OS X vs. Windows XP
Initial thoughts on using Windows XP. Long time Mac, Mac OS X, and Unix user, now running with Windows XP laptop at job.
- Command Line Interface (cmd.exe)
- Firefox
- Outlook 2003
Utter joke, compared to the Unix shell. Pitifully difficult to copy and paste data between shell and other utilities. Need to try the CLIP command. Luckily, found zsh for Windows. Downside: no idea where dotfiles hidden on Windows, so configuration will take some time.
Will also need to patch any number of my 150+ utility ~/bin scripts (of which I really only use around 20 of on a regular basis) to work under Windows, and somehow obtain the required Perl modules for them. On Unix, I simply rsync around the portable scripts and libraries, then use CPAN or the vendor package systems to obtain the required supporting data.
No anti-flash and make-the-page-hold-still plugins installed by default. Need to figure out the desktop system security policy, or otherwise get the help desk to install these.
Calendar nice, though mostly unused by me, as I am not meeting bound. Somewhat easy to setup a Getting Things Done (GTD) method using Contacts and Tasks tricks. Recurring tasks a nice feature. E-mail interface mostly a pain, no threading support I've found yet, text editing clumsy compared with vim. Spent long time finding all the options required to make e-mail mostly readable, as default view emphasizes sender, not subject, and shows a short date.
Rules support seems extensive, though much time consuming clicking around required. Would prefer procmail style filtering, as have a decade of experience with it, and can easily pipe messages to arbitrary commands and various mailbox formats.
Slow to display messages, several “Outlook must close now!” crashes. Cannot remember ever having vim or mutt crash on me. Outlook likes to unmark messages as read when moving between folders, or otherwise reluctant to quickly mark things as read. This wastes my time.
Finally found a ClearType utility, to make the fonts look less crummy. No where near as nice as the fonts on Mac OS X. Still need to find a QuickSliver type application.
Dell laptop running Windows XP weak: trackpad pretty much unusable (especially with tap-to-click enabled by default, and no obvious way to disable it), and keyboard nub annoying. Unlike Mac OS X, no double-touch to scroll support. Slow to sleep and wake.
Overall: functional, but nothing special. Extreme virus and spyware threat on Windows stops me from running Windows at home.