Courtesy of OSWeekly.com

(Column) - There are so many issues that Microsoft and Apple have to face when working on their operating systems that it's difficult to understand where you would even get started if you were a part of the Vista or OS X team. Items such as security and compatibility are certainly high on the list of things to continuously refine, but that's only the beginning. Almost everything that is worked on has some sort of influence on other areas of the operating system, and all of these things have to cooperate in a cohesive way. You can't just build something and walk away - everything has to be integrated throughout the OS.

While the bigger features definitely deserve a large portion of the attention that is focused on the OS, it's also important for development teams to remember that they can't forget about the small stuff (sounds, font sizes, colors, etc.). When time and attention isn't given to what may appear to be smaller pieces of a much larger puzzle, it shows, and it's not pretty. In fact, negligence demonstrated in these areas can actually be more damaging to the overall acceptance of an OS than you might initially think.

Here's a question for all of you Windows users out there: what part of the operating system do you think about the least? Answers will vary from user to user, but one of the things that would probably top my list is the startup sound that can be heard when you turn on the power to your computer. I've heard it for years, and even though I hear it everyday, I'm so used to it that I fail to acknowledge the fact that a sound is even made.

Although you may not realize it, that sound truly is the first part of your computing experience. After all, you hear it before you actually see anything. While the startup sound certainly isn't a new concept, the way that Vista will supposedly deal with it is causing uproar amongst current testers and the public in general.

You see, users of Windows XP have been able to turn this sound off, but the word from Microsoft is that their intention is to roll a non-customizable startup sound into Vista. So, by all appearances, it looks like they're going to ask us to hand some of the customization power that we once had back over to them. What a dumb move. It's never a good idea to give your users control over something that they like and then suddenly eliminate their ability to do what they've been doing. That's a sure-fire way to receive some complaints.

Next