connection speed drops to tremendously and becomes comparable to the dial up modems from the past century.

Internet is s-l-o-w-w-w-w-w-w…

Should I switch to a different OS? I “m not ready yet to purchase Mac notebook. It “d solve some problems but introduce others. It “s like driving a red convertible Mercedes trying to hide from a mid-life crisis or an exhausting divorce. Both both the convertible Mercedes and Mac are good as a second “cool rdquo; gadget.

I guess, I “ll be able to browse the Internet and check my emails faster if I “ll install Windows 2000 on my laptop. Just a thought…