In 1992 the Internet wasn’t available to the general public. There were no iPods or any other portable digital music players. Cellphones were big, bulky and analog, mainly used in cars in the U.S. The first consumer digital cameras had just arrived: crude models that cost $800, worked only in black and white, and held just 32 images.

Microsoft was offering the clumsy Windows 3.1, which seemed to crash if you sneezed, and many people were still using the geeky and limited DOS operating system on their “IBM-compatible” PCs. Apple’s technology was way ahead of Windows, but the company would soon enter a period of management mediocrity and product paralysis. And there were scores of PC makers in the U.S., most of them now defunct. The hottest one was Compaq, today a mere brand name for Hewlett-Packard. Dell was still an upstart.

Personal computers were typically sold without modems, networking ports or stereo sound. They had awful, limited color video, far short of what a cheap TV could produce. Too often their designers assumed PC buyers were techies or hobbyists, willing and able to perform complicated hardware and software upgrades and tweaks.

Then and now my main criteria for judging digital consumer products have been simplicity, ease of use and reliability — a sort of index for the burden on the user. And in 1992 most products failed miserably on that scale. They required far too much attention, knowledge and effort by users when theoretically they were supposed to do just the opposite — namely, to make their lives easier.

By around 2001, when the current major operating systems, Windows XP and Apple’s Mac OS X, made their debuts, personal technology had vastly improved. Many of the rough edges had been sanded off. The Mac had long been “plug and play,” and Windows was much closer to that goal. Both systems were fairly stable. The iPod arrived that year, and digital cameras and cell phones — by then well established and growing sleeker by the year — began a rapid evolution that added features and cut prices.

And by then the World Wide Web had changed everything. It had vastly enriched the experience of computing, adding information, entertainment, communication and commerce on a grand scale. Sure, too few people in America had real broadband or wireless networking by 2001, but the balance was getting better. The burden of use for personal computers and related gadgets was trending lower.

Enter the security crisis, which all but destroyed that welcome momentum. There had been viruses for many years, of course, including some big attacks in the 1990s. But over the past five years, the security problem has morphed into a major hassle for people who own and use Windows computers. Viruses and other malicious software programs are still with us, but now they’ve been joined by new categories of pernicious technologies, especially spyware, adware, and fake email and Web sites designed to steal your privacy, your money and even your identity. Spam has gone from a nuisance to a plague.

And the Internet, for all its numerous benefits, has become an engine for this digital onslaught. In the physical world, it isn’t hard to stay out of bad neighborhoods and avoid the company of crooks. But in cyberspace, it’s harder to read the signs — digital criminals, who range from vandals to organized thieves, mingle invisibly with the public in a world where everyone is easily connected.

Today, warding off the myriad threats online takes more and more time, money and effort than ever before. You have to run multiple security programs, interpret all their warnings and alerts, tell them what to do when they detect suspicious activity, and consistently update them. It’s a real hassle, one that seriously interferes with the productivity, and the pleasure, computers can and should provide.

In fact, the burden of using a Windows computer is higher now than it was in 2001. By contrast, Apple’s Macintosh is easier to use than ever, partly because it has so far remained free from viruses, spyware and adware — except for a few minor cases. After stagnating in the mid-’90s, Apple’s software and hardware are once again markedly superior to those of Windows PCs.

But even Mac users have to contend with spam and must learn to avoid fake Web sites designed to steal sensitive financial information. And users of both platforms must also contend with a welter of restrictions on the use of digital content such as music and videos.

So where are we heading?

I believe that in the future the Internet will become more like the electrical grid, a behind-the-scenes platform to which all manner of gadgets will be directly connected, each taking some power and intelligence from the network to perform its task. While personal computers won’t go away, they won’t be the main way to get online, or even needed as intermediaries by many devices. Whenever you watch TV or make a phone call, you’ll be on the Internet, though you won’t be browsing the Web in the manner you do on a PC. This will open up all sorts of new features and interactivity.

Even unlikely gadgets will be connected. Your microwave oven, for instance, will use the Internet to quietly download information that will allow it to recognize the bar codes or radio tags on packaged food products and cook them appropriately.

