Disclosure: I have been a PC user since Windows 3.1 when I created documents on a 386. I will continue to use a PC at home, but am switching to a MacBook Pro at work. I’m eagerly awaiting the machine.

Someone close to me recently went through the “Task List” (Microsoft’s term) for upgrading her operating system to Vista. Her computer is not a video game busting design machine, but it’s new enough to be respectable in a bar fight. The task list was three pages long (and included the purchase of hardware – e.g. new video card). I predict, given her frustration, that she purchases a Mac within the year.

But that’s not what I intended to write about – or not entirely. There are a few slow armies worth watching as frustration with Microsoft (both deserved and undeserved) mounts. Google just launched Google Aps, an incomplete but notable alternative to Microsoft Office and Mandriva Free 2007, an alternative to the whole operating system.