Microsoft has to be judged guilty of using some of the worst code names in the business. Windows Vista, for example, was originally known as Longhorn, as if some sort of Texas steer would convey images of a world-class personal computer operating system. So it was only natural that Microsoft’s latest effort — and I’ve lost count how many times they’ve tried — to compete with the iPod garners another oddball name.

So what’s a Zune? Well, the authors of the dictionary that Apple provides with Mac OS X Tiger didn’t have an answer, and before I settled on “zany,” I decided to do a little research and here’s what I came up with on Google:

“What is Zune? Zune is an object-oriented GUI toolkit. It is nearly a clone (at both API and Look&Feel level) of MUI, a well-known Amiga shareware product by Stefan Stuntz.”

So what, pray tell, does an “object-oriented GUI toolkit” have to do with a fancy music player that’s supposed to knock the socks off the iPod? Well, could it be that Microsoft went back to the Amiga era to find a software development scheme for its new device?

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In the scheme of things, Apple has what is considered the best support in the PC industry, but don’t feel too confident about that, because that may not be saying much. Based on the surveys in Consumer Reports magazine, for example, the company barely rates a “B,” and that’s not something to be proud of.

While I have had good experiences with Apple from time to time, there was a sadder, still uncertain outcome, with my last effort.

My 23-inch Apple HD Cinema Display began to develop some display anomalies. A large grayish smudge began to fill the top of the screen, and four thin vertical lines, from two or three inches in length, began to appear with more prominence. Since the monitor was barely three months old, I wanted to see what sort of warranty support I could get.

The Apple support person, someone named “Scott,” who said he worked at their call center in Pennsylvania, seemed courteous enough when I called. He first asked me to connect the display to my MacBook Pro’s DVI port, just to see if the problems persisted, and, yes, they were still in evidence.

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I’ve noticed that some Mac dealers are now selling MacIntels with Windows bundles. Get the full experience of Boot Camp without having to set it up for yourself. I suppose that sounds convenient, but the same people who put packages together, such as MacMall, don’t forget to include the Boot Camp public beta terms and conditions in their catalogs and online sales pages.

In short, it’s a work in progress and don’t use it on a production computer. While most of you will find Boot Camp extremely reliable, take Apple at their word, especially after things go badly.

The other day, I was visiting a client who asked me to configure Boot Camp on his MacBook Pro back in April to allow him to run some specialty software that had no Mac equivalent. This was before Parallels Desktop had a stable beta, so I took what I regarded as the lesser of the two evils. In retrospect, maybe that wasn’t the best alternative.

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This is getting to be an old story. In the quiet period before Apple releases its financials, you often hear the doom and the gloom from certain people on Wall Street. The psychological impact throws the stock price into a tizzy, and the end result is a price drop of some sort.

In recent days, some claimed that iPod sales would be less than expected, that perhaps Macs still weren’t gaining much traction after those lofty expectations. It doesn’t matter what they said, really, because you have to wonder what psychics these so-called analysts were visiting, because the readings were way off the mark.

Apple itself has been mighty conservative of late as to what it expected to deliver. But in the end, with its second highest earnings in history, who has a right to complain? Well, maybe the folks who sold the stock prematurely, expecting the bears to take over.

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