On Setting Up Windows Machines

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At work I'm required to use a Windows laptop. As, perhaps, many of you are. And yes, a little piece of me does die every day. I've decided to get a Mac anyway to do actual work, and I can use this PC to interface with the small handful of Windows-only applications I am required to use. Incidentally my iPad has become a huge part of my workflow since being given this HP Pavillion g Series with a sweet AMD Quad-Core processor. Let me just say that not all Quad-Cores are created equal.

All that to say that this is not the point of my post. The point is that when I first got this computer I had to, obviously, set it up for actual use. This took me the better part of the day. Seriously it took almost 5 hours.

First things first. The computer booted into Windows 7 which, as far as Windows goes, is fairly nice, but it has subtly changed enough from XP that I get confused about things like "Personalizing" my desktop. But when it boots you need to go get some basic tools like an anti-virus package. I went with Windows Security Essentials - why is this not bundled? Security software is essential for Windows - it should be included standard. Once that's downloaded I double-click to open and then start doing something else... downloading Chrome, I think. After several minutes I notice that WSE still has not installed. So I click on the yellow install shield in the task bar and the screen goes black... after a few seconds a warning dialogue pops up that asks if it's okay that the program I just launched makes changes I click 'yes' and only then will the program actually install. Then Windows needs to restart. Fine. Restart. When Windows loads up again it it begins installing update 1 of 75. That took about 10-15 minutes. Then it restarted again. Then it installed a few more updates, probably around 10-15. Then it restarted again and booted into the actual OS after a while. Then I installed Office (I use iWork on my Macs) and it reminded me about how much I love authentication... 'cause one cannot copy-paste off the back of the Office packaging. Fine.

Then, because the built-in trackpad on this HP box is so horrendous I bought a wireless mouse (with USB dongle, of course) and as soon as it was plugging in, it just worked... no, no it didn't. Windows needed to reboot again. Reboot.

Install Dropbox, C-Cleaner, and Defraggler. No restart. Nice.

Then came the death blow. Installing programs I use every single day...

  • Reeder? No. Windows alternative... none.
  • Fantastical? No. Windows alternative... none.
  • Cobook? No. Windows alternative... none.
  • Coda? No. Windows alternative... Dreamweaver: $399
  • Pixelmator? No. Windows alternative... Photoshop: $699 or GIMP: Shoot Me
  • Motion? No. Windows alternative... After Effects: $999
  • Aperture? No. Windows alternative... Lightroom: $149
  • Mail.app? No. Windows alternative... Postbox: $39 or Outlook: Shoot Me

That's $290 in Mac software that would cost $2290 to replace most of in a Windows world.

After about two month of this I broke down and bought a Mac. I still have that HP in the corner. And I use it occasionally for a small handful of Windows-only tasks. But it sure looks awful lonely.

Windows users... I don't know how you put up with these machines. The constant rebooting. Updates a-plenty, all requiring a reboot. Software makers that assume you're trying to steal everything (but with those prices I can understand why). Even the OS assumes it's been stolen until proved otherwise.

You know the best part? No one in my office thought it was at all weird that I spent my whole first day setting up my machine. No one.

When I bought my new Mac I had it set up in an hour.

Space on RT

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Justin Rubio:

Microsoft has revealed exactly how much free space new Surface owners are left with after taking into account Windows RT and system-related files. For the 32GB version of the new tablet, users have access to only 16GB of storage, with the remaining half taken up by Windows recovery tools, Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and built-in apps.

What's most amazing about this to me is that this is the stripped-down version of Windows designed exclusively for tablets. How unreal will the space requirements for Windows for Surface Pro be!?

Sparrow for Windows

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Ellis Hamburger on Sparrow for Windows:

To sum it up, Sparrow for Windows never existed.

I recently accepted a new position. This jobs required me to use a Windows machine and let me tell you… none of the awesome software I use daily exists for Windows. That includes Sparrow, Tweetbot, Reeder, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Pixelmator, Aperture, Fantastical, Cobook, Bettertouchtool, and (to a lesser extent) Garageband. And the Windows alternatives (where they even exist) cost hundreds of dollars more than I paid for the OS X versions I use daily.

I now have two computers for work. The MacBook I use for everything and the HP I use when absolutely necessary.

Windows Market Share

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Alex Wilhelm:

[W]e can anticipate that Windows 7 will overtake Windows XP’s global market share in late July. Our estimates point to the changeover occuring on July 23rd, at around 3:30 Pacific, but suffice it to know that it should happen at some point this month.

I wonder how many people are still running OS X 10.0.

Symantec vs Lookout Mobile

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Charles Arthur:

The dispute indicates that the conflict about the difference between [what Symantec believes is] malware and [what Lookout Mobile deems in just] "adware" – where software on the user's computer generates intrusive advertising.

I remember the endless parade of new IE windows in Windows 98SE when I'd gotten a virus of some sort or another. I can tell you the difference means nothing to the typical end-user. Besides… this (directly from the Android Market) doesn't sound simply like 'adware' to me:

Allows the application to access the phone features of the device. An application with this permission can determine the phone number and serial number of this phone, whether a call is active, the number that call is connected to and the like.

Android is winning!

Also, from the same article, for free:

Rebundling often occurs when apps produced by reputable publishers are copied and then re-uploaded to the market by smaller publishers or by individuals as though they created them. Such copying is a persistent problem in the Android Market, where there is no pre-approval for apps.

(via The Guardian)