Some of you may be aware, and others not, that I am a member of a chapter of Toastmasters International, a club which assists its members in public speaking and leadership skills. The particlar chapter to which I belong is based in my workplace, and so all of the members of this chapter are my co-workers. On Wednesday, I presented, as one of the advanced speech projects, a demonstration of Ubuntu Linux, to a mostly non-technical audience.

Picture this scenario: You're driving home from work, and your car's engine starts to run erratically. It sounds like it is only firing on 3 cylinders, and the plume of smoke and scent of unburnt fuel tend to confirm this. You're almost home, so you limp the rest of the way there, where your neighbour notices your problem and wanders over.

With the marketing and technological disaster that has been Microsoft Vista, combined with Microsoft’s stated intentions not to sell Windows XP after next month, there has been a bit of a scramble to find options. Apple has, needles to say, capitalized on this.