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     Thursday, July 15, 2004     On switching

So I was reading this about switchers and would totally agree with James. I switched from a Linux laptop to a PowerBook last fall.

All of the applications I depend on work great on my PowerBook. IntelliJ works great on OS X, Office is a native app, Java has great support, WebLogic runs great and Oracle was an easier install than Linux. Iterm is a nice replacement for a terminal, and of course Mozilla/FireFox are first class.

I used to run Linux on a Dell Lattitude, and before that on a Toshiba laptop, and while I miss some of the flexibility of a Linux box, I don't miss the maintenance.

Of course one of the biggest benefits is they way it JustWorks(tm). While it's certainly likely that someone with a Windows laptop can run an Ant build a few seconds faster than I can, the fact that I can hop on an unknown network, find a printer via Rendezvous, and print a diagram for a client without calling their IT line, or set up a quick ad-hoc wireless net in a training room to pass around some files, or just flip it open on the train and be working in a second more than make up for that second for me, and I think, make me that much more productive.

I do a lot of presentations and I no longer worry about fooling around with resolutions to get some unknown projector to work correctly, now I just worry about losing my dongle.

If there's anything I miss it's that I still haven't found a replacment for straight-up text editing. I was a huge SlickEdit fan on Windows and on Linux, but they don't sell it on OS X (even as an X app. I've tried SubEthaEdit and BBEdit, but nothing has measured up. I might be best off running Kate or even gedit under fink. Maybe I'm doomed, because I think I really like an MDI interface for a text editing tool. For now I just end up dropping into vi.