dannyman.toldme.com

Dumbest Update Ever

Dumbest Update Ever, brought to you by Microsoft.

Apparently, NT will have trouble if it is installed on a disk that is too large, or, it’ll just completely lose its nut at a date in the future, when a Microsoft update will destroy the ability of the system to function, without wiping and reinstalling it.

Some day my boss will get off his crack and stop running the corporate e-mail on Exchange. We spend a considerable part of our work time analyzing the numerous Unix-based e-mail systems that we host — I wish I could work with our own mail so easily. Oh well.

I had a discussion with a new co-worker the other day. We really like the iMac laptops, and MacOSX is pretty user-friendly, but it is also Unix, so you can get “work” done on it. But, you can’t play games on the Mac — not like you can with Windows. And for intense working, nothing beats the power of a minimalist Unix-based desktop on a large monitor with several virtual desktops.

Windows and Unix require a lot of care and feeding for optimal performance. Macs are a lot easier. The care and feeding is also different between Windows and Unix. Windows means juggling update and drivers and software around, installing and deinstalling in just the right order to get things right. And cleaning out viruses and spyware from time to time. Unix is more like an IQ test, where Windows is more like Catholicism.

That is why I have multiple machines. At work I run FreeBSD, with fvwm2 on a 22″ monitor, paging through a 3×3 array of virtual screens. This is the same desktop environment I’ve had since sophmore year of college, when I ditched my beloved AmigaOS, and it serves me extremely well.

At home, I have Windows XP. XP is as close to Microsoft gets to getting it right. It is slow as heck, but it has enough patches and kludges and bells and whistles that it mostly manages to take care of itself.

And, in the middle, I occasionally steal the boss’ iMac. If I had to live with just one computer … I’d be heavily inclined toward Macintosh. It doesn’t have the extreme comfort I feel in fvwm2, and it doesn’t have all the mundane applications as on Windows, but it sure rides pretty nice.