The star of this new world will be the cell phone — or, more accurately, the device formerly known as the cell phone. Already, some high-end phones, like Palm’s Treo, are essentially mini computers, complete with keyboards and expandable memory. They do many of the things for which people formerly required laptops.
These so-called smart phones can surf the Web, and send and receive e-mail and instant messages, at broadband speeds. They can take, display and edit photos and movies; download and play music, videos and TV shows; play ever more sophisticated games; and even view and edit Microsoft Office documents.

I expect these capabilities to be pushed down to phones that cost less. New competitors will enter the business of making phones and the software and services that run on them.

For these smart phones to flourish, however, they will have to get much simpler to use. The burden on the user will have to drop sharply. Complicated user interfaces will have to be replaced with better ones. Reliability must improve. And the stranglehold on innovation now imposed by all-powerful wireless carriers will have to be broken or loosened. Also, the security problems that plague the PC will have to be headed off somehow. Already, the digital criminals are trying to target cell phones.

But I remain optimistic. The digital revolution can’t be stopped, and the next 15 years should see as many exciting developments as the past 15 have.

Vista is the biggest revision to Windows in over a decade. It will be a major change, not only for consumer and corporate Windows users, but for computer makers, software creators and many others downstream.

But what’s in Vista? How will it be sold? And what kind of computer will be needed to run it? Here’s a rough guide to the new Leviathan of the digital seas.

WHY VISTA?

Even after a major overhaul a couple of years back, Windows XP is a security nightmare. With Vista, Microsoft claims to have built in better security from the start, reducing — though not eliminating — the need to buy, learn and maintain add-on security software. The company says better security is Vista’s biggest advantage.

For instance, with the new program you’ll have to type in your administrator ID and password before installing software, to stop malicious software from installing itself silently. And Vista will have built-in parental controls.

Vista’s next big feature is built-in desktop search. Think of this as the Google Desktop search on steroids. From any screen, you’ll be able to start typing a search term and Vista will comb your hard disk for every document, photo, email, song and video that meets that criterion. It should be much faster and better than add-on search programs.

In addition, you’ll be able to save searches in “virtual folders,” which will automatically continue to collect files that meet your search specifications. So if you save a search for “Fountains of Wayne” as a virtual folder and check it a month later, it will contain every e-mail that mentioned the pop band as well as any photos you took at their concert and new songs by the band that you downloaded — even though none of these things existed when you first did the search.

The last major new feature is a rich new user interface. Called Aero, it includes a powerful new graphics system that enables such new extras as transparent windows, animation of certain screen elements (similar to the “funnel” effect Mac users are familiar with when closing a file) and the ability to see reduced, live views of all your running programs at once.

There are lots of smaller changes as well. For instance, there’s a dashboard with small programs (calendar, weather updates and stock tickers, among others) that run quickly, called Gadgets. There’s also new music and video player software; a new built-in Web browser with tabbed browsing; a new, free email program with junk-mail filtering; and a new photo-organizing program.

Many of these features are already available on the Apple Macintosh — some have been for years — but they will seem fresh to most Windows users.

HOW WILL YOU BUY IT?

Like past versions of Windows, Vista will be sold in two ways: The vast majority of people will get it by buying a new PC with Vista preloaded at the factory. That way, they’ll know the hardware and software are compatible. And a small percentage of people, either brave souls or those with PCs too new to replace, will buy Vista in a box and upgrade their computers manually.

Either way, Vista won’t be simple to purchase. That’s because it will come in at least five different flavors, compared with two versions when Windows XP launched in 2001. There will be two consumer versions of Vista, two business versions and one version that includes everything, called “Ultimate.” Also, two current special editions of Windows, the Tablet and Media Center versions, will be folded into some, but not all, of the five Vista editions.

For consumers, the biggest issue will be choosing between the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista, either on new machines or in boxes. Home Premium will include the new Aero user interface along with all the security, search and other features described above. It will also have updated versions of the features currently included in the Media Center and Tablet editions of Windows XP. But Home Premium won’t run on most Windows PCs currently in the hands of consumers, and it also won’t run on new, low-end PCs. That’s because it requires hefty hardware to work right.

