It’s hard work making Windows as productive as Ubuntu !
I don’t want to hear about all the Microsoft bashing and “Ubuntu is the best”. I already announced I was building a Windows XP machine for work because there are just too many corporate things I can’t resolve with a Linux Laptop.
The irony is I started trying to “port back” my more efficient work environment from Ubuntu to Windows XP and it’s taken me the better part of two weeks to even get close. Here is a list of the bits and bytes I’ve had to install to ratchet up Windows efficiency (note, I did not say performance - this is all about making me more productive not my computer).
- DeskMan virtual desktop - trying out Danial Vik’s tool (but have the Microsoft power toy in the wings as my default option)
- taskbar at the top - but had to install “Discover” to fix a windows but that opens windows at screen location 0,0 even thought that means the windows is under neath the “always on top” taskbar
- Weather Watcher - just because I have to know
- Gadwin PrintScreen - screen captures are saved as PNG files rather than just sitting out on the clipboard (especialyl useful when you know you will capture more than one screen in succession and editing them later)
- PowerClick - a simple menu for shutting down or switching to standby
- customized “places” in Windows Explorer - gets me to my NAS volumes and work files more quickly
- Gimp for Windows - nice when software is cross platform
- Notes 8 classic - uses less memory than the Eclipse version but I have that installed too for testing purposes
- Thunderbird - again, nice when software is cross platform
- undecided on a feed reader replacement for Liferea
- PowerISO - treat ISO files on the NAS as if they were still CDs and avoid having to burn them
- CCleaner - gets rid of all the useless files and settings that accumulate including the TEMP directory dumping ground
- Backups - using ??????? for weekly data and daily incremental data backups and swear by SystemRescueCD for image backups for all my machines
(left to right: DeskMan, Network, WeatherWatcher, PrintScreen, PowerClick, Wireless, Devices, Clock)
There are some tools I use on Windows that I never did find good Linux solutions for. SUPER(C) is definitely one such tool. It makes short work of converting just about any audio or video format to any other.
Things are settling down and I should only need to find one or two more tweaks for this Windows machine. After bootup, the TaskManager reports the system is using about 280MB of memory.
All in all, the switch to Linux eight months ago was very good for me. I now have better tools, better data backup polices, a much better understanding of what working in mixed environments is really like and what cross platform should mean.
