From the feature well: Calling Windows Vista Microsoft’s “best OS to date,” Peter Bruzzese declares that, “the fact of the matter is, Vista is incredible. I’ve been working with it since Beta 3, and I won’t return to that cartoon-looking XP for anything.” Save XP? Why bother? You guessed it, Mr. Bruzzese presents a contrarian’s voice to our Save XP campaign, basically addressing each point at a time. Security? Vista’s better. Resource-intensive? Not so on new PCs. Compatibility? That’s not Microsoft’s fault. Judging from the comments section, by the by, not all that many readers agree, though one sums up what may be the reality facing IT shops and consumers alike: “Get Vista if you buy a new computer and keep XP if you [plan to use] an old computer.” Related: Happy Birthday Vista?Platforms: Keeping the XP vs. Vista debate alive and fiery here, Randall Kennedy chimes in by examining the latest, “half-hearted campaign by Redmond to convince us all that Vista and Server 2008 are ‘better together.'” As an aside, all apologies if you, like me, are from New Jersey and the mere phrase evokes the state’s “Perfect Together” slogan, but I digress. Back to Microsoft. “Ignoring for the moment the trite nature of this worn out slogan, the real travesty here is that Microsoft needs to explain the relationship at all,” Kennedy points out in Vista and Server 2008: Better Together? “The list is thin to begin with, and there’s simply nothing on there to make a fence sitter jump on the Vista bandwagon.” Best of the blogs: Switching gears now, a yearling OS is not the only new kid in town. There’s also a nascent dance and it’s called the social media measurement hustle. Lena West has seen it too many times already. And I don’t mean on some insomnia-curing quasi-reality TV show. “Measurement methods are slick and shape-shifting — like the guy who tries to sell you the ‘found’ laptop outside the local pizza shop,” West writes. While an Advertising Intelligence Research study lists composition, reach and engagement as the top things advertisers consider, they’re all so vague that measuring any is enough to, well, to spur West into another realm those gaga for their televisions support way too much. “Stop waiting for someone else’s recipe to tell you how your food is supposed to taste. Create your own.” Software Development