crazyskillsbloginitiative

It’s late and it’s been a long weekend.

But I can’t help but think of some things. All of this “competition” between *n?x, Windows, Snow Leopard, etc… It’s all the same thing. We are all working toward similar goals and placing certain things above others in the development cycle. I’d be willing to say that *n?x is Security, Speed, Stability Windows is Appearance, Marketshare, and history, and Mac systems are look&feel, ease of use.

I have a number of machines in all of these three major schools and I use them for different things. People are funny though; however, though many are not as divided as I might make it sound.

It seems that Mac people love Macs. More power to them. They have Mac stores and mac social users groups, some Mac-only software and I’d bet most Mac users think they just use the best computers. I love my Macs and use them primarily as my media center, as well as some internet browsing.

GNU / Linux users (and moreso administrators) use it because it is powerful to do many things, incredibly customizable (much more than a Mac or Windows machine, all the way down on the OS kernel level.) And Linux users have Linux users groups, lots and lots of software (much available for free through apt / yum), though maybe not the software that every small office uses. I use Linux on two machines, my primary beast (dual-boot with 7) and my server (http, php, voip, radio, l4d). I use linux for email, browsing the net (it’s the fastest), programming in php, css, and for all of the customization and running of the servers on the server.

Windows machines have, in many cases, the ‘industry standard’ applications for business computing (due in part to strong marketing toward this during its development process,) and the best games on the planet. Some people like games. I do. And I can play them all on my Windows 7 beast. I use this machine to surf the internet, manage email, play games and watch blu-ray movies in HD 1080p and HD DTS over my 15-speaker system. I also use this machine for programming in php, css. Some days I prefer Windows for that; sometimes, linux. I’ve also got my AppleTV run into the Windows system because of the full support for my high-end X-Fi Elite Pro (optical in, baby.)

And all of these machines can be integrated into a business environment, be it administrative work, graphical design, office applications, audio / video editing, time tracking and billing - though often the already existing infrastructure of the business will dictate a particular tool for the job, reducing your options in many cases down to one.

But for those who are in the planning stages (or who aren’t roped into using outdated software which only operates on a Windows 3.11 machine,) there are options. Productivity can really be enhanced by providing your employees with the proper tools for the job.

To be the first version of OSX to only run on Intel Macs [appleinsider.com]. Or maybe not [gizmodo.com]… Curious.