Talk about beating a dead horse. Yesterday, IDG posted the kind of "news story" that makes our blood boil. The headline: Vista's Flaws Surface Again on Eve of Windows 7 Beta. The truth: not even close. Let's dissect this seriously misleading piece of non-journalism, starting with the opening paragraph:

Attendees of the International Conference on Cyber Security 2009 in New York Tuesday were reminded of the shortcomings of Windows Vista a day before Microsoft is expected to reveal the first beta for its follow-up, Windows 7.

Ah, yes, the shortcomings. Did some hacker expose a new security flaw? (It was a security conference, after all.) Was there breaking news about a compatibility issue? Did a presenter's Vista-powered notebook fail to boot or something? Let's find out:

Microsoft Investigative Consultant Michael Dunner asked attendees how many of them have used Vista as he gave a presentation on the security differences between that OS and Windows 7.

When people in the audience raised their hands, Dunner then asked, "How many of you like it?" Only about half of those who acknowledged using Vista raised their hands.

Um, okay, so an unknown number of conference attendees don't like Vista. Still waiting on those "shortcomings" that everyone was apparently reminded of. Here, let's check the next paragraph:

Dunner also called Vista's User Account Control (UAC) feature "annoying" and one of its "biggest problems," to which one audience member responded, "Yes, it is annoying."

And there you have it. The "Vista flaws that surfaced again" consisted of a security-conference presenter calling UAC "annoying."

Wow. Did we suddenly time-travel back to 2007? Did this writer actually build a whole story around this ridiculous bit of piffle? Hey, we know UAC is annoying. Everyone knows UAC is annoying. It's old news. It's non-news. The whole piece smacks of link-baiting. It's yellow journalism, plain and simple. For shame, IDG.