Tuesday, July 04, 2006

I don't hate Microsoft

I have been using Windows on my various computers since about 1993 and have always used the associated programs. You know what I mean. Microsoft Office. Microsoft Internet Explorer and so on. I never ventured much away from that.

I did dabble with Netscape when it wasn't bad but lately it's nothing great in my view.

I once tried to install Linux on my Notebook computer but it just was impossible to follow. I kind of developed a slightly negative view of this whole "open source" software idea.

Then I tried Mozilla Firefox. Let me know if this is beginning to sound like one of those ab-crunching / low-carb-diet info-mercials.

I liked Firefox instantly. It was free. It seemed pretty stable. It had some clever features that weren't in Internet Explorer. I've stuck with it. I played around with Opera once and uninstalled it. Firefox it is for me.

That made me think a bit differently about the whole open source thing again. Not sure why. So recently I installed Gimp, a graphics application for Windows. I know it's available for Linux and other kinds of operating systems but I run Windows so that's that.

It's a really great application with a really bad name. This must be programmer humour or something.

Then I tried Audacity, an audio editing program that allows you to record, edit and manipulate audio and music on your PC. Another great free open-source application.

I'm starting to think I might even give Linux a go again. I feel like I am weaning myself off my Microsoft dependency.

Apologies if this seems like a really dull subject tonight.
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2 comments:

Shuman said...

I tried that Thunderbird and thought it was brutal. I use the web version of Google mail and I like it a lot. When I was in Belfast there was a phone box across the street from the hotel and it had an internet terminal in there, you know screen and keyboard and some kind of ball mouse thingy.

I was seriously tempted to pop in and check my mail. You can only do that with web mail.

Now you see when you start explaining what GIMP is (and all that) I just don't get it. It's all a bit of an in-joke or something maybe.

We're gonna do that human Foosball thing in work tomorrow. Should be a laugh.

7:54 p.m.
Shuman said...

for some reason Blogger doesn't seem to recognise that I posted a reply so I'm just doing this for a test...

11:37 p.m.

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