You will, I presume, forgive me if I start to ramble and become incoherent. See, I’ve been up since just before 4:00 am this morning. There were some very reasonable and logical reasons behind this unusual approach to “slumber” but whatever they were they no longer seem very important and I honestly can’t remember what they were anyway.

I’ve been working as an official support person for about four days now. I scarcely recall the days now where I thought, “Man this whole training process is tedious… things will be much better once I start getting down to work.” At this juncture I’m too busy longing for the sweet serenity of those halcyon days to contemplate the bitter irony that lies at the center of those sentiments.

It’s not that my job sucks; hardly. The environment is good, the customers I’m tasked with supporting are overall competent and people are understanding and supportive of my necessarily rough transition. Plus I get paid well and the work is interesting. The problem is that those competent customers are more advanced than I (something they’d find delicious were they to ever know, I’m sure) and when I say “interesting” what I mean is that at some distant point in the future I can imagine this work to continue to be as challenging and rewarding as it may be now, only in my current state of ignorance it feels much more like mind-melting avalanches of foreign data and concepts that my already tiny brain holds in the manner that a thimble holds the ocean. Which is to say—not.

I remember trying to learn about Linux (and Unix in general I suppose). It was frustrating because just when I thought I was getting it I’d get stuck or I’d come across a concept I couldn’t fit into my brain as though it were a piece from a different puzzle entirely and could not be forced in no matter which way it was turned. I have the distinct deja-vu style sensation these days only the extra wrinkle is that in addition to trying to put together some kind of sense of understanding on my own behalf, I’m trying to help others at the same time. Eventually I was able to grasp enough Unix/Linux concepts to where if I had to I might be able to do this job for that but we’re talking about something I’ve been fiddling with for around six years as opposed to something I’ve been exposed to for six whole weeks.

I Can See Through the Windows

Another minor perk of the job is my new work computer. The Dell Inspiron notebook is an impressive business machine: 2 GB RAM, 2.13 GHz processor, a hefty graphics card capable of 1920×1200 resolution (on the built-in screen!) and 80 GB hard drive. Okay, okay, so it’s a Dell which means I’m all Windows-bound. Well, so is the product I’m supporting (for the most part) so I have to deal.

It’s funny though because I’ve used Windows for a very long time but it has been these past few weeks where my usage of any alternative system for anything useful has been relegated to a few sparse hours here and there after hours or on weekends. Now this is Windows XP Professional which, by most accounts, is the best version of Windows you can get. I’ve had to be quite familiar with the special little tweaks of Windows in a hurry. Know what? Heresy though it may be, I really am finding it not that bad. The key of course is that I did not pay the $120 or whatever ridiculous fee they charge for a system that is “meh, not too terrible” but as far as an OS I could live in, I admit that by and large it gets the job done.

Neil Stephenson had an essay called “In the Beginning There Was the Command Line…” in which he used an analogy of cars for operating systems. I’d say an apt description of XP Pro is that it’s like a Ford Taurus: It’s not “cool,” it isn’t really fast, no one thinks it’s special but it gets you from here to there. Eventually if you have it around long enough it’s bound to show some rust, but by then you’re probably thinking about a new one anyway. Which is why I’m more attracted to OS X and *nix, because at least there the polish and attention to detail is more pronounced. Or, in the case of *nix, it looks maybe as bad or worse but will last you until the next Ice Age, provided you don’t run it into a tree or something.

Anyway, abandoning the stretched metaphor, here are a few of my gripes in “un-switching” from being primarily a Mac user to being forced into primarily Windows use.

