My Windows Vista Inside Out collaborator Carl Siechert passes along this contender for the Worst. Review. Ever. series. Now, those who have been following this saga might recognize the author of the review Carl is about to deconstruct, Robert Vamosi, as the guy whose by-line graced the original (and still, in some people’s minds, the champ) Worst. Review. Ever.

But I have to say, this one is a worthy contender. Last year, Stephen Colbert coined the word truthiness, which means “the quality by which a person claims to know something intuitively, instinctively, or ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts.” This review seems to be full of it. Truthiness, that is.

Take it away, Carl:

CNET Reviews wrote last week about Windows Vista’s new file system. The title caught my attention because I’m supposed to be writing about NTFS, and I apparently hadn’t discovered this new file system. I didn’t have to read very far to learn that the reviewer apparently doesn’t know Vista from Shinola. For example:

(the new Win FS file system is expected to be a feature of the new Longhorn server release due by early 2008)

Microsoft announced in August 2004 that WinFS would not be included in the Longhorn client (Windows Vista) or Longhorn Server, saying at that time that it might be available as an add-on. In June 2006, the WinFS team dropped a bombshell and said that WinFS not only wouldn’t be part of Longhorn, but it wouldn’t be available as a separate delivery either. As for the release date, nobody really knows, of course, but two weeks ago, Microsoft claimed to be on target for delivery in the second half of 2007.

Does CNET not have any fact checkers, or anyone who pays attention to the news?

Gone from Windows Vista is the traditional file path of folders and files separated by slashes.

Sure, the address bar shows a trail of “breadcrumbs” separated by arrows. But all he’d have to do is click in the address bar to see those arrows turn to backslashes that–what do you know?–is “the traditional file path of folders and files separated by slashes.”

Do CNET reviewers not even try the programs they’re reviewing?

For starters, the Windows Explorer toolbar looks like Internet Explorer 7 for Vista (complete with a rather useless refresh button for the file path).

Uh, that refresh button, like the View, Refresh command in Windows XP, is for refreshing the window content, not for refreshing the file path, whatever that means. Windows Vista seems to be smarter about refreshing Explorer windows when folder contents are changed by another app, but I still find occasions to use this useless button.

The left navigation on Windows Explorers opens several context-sensitive mini explorers.

I wish that were true, as it is in Windows XP. Windows Vista displays the same Favorite Links list no matter what folder you’re looking at. (Say, what a minute! I thought we didn’t have folders any more!) 

His overall points–that improved indexing and search capabilities in Vista reduce the necessity to remember exactly which folder contains a particular document, and that there are some nice improvements in Windows Explorer–are valid. But did he have to ignore so many facts to make them?

At least it’s stopped snowing. And the sun will come out tomorrow. And the next day. And even the next day.

The dog, of course, loves it. It was, um, a bracing walk this afternoon. Judy did walkies this morning, when the snow was still fresh. This is in the front yard, before heading out.

Dear Chicago Sun-Times:

If you assign a guy to write a review of Microsoft’s new competitor to Apple’s iPod, don’t you think it’s relevant to note somewhere that he is the author of a brand-new book called iPod Fully Loaded: If You’ve Got It, You Can iPod It?

The disclosure of such a conflict of interest would seem to be especially helpful to your readers when said reviewer titles his piece “Avoid the loony Zune” and peppers it with some of the most over-the-top prose in a technological review since, well, ever? Like this: “The Zune is a square wheel, a product that’s so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity.” The hit job review culminates in this bit of sturm und drang: “The Zune will be dead and gone within six months. Good riddance.”

Hmmm. I guess you could have expected something along these lines. Over at MacNotables, way back in August (long before this review was commissioned, I would guess), Andy did a podcast that was introduced as follows:

The superiority of the iPod as the portable data device of choice is on Andy Ihnatko’s mind as he talks about his upcoming book, “iPod Fully Loaded: If You’ve Got It, You Can iPod It,” from Wiley. [emphasis added]

Seriously, assigning longtime Mac and iPod zealot Andy Ihnatko to review the Zune is bad enough. But not informing your readers about his background is a thousand times worse. The Sun-Times’s bio for Ihnatko says only: “Andy Ihnatko writes on technical and computer issues for the Sun-Times.”

Technically, I suppose, that’s true. But it’s horribly misleading.

So, dear Sun-Times editor, I eagerly await your letter asking me to review Mac OS X Leopard when it’s released next spring. As the author of 25 books on Microsoft Windows, I obviously meet your new review standards.

If that’s not acceptable, you could ask Steve Ballmer if he wants to tackle it. I’m sure the results would be about as fair as this review.

(P.S.: Don’t bother asking Om Malik. He’s way too busy.)

Looking forward to hearing from you.

I’m all about Windows Vista Inside Out this week.

So, talk amongst yourselves. Any interesting new toys?

For more than a decade, some variation of this screen has been part of the Windows Disk Defragmenter utility:

Well, no more.  The colorful progress window has been banished in Windows Vista. The Disk Defragmenter runs in the background, and the only interface available is the one to change the time it runs or to manually start or stop a defrag.

I remember people who actually used to sit and watch the Windows 95 Defrag progress window, in which little boxes of different colors were shifted around. We’ve come a long way.

What does it mean to a website’s traffic when a story makes it to the front page of Digg? Here’s what happened to this site last week:

That’s quite the decay curve, isn’t it?