Most current PCs, and all the bargain-priced new ones preloaded with Vista next January, will be able to run only Home Basic, which is a stripped-down version of Vista. Microsoft insists that Home Basic will have the same security system and search features as Premium, but it won’t include the new Aero user interface and will probably lack some other features. In essence Home Basic will look and feel like a modestly improved version of Windows XP, even though Microsoft says there’ll be major improvements under the covers.

Power users, and those who want every option just in case, may go for the Ultimate version of Vista. It not only will roll up everything in the consumer and business versions, it may also have some added bells and whistles. Microsoft hasn’t announced prices yet.

WHAT HARDWARE WILL YOU NEED?

The stripped-down version of Vista, Home Basic, will run on fairly routine PCs, albeit ones with plenty of memory.

The Premium and Ultimate versions will likely require at least a midrange model or a high-end configuration.

Microsoft hasn’t officially released the recommended hardware specs. But I expect the company to recommend 512 megabytes of memory for Home Basic and a gigabyte of memory for Premium. Based on past experience, I advise doubling those amounts, to a gigabyte of memory for Basic and 2 gigabytes for Premium.

Another crucial hardware factor will be the computer’s video system. Basic Vista can run on any graphics hardware that creates a screen resolution of at least 800×600. That covers most bargain computers with graphics chips that are integrated with the machine’s motherboard and which share main memory. But Premium and Ultimate will run best on machines with a full-blown graphics card and dedicated video memory of at least 128 megabytes.

You will be able to run Home Basic on the slowest processors available, but for the better versions of Vista, you’ll need a processor running at a speed of at least 1 gigahertz. I would opt for as fast a processor as you can afford and for one with two “cores” rather than one. (A dual-core processor is essentially like having two processors on one chip.)

Vista will also support so-called 64-bit processors, which can gulp down more information than current machines. But I wouldn’t worry about that for now, unless you’re a power user. There’s very little 64-bit software available for consumers.

Vista may not be something to leap into right away. You may want to wait a while to see about defects and, especially, to see if it seems more secure, as promised.

This year, however, Microsoft will up the ante with a new version of Windows called Vista. Due in the fall, in time for holiday computer shopping, Vista is an effort to make Windows truly secure from the ground up, while also making it easier to use and pretty enough to rival Apple’s current version of OS X, Tiger. (Apple is planning yet another new edition, called Leopard, due around the same time.)

Vista will be the most dramatic upgrade to Windows in more than a decade. But there will be a price for Vista’s improvements — most current PCs won’t be able to take advantage of all its features. To get full use out of the new system, you will very likely need to upgrade or replace your current computer. Vista will adapt to older or less powerful machines by disabling some of its features, but that’s likely to be unsatisfying for many users. Also, as of this writing, Microsoft is planning to sell Vista in as many as seven different configurations for different types of users. That will be not only confusing, but if you select the more capable configurations, probably expensive, too. (Microsoft hasn’t released pricing yet.)

So here’s a preliminary look at Vista’s major new features, as well as some guidance on hardware. Microsoft’s mantra for Vista is “Confident, Clear and Connected.” By “Confident,” the company means that it promises to clean up the security mess that has been the main headache for users of Windows. Microsoft says Vista will be much harder to hack into, and much less prone to viruses and spyware, than today’s Windows. For instance, Vista users will be asked for their user name and password anytime software is being installed –designed to prevent the surreptitious software installations that plant spy-ware on a PC. And Vista will have built-in systemwide parental controls, so you can limit what your child can see and do on the computer. Both features are already built into Apple’s Tiger and work well, so if they are executed properly on Vista, they should be a boon.

By “Clear,” Microsoft is referring to new ways of finding and visualizing your files. Vista will have rapid, modern, built-in desktop searching. And it will have something called “virtual folders” that capture all files meeting certain criteria you can set, no matter where you store them. For instance, you could set up a virtual folder to show all files and e-mails mentioning a certain person or topic. Again, both features are already in Apple’s operating system, where they have proved popular. Some editions of Vista will also incorporate the features of today’s Windows Media Center edition, including the ability to play and record TV programs.