1. Built-in spellcheck. Look, I can’t type. Literally I have no touch-typing skills so I do a sort of hybrid hunt-and-peck thing which mostly just results in me making about four typographical errors per word entered. Which is why OS X’s nearly universal spelling support is refreshing like stepping outside after a spring rain. Typing these posts, for example, requires me to be extra careful because there is no spelling service for webpages. OS X lets you select “Check spelling on this page” once and forever more that same page will check your spelling as you type. Also, Shift-Command-D when hovering over a word brings up a mini system dictionary entry. Anywhere in the interface. Brilliant. Windows has nothing of the kind.
2. AirPort. I had the DSL router provided by SBC which included a wireless component running my home network for a long time. Two things conspired to make me change this, all stemming from the fact that my first few efforts to get the wireless network working (using encrypted connections) were utter failures. One was that the AirPort Express I got several months ago would periodically drop the stream from iTunes. I had no explanation for it other than that at some point during the signal transfer from the SBC router to the APE, enough of the buffer would be lost to kill the stream. The other was that I couldn’t log into my company’s extranet through an unencrypted wireless connection for security reasons. Knowing the hassle it was to try and do the encryption thing from the DSL router, I opted to simply make the APE the access point for the whole house, figuring the set-up for AirPort had to be easier. I was right. 20 minutes, in and out, had the 128-bit encrypted network up and running with both Macs humming along on it just fine. Of course when I tried to connect the Dell to it something went wrong because Dells aren’t AirPort equipped so they need to have the hex password entered by hand. It took several tries to get it to work once I figured out what was wrong and I once again felt a pang of regret recalling all the things that “Just Work” with Macs.
3. Mail.app. Outlook: Thou art mine worst enemy. Seriously, whoever thought that Control-Q was a good shortcut key for “Mark as Read” needs to be set on fire. Anyone else remember what Control-Q is usually reserved for? Yes, quitting an application. What a great time to break with convention! Just in time to make sure that from now on, any time I’m using a normal email client, I’ll be guaranteed to shut it down half a dozen times from my habit of hitting Control-Q all the time! How wonderful. Also, Mail.app includes a very simple set of rule-making parameters that can be set to do all sorts of interesting things. Ever tried to make Outlook do something fairly simple on a regular basis? Exactly.
4. Terminal/iTerm. One of the joys of OS X is that it has Unix under the hood. So when you need to do something Unix-y, you just launch Terminal.app and rock and roll. Windows has festering piles of human remains under the hood, so if you need to do something Unix-y you’re stuck using third party apps. I admit that PuTTY isn’t too bad as a Windows-based command line tool. But the fact of the matter is that even the oh-so-simple Terminal.app is better than PuTTY (in my expert opinion) and most of the PuTTY replacements are not-free-as-in-beer while OS X has to have nearly as many gratis terminal programs available as Linux. And for the uninitiated, that’s a lot. I think every CS major in the US university system is required to write a free unix-based terminal console in their first year or something.
5. Pretty. I’ll admit something fairly embarrassing: I kinda like the bitmappy fonts used by a lot of the Windows system. I think it’s something like Arial 10pt. with no anti-aliasing. It’s just clear, easy to read and scalable, which is nice. But when it comes to non-system stuff, I prefer to look at something a bit more appealing. Web pages for instance. Anti-aliasing in OS X? Check. Windows? Don’t make me laugh. Want to know 99.8% of the reason that nearly every web page in existence looks better in Safari than MSIE6? Anti-aliased fonts. OS X even anti-aliases Word docs for crying out loud. Windows likes jaggies. Jagged edges are business-like. They command fear and respect. Or they command customers to ask, “Why is Windows so lame?” You know, whichever.
6. The Dock. I know, I know. The Dock has its own set of issues. But you know, given the choice between the Windows taskbar (even the new XP “smart” taskbar) and the Dock? I choose the Dock. I admit that I wish the Dock wasn’t the place where app windows minimized; if you have too many docked application launchers and you minimize a few windows your Dock shrinks until your icons are the size of plankton. But at least the Dock shrinks! It at least gives the impression of trying to help you and stay out of your way. Windows’ taskbar gives you the idiotic option of auto-hiding and tries to slurp similar minimized windows together (which is a bad design decision in my opinion because it adds another level of searching to find the window you want), but the size never changes to adjust to what you have going on. I have my taskbar set to twice the usual height so I can fit enough minimized windows down there without killing the preview (I see people with tiny taskbars flip through dozens of windows at about 1 pixel square trying to decipher the microscopic icons and find what they want… compare and contrast to OS X’s using the screen itself as the preview) and have all my application shortcuts visible (why have them if you can’t get to them?). This wastes lots of screen real estate that could better be used for something else, but my options are limited.

But you know what? I bought Dawn of War the other day and it runs on my computer. A PC game! Who knew?

And for the record: It’s awesome.