I have been getting a lot of questions about when to upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows Vista.

At this moment I am telling all of my customers to not upgrade to the new operating system. Though Vista performs just fine on older computers that do well with Windows XP (sans the Aero UI).

Vista is perfect for new computers, and as hardware manufacturers begin to meet the requirements of Vista there will be a larger userbase.

If you really feel compelled to switch to Windows Vista, be sure to run Microsoft’s Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0.

Over at Microsoft TechNet Magazine Mark Russinovich is doing an article on the core of the Windows Vista operating system.

Part 1: Windows Vista Kernel

Part 2: Windows Vista Kernel

It is not light reading, but it expains a lot about the thought process by Microsoft to try and get it right.

I have taken notice that websites are not considering the printing of their contents anymore. Many sites will offer a print option, but they will still use CSS to layout the page.

Many web browsers print processors do not follow the same rules as the on-screen display, they have to work with trying to get all of the text onto a narrow page and then deal with margins and PCL6 on top of it.

Website developers, if they are going to offer a printer friendly version of their site, they need to take into account that CSS should not be used to control widths of elements.

I personally consider printing a posibility of all pages that I design, and many I do print just to make sure that words, grapics and other page elements do not disappear in the margins.

If a developer feels compelled to design a print page design, they need to lay it out with <table>’s and HTML 4.0 only specifications.

Also, if advertisements are to be included in the print form (I personal annoyance of mine) then they should be of the static type. Flash videos and flash advertisements do not print well unless they are scripted in a manner that has a good single frame with the entirety of the advertising message.