The “Connected” promise from Microsoft includes a centralized synchronization feature, like the one already present on the Mac, that can keep data in sync on cell phones and PDAs. Vista will also look dramatically better — and more like Mac software — with 3D icons, transparent windows and tiny previews of file contents.

So what kind of hardware will you need for all this? Well, Vista won’t work well with the processors sold in today’s budget PCs. I suggest you consider a new computer with at least a midrange processor, and preferably a so-called dual-core processor, which packs two brains into its innards, though a single-core model will do. You might even look for a processor capable of handling future software called “64-bit,” though it’s not absolutely necessary.

Memory will also be crucial for Vista. I expect Microsoft to recommend 512 megabytes, but since the company tends to understate memory requirements, I suggest a full gigabyte, far more than what’s on the average PC today. You’ll also need a bigger hard disk, especially if you want to use the new TV-recording capabilities that will be built into some editions of Vista. I suggest at least 160 gigabytes. Luckily, large hard disks are now pretty inexpensive.

Likewise, video capability will be key to utilizing Vista’s new visual effects. Today’s PCs often use integrated graphics chips, which are pretty basic and drain memory. That won’t cut it for Vista, at least until integrated graphics chips are beefed up next fall. If you seek a Vista-capable machine before then, look for one with a separate graphics card with its own dedicated memory, preferably 128 megabytes, though 64 will do.

Vista will boost DVD recording — it will support the new, high-definition DVDs currently in development and make it easier to burn DVDs for both multimedia and file backup. You’ll need a high-end DVD-recording drive to reap the rewards.

I can’t say how good Vista will be until I test and review the final, or near final, product, in late summer. But from the demos I’ve seen, Vista has great promise — if you have the right hardware.

The daunting security problems that have plagued Windows have also prompted many of its users to take a serious look at the Mac. This trend has been further reinforced by the “iPod halo effect,” in which Windows users who own and love Apple’s iPod music players are willing to consider the company’s other products. As a result, Mac sales, while still relatively small, have been growing much faster than overall personal computer sales.

Are you among the PC majority considering a switch to the Mac? Then you probably have some important questions.

How do Macs compare in quality with Windows PCs?

I believe that, at the moment, Apple makes the best computers, and the best operating system, for mainstream consumers doing typical tasks — e-mail, Web surfing, office — productivity functions such as word processing and presentations, photo organizing and editing, playing and collecting music, and editing home video.

Of all the major computer makers, Apple is the most focused on consumers and small businesses. Most make the bulk of their money, and take most of their cues, from the information-technology departments of large corporations.

Apple’s iMac G5 consumer desktop is, in my opinion, the single best home computer on the market. Its PowerBook laptops are among the top portables.

Do Macs run Windows and Windows software?

No: Out of the box, Macintosh computers run only Apple’s own operating system, called OS X, and software written by Apple and other companies that is designed to run on OS X.

You can rig a Mac to run Windows and Windows programs by installing a special, $250 Microsoft program called Virtual PC, which creates a virtual Windows computer inside the Mac. But I don’t recommend this for frequent use, because the faux Windows computer it creates is relatively slow and is susceptible to the same viruses and spyware as a real Windows machine.

How does Mac software compare with Windows?

The Mac’s OS X operating system, the latest version of which is called Tiger, is far better than Microsoft’s aging Windows XP and already boasts many of the key features Microsoft plans to include in its 2006 version of Windows, called Vista. And the Mac comes with an excellent suite of free software that’s generally superior to comparable Windows programs that cost extra.

Out of the box, the Mac has better photo, music, video and DVD — creation software than any Windows computer I’ve seen. It has a better free email program and Web browser than Windows does, a better free word processor and much better search capabilities.

About the only software a typical consumer would have to buy for a new Mac is the Mac edition of Microsoft Office. It includes versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that are very similar to their Windows counterparts, and a program called Entourage that is different from Microsoft Outlook but performs the same functions.

