I ordered a 2 * 1.25 GHz G4 today and will move away from this superannuated Windows machine as soon as it comes in.
One of the major annoyances is how poorly non-MSFT applications work in Windows. While they be be OK for awhile, after some time, things get flaky, the machine slows down, applications don’t respond, and you find yourself in Task Manager, killing off the zombies in hopes of getting some work done.
The opacity of the OS is another problem for me: I’m used to being able to see what’s happening on the system, and while the article referenced in my previous post mentioned a Resource Kit that offers tools a UNIX admin would recognize, they’re not standard and as far as I can tell, not available in my workplace.
I can’t print to a printer that’s physically located on my desk because the computer thinks it’s out of paper. So I have to send my print jobs to a printer on the floor below mine and go get them.
I tried to print a simple one page document last week and while I could get one copy, the subsequent request for 100 copies was all gibberish: font substitution or the lack thereof wasted 100 sheets of paper (for some reason, I couldn’t kill the print job). So I found to our overworked communications director (who uses a Mac) and in 5 minutes, we did what I couldn’t do in an hour in Windows.
The bottom line is that my job is a multidisciplinary one, and the right tools to do that aren’t forthcoming from Windows. Maybe a bigger, faster machine would have helped, but I have a problem forcing a person with a given set of skills to use unfamiliar or unsuitable tools “because everyone else does.”
To reference the previous post again, assuming the document it covers is genuine, using a system with the transparency and flexibility of UNIX with the power and focus of a commercial enterprise is the way to go, as endorsed by MSFT itself. So I’m just getting ahead of the crowd.