{"id":1344,"date":"2009-10-28T00:04:18","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T15:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-10-28\/1344"},"modified":"2009-10-28T00:04:27","modified_gmt":"2009-10-27T15:04:27","slug":"ditching-the-ball-and-chain-and-escaping-from-the-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-10-28\/1344","title":{"rendered":"Ditching the Ball and Chain and Escaping From the Windows™"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I remember when Microsoft's first operating system came out, years\nbefore Microsoft® Windows™ appeared. My work at<\/span> a medical\nschool<\/a> had me using DOS 1.0<\/b> on a first<\/span>-run honest-to-goodness\nIBM PC<\/b>. It was the<\/span> beefier of the two initial configurations offered\nby IBM, with a full<\/i> 64k of memory on the motherboard. I'm sure that<\/span>\nmy current desktop computer has more memory than all of those sold, ever,\ncombined. The eventual DOS 1.1<\/b> update was a big<\/span> deal: it introduced\ndirectories (now commonly called “folders”). Prior to that, all files where\nin one big flat area with no hierarchy. Except with only a 5¼”\nfloppy disk for storage, there was nothing big about anything.<\/p>\n\n

I also remember while using DOS and directories and such, that wow, much\nof it was similar to the Unix that I'd been using at the university, or the\nCP\/M on my Dad's computer at home.... except that the Microsoft version of\neverything was often gratuitously different, and not in a smart<\/span> way.<\/p>\n\n

I recount all this to illustrate that I have<\/span> been around Microsoft\nsoftware for as long as there's been Microsoft software... almost 30\nyears... and I realized<\/span> even back then what most everyone knows now:\nMicrosoft technology is kludgey, and limits you to the least-common\ndenominator instead of to your own skills and potential.<\/p>\n\n

So it has been with considerable and constant irritation, like that of a\npile<\/span> of glass shards in one's shoe during a long<\/span> hike, that I have<\/span> been\nusing Windows as my desktop at home since moving to Kyoto five years ago.\n(I needed<\/span> to run some applications that are not available on any other\nsystem.) I helped<\/span> ease my pain by setting up a Unix<\/span>-like terminal-based\nsystem in which I can<\/span> do my development (such as my Lightroom\nplugins<\/a>), and I do<\/span> so through a MacBook<\/span> laptop sitting on my desk next\nto the PC's keyboard.<\/p>\n\n

Even with those steps to ease my geeky heart, it's been a miserable<\/span>\npain. The real irritant<\/span>, besides Windows' clunky UI design, is that it\nseems to be considered normal for Windows to just suddenly stop working\nsmoothly and to require a reboot.<\/span> I'll be working for a while<\/span> (a day<\/span> or a\nweek<\/span>) and suddenly applications won't be able to paint the screen\ncorrectly. About 1<\/span> in 10 times I reboot,<\/span> the graphics driver is gone and I\nhave<\/span> to reinstall it. Folder settings (such as whether to show thumbnails\nor lists) revert to a random<\/span> setting... randomly. It's moronic.<\/p>\n\n

I also administer my wife's computer, and my in-laws' computer, which\nalso had Windows... nothing but pain for years. They would grow slower and\nslower and slower over time, and no amount of virus scans and disk\ndefragmenting ever seemed to help.<\/p>\n\n

This summer, I moved<\/span> them both to Apple's OSX, getting a Mac mini<\/a> for my wife\nand a 20<\/span>” iMac<\/a> for\nmy in-laws. Neither are who you would call tech-savvy, but both immediately\nloved the new systems.<\/p>\n\n

They.   Just.   Worked.   Intuitive, no-fuss tools.<\/p>\n\n

These are the same phrases that the uber-geeky crowd at the 2002 O'Reilly Open Source Convention<\/a> used to convince me to\ntry a Mac<\/span> in the first place. I'd been mostly<\/span> a Linux<\/span> user and was\nextremely skeptical, but I gave<\/span> it a try<\/span> and have had (and loved) a Mac<\/span>\nlaptop ever since.<\/p>\n\n

When the non-tech-savvy mother-in-law and the uber-geeky computer crowd\nboth agree that Apple computers are easy and thrilling....\nnon-sucky<\/i>... to use, maybe that's saying something important.<\/p>\n\n

So why am I still wasting time<\/a> being irritated with Windows?<\/p>\n\n

I have no idea, but I aim to fix things.<\/p>\n\n

Apple came out with new models last week, so I've decided to punt my Dell\ndesktop<\/a> and replace it with a quad<\/span>-core iMac. It's not the<\/span> most\npowerful Apple computer, by far, but it's the most powerful one with a\nclean<\/span>-desk one-wire (the power cord) design.<\/p>\n\n

I'll also get a Time Capsule<\/a>, which provides high-speed wireless\ninternet, wireless printer access, wireless remote-disk access, and\nwireless backup. The same thing<\/span> without a built<\/span>-in disk is called Airport\nExtreme<\/a>, and I got<\/span> one for my in-laws last month. Even though I\nexpected<\/span> it to do a lot<\/span> and be easy to set up and use, I was amazed<\/span> on all\nlevels. I didn't<\/span> even need to be a geek<\/span> to set up with dual wireless\nnetworks (a secured<\/span> network for their computer, and an open network for\nguests, like me with my iPhone) in minutes. It just worked<\/span>. Wireless\nprinter access just worked, too.<\/p>\n\n

And for my Windows-only applications? I'll use VMware\nFusion<\/a> to run Windows XP in, well, a window<\/span> on my iMac desktop. With my\ncurrent Windows box and the two that I replaced<\/span> this summer, I've got three\nvalid Windows XP licenses at my disposal, so I'll just use one there.<\/p>\n\n

Apples computers are beautiful, but in trying to squeeze so much into\nsuch a minimalistic<\/span> design, they push the boundaries of what's possible,\nand in my experience, they tend to break<\/a> the moment the standard warranty expires. It's worth<\/span> adding 10% to the price to get the 3-year warranty; the computer\nwill still likely break, but now with the warranty they'll fix it really really\nquickly<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

So, before I place my order, does anyone (uber-geeks to non-tech-savvy\ngrandmas) have any words of wisdom to pass along?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember when Microsoft's first operating system came out, years before Microsoft® Windows™ appeared. My work at a medical school had me using DOS 1.0<\/b> on a first-run honest-to-goodness IBM PC<\/b>. It was the beefier of the two initial configurations offered by IBM, with a full 64k of memory on the motherboard. I'm sure that my current desktop computer has more memory than all of those sold, ever, combined. The eventual DOS 1.1<\/b> update was a big deal: it introduced directories (now commonly called \"folders\"). Prior to that, all files where in one big flat area with no hierarchy. Except [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}