Usability

There's progress being made each year in ease-of-use of computers, despite their growing complexity and usefulness. I well remember nightmare of getting a modem to work in the mid-nineties, the various "modem scripts" one had to try out and then call the ISP to get another obscure code to try. Similarly the first time I tried to connect via ethernet to a broadband modem a few years later. Very complex, I needed a lot of help.

But today I did the same thing after years of only using wireless. (I changed to ethernet partly for security, partly because the wireless connection has never been reliable.) So I plugged in the cable and waited a couple seconds, and boom, I was on the Net. That's just lovely.

(Note, I use a Macintosh, I don't know if it's that easy on Windows Vista, perhaps it is.)