Ordinarily I carry around two laptops. The first is a dell 700m running Windows XP, which got me though MBA school and tolerated being thrown in a satchel bag, thrown over my shoulder, jostled on my bike ride, unpacked and packed 5 times a day, and then back on the bike. The computer was a champ, and I got away without using very minimal virus software. The other is my development box, which runs Ubuntu Linux. I’ve had this for a year now, and it runs nothing but Ubuntu Linux, the same distribution that lov.li runs. This allows me to have a perfect mirror of lov.li running on my laptop, although of course the live server is a much more powerful machine.
Purists question why I need the Windows box at all, and lately, because it’s become such a pig due to
- Windows ’service packs’ which install hundreds of megabytes of code on my computer and seem only to slow it down
- Anti-virus software which intercepts just about everything that happens on the computer to make sure it’s not malicious, but in the process slows the computer to a crawl
- The viruses and spyware that make it through the antivirus software
On top of that, Microsoft has really been pissing me, and everyone else, off:
- Microsoft is talking about suing linux users for patent infringement, and acquiring patents they think linux might infringe on, and trying to sell licenses(!) to linux users. That’s just protection money.
- Windows Vista has ridiculous hardware requirements which make me think that, even with a racehorse computer, the thing will be a dog in months. This has been confirmed by my experience with Vista at the computer store - it seems to barely be able to draw the screen or load it’s own Start menu without a discouraging delay. There’s no way I’m going there.
But there are reasons I can’t work without it - in particular, a five letter word - a d o b e. I need Photoshop to do the design part of my job. Why won’t Adobe sell a linux version of Photoshop? I’d be the first in line to pay for this. They could sell a binary distribution, so there’s no reason for them to give away their source code. The code would be very similar to the Mac OS X version, since OS X is based on the same platform as linux.
A fellow PHP developer I work with has said that he estimated he lost 3 days every year keeping his Windows computer running the way he wanted it to. Mine is at least that. Since he switched to a Mac, he says he spends almost no time keeping his computer working properly.
So this is an experiment - necessity is the mother of invention. My Windows laptop is literally unusable right now, despite North Antivirus and anti-spyware software. So I am using my linux laptop for everything - email, surfing, MP3, spreadsheet, word processing. So far everything has been great - not always straightforward - but it’s always my mistake, and I know what’s under the hood of my computer, and if I don’t like it, I can change it. There’s just one thing missing.
I miss you, Photoshop.
This is a great book - I just read it this weekend. The authors do a great job of outlining the pitfalls of email with plenty of terrifying examples of what happens to individuals, relationships and companies when nasty, unclear, or incriminating emails go out. Interestingly, the book is also just a good refresher course on how to treat people when communicating with them in any medium. It would be impossible to capture the ever changing standards of salutations and signoffs between equals and un-equals, and while their recommendations are a little formal for me (and probably most west-coast software developers like myself), I’ll probably err a little more on the side of formality after reading this book. If you know anyone who feels baffled, intimidated or burned by email, or who doesn’t and should, this would be a great gift.
