Computers: Love 'em, or NOT...

Whether you love or hate computers, they're a necessary tool in today's world. I gave up on Windoze back in the days of Windows 3.1 and have never really looked back. My day-to-day computer use is with a Mac (MacBook Pro 13.3", 15", or a MacPro quadcore at my desk). I am always amused when people sneer at my use of Macs and say that they're "too expensive."

I have done many cost comparisons of Macs vs. generic laptops and the costs are about the same for equivalent horsepower. Yes, you can get a cheaper tower or desktop from the PC world and run Linux and you'll have a machine that's roughly equivalent in reliability and speed to my Mac. I can work fluidly in both the Mac and Linux worlds because they're both *nix-based environments and I'm very comfortable using *nix tools.

One reason I have no trouble moving back and forth between Linux and Mac is that I use, essentially, the same tool-set on both platforms. I use Emacs, LaTeX, Python, Firefox, Gimp, Inkscape (though on the Mac I prefer Illustrator as Inkscape just isn't quite there yet), and OpenOffice. Yes, these programs also run in Windoze but I haven't had any need to use Windoze for my daily work in over a decade.

There are a few programs that I find quite handy in the Mac world that don't have direct equivalents in the Linux world: Kaleidagraph, IgorPro, and Skim (a pdf viewer/editor). I also use a program called Papers for managing my voluminous collection of pdfs. There may be roughly equivalent packages in the Linux world or the Windoze world but I haven't found them yet and I haven't needed to go looking.

My lab personnel are perfectly happy using Windoze and I haven't made any strong efforts to pull them away from the platform. We have one section of our lab that is very computer ignorant and they have weekly problems with viruses and hardware failures, largely due to their unwillingness to do the things that I (and my support engineer!) have suggested to prevent their computer headaches. They suffer because they refuse to be more sensible and learn how to use the tool more effectively and safely.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't hate Windoze—I just find the user environment (yes, even Windoze 7!) unnecessarily obtuse and illogically organized. Yes, I'm sure I would "get used to it" over time if I were forced to use Windoze but, luckily, I'm not in that position. I can use whatever operating system and applications I like as long as I'm productive. I choose to use a computing environment that makes it easier for me to be productive and Mac/Linux/Unix tools are the foundation for my productivity.