I've been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system - it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes.

A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.

Software development takes immense intellectual effort. Even the best programmers can rarely sustain that level of effort for more than a few hours a day. Beyond that, they need to rest their brains a bit, which is why they always seem to be surfing the Internet or playing games when you barge in on them.

Indeed one of the best ways to deflect attacks is to make it look like they're succeeding. It's the software equivalent of playing dead.

Good software, like wine, takes time.

All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.

Life is a bit hard sometimes, and sometimes you have to step up and fight fights that you never signed up for.