Are Macs more secure than Windows PCs?

Yes. Since the OS X operating system came out in 2001, there has never been a report of a successful virus for it — that is, a virus that has infected numerous computers, and spread from computer to computer, outside of a lab. And there is little or no known spyware for the Mac. By contrast, there are tens of thousands of viruses for Windows and untold numbers of spyware programs. Just as regular Windows programs can’t run natively on a Mac, none of these malicious Windows-specific programs can run on a Mac either.

The Mac isn’t invulnerable, but it has better built-in security than Windows, and such a small market share that virus and spyware writers haven’t targeted it yet. As a result, most Mac users have been able to dispense with running the morass of security software that Windows users must employ.

Are Mac files compatible with Windows files?

Yes. Unlike older models, the current Macs have been specifically designed for compatibility with Windows PCs. The Mac OS and software can handle, without translation or conversion, all of the common types of files you use on a Windows PC. You can copy to a Mac all your pictures, MP3 music files, text files and Adobe PDF files, and they will open right up in Mac programs. There are also free Mac versions of the Real Player and Windows Media Player, and of Adobe Reader.

Microsoft Word files also can be opened, edited and created in Apple’s free, built-in text editor. And if you buy Microsoft Office for the Mac, all Office files, including Word files, Excel files and PowerPoint files, can be opened, edited and created on the Mac. Office files created on the Mac can be opened and edited in Windows Office, and vice versa.

Some specialized files created by particular programs, like database files or financial files, won’t be usable. For instance, the Mac version of Quicken is quite different from the Windows version and uses a different file format.

For occasional use of these programs, you can install Virtual PC.

In addition, nearly all keyboards, mice, monitors and printers made for Windows computers can be used with a Mac, if they connect via the industry-standard USB or FireWire ports. Macs can also share networks with Windows PCs and even look into the hard disks of Windows computers, and vice versa.

Is there anyone who shouldn’t consider a Mac?

Yes. Serious game players should stick with Windows PCs, which are much better game platforms and can run many more game titles. People who use specialized software or custom corporate software for which there isn’t a Mac equivalent should stick with Windows. While the Mac has rich offerings in mainstream software categories, it has only a fraction of the niche software and specialized business software that Windows does.

Also, you should stick with Windows if your home computer choices are dictated by your company’s IT department and the IT department is ignorant of or hostile to the Mac, as so many are. Although modern Macs are designed to access corporate Windows networks, and many do, if your IT department won’t help you with the transition, it’s not worth the headache to switch to the Mac.

Ten years ago, when Apple was stagnant and its products troubled, I recommended that consumers shun the Mac. If Apple’s quality and innovation slip, I might revert to that position. But for now, the Mac is the best computer, with the best operating system and the fewest security problems, for average consumers.

There have long been computer viruses, but until the past couple of years, they were mainly a nuisance. Now they have grown into a serious problem — by one account there were 5,000 new Windows viruses discovered in the first six months of 2004. And the virus plague has been trumped by a new type of malicious software, spyware, which can track your activities, bombard you with unwanted ads, even steal your identity.

Spam has also grown exponentially, clogging e-mail boxes and carrying with it malicious software. For some people, e-mail has become a curse.

And that’s not all. Every minute of every day, hackers using automated software scan the Internet looking for computers vulnerable enough to invade and, in some cases, to surreptitiously take over. Without your knowledge, they can turn your computer into a “zombie” machine rigged to help them spread their nasty viruses, spam and spyware.

So for consumers and small businesses — everyone without a large IT department to manage security — the Windows computers they use have become huge burdens instead of helpful tools. If you do get a severe virus or spyware infestation, you may have to spend hundreds of dollars and many hours to wipe your hard disk clean and start fresh, quite possibly losing crucial data in the process.

And prevention is almost as painful as the disease, because the computer industry has so far come up with only half-baked and piecemeal solutions to these threats. You have to watch every move you make online and install a bunch of security programs, which require monitoring, constant updating and, often, annual fees.

