Over a year ago I wrote about how "Software Stinks" in the "Activity or Action" series. That was a few months before I got my Macbook and my HP TC 4400 Tablet and... Well, let's just say that it is getting harder and harder to like most of the software I get to try.

Despite some great experiences playing with the likes of the Jello Dashboard for Outlook (now in a new and highly interesting version 4 Alpha), Vmware's Fusion and a handfull of others; only one program in the past year has completely blown me away (more on that in another post). I try too many programs and the industry is just not mature enough for that to be happening. Something is wrong with software and it's participants had better figure it out. Where's the passion? (And don't tell me how complex it is; Buzz and Neil strolled on the moon in 1968.)

Some of the biggest updates of the year seem -- more than ever -- to be robust exercises in activity rather than genuine advances resulting from focused action. I'm underwhelmed by Vista. I have played with Leopard and I cannot find more than $29 worth of value in it -- let alone $129. I'm still waiting for them to get the most egregious bugs out of that one.

Office 2003 got a facelift with Office 2007 but there seem to be very few functional or operational improvements. Unbelievably, you still cannot schedule an Outlook mail rule. Outlook's cosmetic attempt to represent email on the task list does not actually instantiate what I really need. So the old right-click and drag an email to the task folder is really the only real way to move the email to a scheduled task. The ribbons are cute but on a small tablet screen there is less space than before if you want to use the full "functionality" of the ribbon.

File formats and silos are bigger than ever. Try getting task data between programs -- it's inefficient, time consuming and frought with error. On the web, some sites don't allow you to gracefully quit your membership and erase your data. That kind of trade is not fair and something has got to give.

With software, we don't get to own what we buy for our computers and we give too much away for free on web sites. Shame on us all for allowing this to happen. It's no wonder that open source draws more and more attention.