My Computers

I like computers. All kinds. I constantly catch myself noticing computers in TV shows, advertisements, and movies. If I walk into someone’s office, the first thing I notice is their computer. If I go to someone’s personal web site, one of the first things I always want to know is what kind of hardware and software they use to make it. If I see someone with a computer in public, and even though I’m a card-carrying introvert, I might ask them about it. This page is where I talk about the computer hardware and software I use.

God at His Computer (The button says "Smite!")

I prefer using Free Software of some kind. This winds up being “Linux” and related software, but I’m in favor of any sort of non-proprietary product unless otherwise demanded. I find that it usually works in ways that make more sense and is more robust. That being said, I’m a pragmatist. I was an “NT” zealot before I was a Linux “zealot,” so I know how to use “Windows” to solve business problems, if need be, though those occasions are rare.

Many of my friends and coworkers are using Macs these days, and that’s great too. Anything that lessens Microsoft’s grip on the computer world, and pushes the market back to a more level playing field is good, in my opinion. I wouldn’t have a problem with Microsoft if they would only separate all the junk they bundle with Windows. Make IE a download. Sell their anti-malware product. Unbundle handling zip files in Explorer. Things like this would make it fair. Competitors would be allowed better access into the space, and Microsoft’s quality would have to improve. It’s a win-win for consumers. Of course, this won’t happen, and if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t let it happen either.

I’m not opposed to people actually liking Windows, but what irks me, in the broad hierarchy of computer nerdom, are the folks who see Linux and free software in a bad light when they haven’t even tried it. They only know anything about it from badly-written, Microsoft-subsidized “technical writers” in the trade magazines. Oh, sure, maybe they installed it once, and then they couldn’t figure out how to actually use it for anything because it didn’t run Office — not a document or a spreadsheet, mind you — just not Office, and that was the end of that. At a company I worked at, I saw an internal Oracle DBA get passed over for a SQL Server job opening because the people he would have worked with didn’t want him possibly making waves by suggesting that they use something other than a Microsoft product. Talk about being insecure! Sure, Microsoft gets used in a lot of companies, but I suspect it’s usually because it’s already entrenched by people who don’t know about, and can’t use, anything else.

For many years, I ran VMware for the infrequent need to run something under Windows. Mostly, this is just because of working with other people who need some troubleshooting for their Windows problems. Now I’m using VirtualBox. Since they’ve come out with their virtualized network driver, and you can run your VM’s directly on the network without a bunch of bridging nonsense (just like VMware), it’s become the better solution. It runs faster, and it’s Free Software. I note here that I’ve finally had good success recently running a “business critical” app under Wine, which has basically eliminated my need for any sort of virtualizer anyway.

I’ve recently begun using KVM for virtualizing servers. If your processor supports it, this is a great way to run VM’s on a server. (If your processor doesn’t support the virtualizing extensions, you can still use vanilla Qemu, but be sure to use the kernel module.) I understand that you can use VirtualBox as a headless solution, but I’ve not tried it, and I know that VMware server (the free product) was designed for this.

I still use a Windows partition on my home computer for playing games. For many years, I tried countless incarnations of Crossover and Cedega to play my games. Despite all the great reviews and all the promises from the respective companies, I never had any luck. Crossover, in particular, has been great at running various pieces of Windows software for me, but the gaming thing just hasn’t worked. For example, the best experience I had was Battlefield 2. It even ran noticeably faster under Cedega than Windows. Unfortunately, it was only after I got it all running that I figured out that Cedega didn’t support PunkBuster, and likely never will, meaning that online multiplayer was out of the question.

The home computers