Each of these security programs deals only with a narrow slice of the problem. Firewalls can keep out invaders, but they don’t stop viruses, spyware or spam. Antivirus programs don’t catch most spyware. Antispyware programs don’t stop viruses. And neither stops spam. For that, you need anti-spam software, which does nothing about viruses or spyware that invade your system through avenues other than spam.

You can buy “suites” that combine all these programs, but they are really just bundles of separate applications of widely varying quality stuffed into the same box.

It’s as if you needed a separate burglar alarm system, each with its own control panel, password and monthly fee, for every door and window in your home.

What users need is a simple, all-encompassing security service that would deal with all these threats with minimal user involvement. For now, though, you’ll have to do it yourself.

So here’s my quick guide to Windows security measures. Some of the products I recommend below are free, but others cost money. I like free stuff as much as the next guy, but I don’t believe security is an area where price should govern. You don’t want to entrust your computer’s security to some unknown software author, or even to a well-meaning individual or very small outfit that lacks the resources to keep up with the threats.

Download and install all the security fixes Microsoft issues for Windows. If you have Windows XP, set it to automatically fetch and install these patches (you can do this by clicking on the “Automatic Updates” or “Security Center” icons in the Windows control panel). You should also probably install the massive Service Pack 2 revision of Windows XP, which plugs many security holes. But back up your data first. A significant minority of users have reported big problems with SP2.

Stop using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser, which has become a four-lane highway for malicious invaders. I recommend instead Mozilla Firefox, which is free at www.mozilla.org [http://www.mozilla.org]. I use it all day, every day.

Windows comes with a firewall program, designed to keep out hackers. But in most versions of the operating system, it’s hard to turn on and configure. Even the improved firewall in the new SP2 revision of Windows XP is inferior to several third-party products. I recommend, and use, ZoneAlarm, a free firewall from Zone Labs, available at www.zonelabs.com [http://www.zonelabs.com]. There are some fancy paid versions of ZoneAlarm, which are also fine, but if you want the free one, you’ll have to look hard on the Web page.

Software to stop spyware is still in its infancy, so I suggest keeping two or three anti-spyware programs on hand. Each program will likely find spyware the others miss. But I recommend relying most on the one I use, Webroot’s Spy Sweeper, available at www.webroot.com [http://www.webroot.com]. It costs $30, including a year of updates, and runs all the time to block incoming spyware. To back up Spy Sweeper, go to www.download.com [http://www.download.com] and get two free programs: Ad-Aware, and Spybot Search and Destroy. Use these for manual scanning.

I recommend Norton AntiVirus from Symantec. It costs $50, including a year of updates. But it works well and has a good automatic updating system. I have been receiving many reports of problems with Symantec’s customer service, so I may have to change my recommendation down the road. But for now, I prefer Norton, and I use it myself.

No antispam program I have tested is wholly satisfying, but I suggest one of two. The first is MailFrontier Desktop, available for $30 at www.mailfrontier.com [http://www.mailfrontier.com]. The second is SpamSubtract, from Intermute, available for $20 at www.spamsubtract [http://www.spamsubtract]. com. They are very different, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. I oscillate between the two every six months or so.

Beyond installing, monitoring and updating all this software, you need to be careful online. Don’t open email attachments you don’t expect and that come from strangers. They may contain viruses or spyware. Don’t download software unless you really need it and are 100 percent certain of the author’s trustworthiness. It could be an infection in disguise. Never click on a link in an e-mail purporting to be from a financial institution, even if it’s your own bank and it looks official. It could be a scam to steal your identity.

And if you’re totally fed up with the security crisis but want to continue using your computer for common tasks, consider dumping Windows altogether and switching to Apple’s Macintosh, which uses its own operating system, called OS X. There has never been a successful virus reported on OS X, and there is little or no spyware for the Mac.

In my view, Macs have better hardware, a better operating system and better bundled software than Windows PCs. They are as good as, and often better than, Windows PCs at e-mail and Web surfing; at word processing and other productivity tasks; and at handling digital photos, videos and music. And most popular Windows file types open right up in Mac programs, without the need for any conversion or translation.

Stay safe out there.