My Life and Technology

Even though I work on the OS of my choice, this choice is not always available at my workplace. I am required to use Windows  to develop applications for my employer. I do miss a lot of *nix stuff and the command line awesomeness.  I have striven hard to find replacements for them. Here I present a list of  applications which a non-geeky person should look at after installing Windows. Some of the geeky part is left out.

Firefox

Do I need to explain this? I think unless you are using Internet for Orkut and Gmail, you must have surely heard about it. Do get some awesome addons like Adblock Plus, Sxipper, XMarks, DownThemAll, Firebug etc

Google Chrome

If you want even more speed, then get Google’s browser. Googlers are crazy when it comes to speed. I recommend keeping a second browser as IE doesn’t qualify as  a browser.

Console

You ever tried opening cmd.exe only to say “How stupid ugly it looks”. Even tried looking at terminal emulators of Linux? You’ll start abusing MS. Get Console.

Launchy

Don’t move your hand away from the keyboard. You can launch any application using this Launcher

Notepad++

The TextMate for windows. We hardly need it for Linux. We have Vim/Emacs

Paint.NET / Pinta

Even wanted to do any image manipulation and you were forced to open Photoshop/GIMP?  These two come to rescue.

Pidgin

The multi-account instant messenger. Works like a charm on majority of the OSs available

pidgin-facebook

Add facebook buddies on Pidgin. No need to chat from inside the browser window

Thunderbird

The mail client which I really admire (after Outlook 2007). It’s cross-platform

Inkscape

Vector drawing tool. Cross-platform. Works great. It’s not an Illustrator replacement.

7Zip

Stop there. Don’t install Winzip or Winrar and then get annoying messages to register to continue using it. 7zip gives you peace of mind.

PdfCreator

Even want to convert any document to PDF? Use Pdfcreator which adds a virtual printer to your system.

Foxit Reader

Please! For God’s sake, don’t install Adobe Reader and save the mankind. You’ll never use 95% of the features provided in that bloatware.

Process Explorer

The Process Tab of Task Manager isn’t so great. Try this application and have more control over what applications are running.

uTorrent

The first and last torrent client you will ever need for windows

You know, 12/15 applications I suggested are open-source ones. (Including Paint.NET)

For the past few days I just wondered why our education system fails to give the real experience whether it be related to Electronics, Computer or any other field. Being a Computer Engineer, I can only say that the education given in college is far from reality and the industry requirement is really far what we have ever thought to be.

I would stop this stupid rant and give some scenarios where it can be improved.

Database Design and Management

I am really unable to understand why they had to teach us PL/SQL when it is specific to Oracle and not a standard like SQL. SQL was part of curriculum, but what just too less for what is exactly required. No one had even a faint idea of Database Security and Authorization concepts. Books had that chapter but was not a part of course material. It isn’t rocket science, but infact one of the easiest topic I have ever seen. The only DB concept which was stressed a lot was Transactions which was really helpful. The hands on experience on SQL was negligible, using the usual legendary “SELECT * FROM customer” query all over the book.

Linux

We had Operating System in fifth semester out of which *nix was only taught in Lab. The book which we were told to refer hardly had any *nix concepts or any other operating system as a sample. It was full theory, theory and more shitloads of theory which sometimes was no more than a torture. 600 pages of pure theory with no real life example is a PAIN!

We had three labs session of OS where we were supposed to use Linux to learn the commands. Whoa! Don’t be so excited. We were asked to use a windows 98 machine and connect to a Red Hat server via telnet. What was the final result? Everyone complained that Linux is just too hard and they can’t use it in day to day life. Linux has no GUI and it was meant for geeks and nerds who spend their life in basement coding all the day(and night). They had no f**king idea that there even exists something called GNOME and KDE. KDE4 can give Windows UI a tough competition. Special thanks to the lab instructor for helping to spread the FUD due to his frog in the well mentality.

This is not enough! Once I asked my lab in-charge that I wanted to take my programs and I do have a flash-drive with me right now. He said -” Fine, take it from your machine“. I was dumbstruck! Even if by some magic, it was really possible, how can I make this flash-drive to work on that stupid Windows98? After a few minutes of dumb explanations he allowed me to use the server, but said that flash-drive doesn’t work on Linux. Eh really? Yes, really! They were using such an old kernel(oldest of 2.4.*) that hardly anything would be working that time. Wait! Was flash-drive in market when that kernel version was released?

VIM

If connecting via telnet wasn’t enough, then vim was at the door knocking. vi/vim is the programmer’s best friend is he/she knows how to use it. Putting in other words someone has to tell that it doesn’t work like nano or a NOTEPAD! People had no idea of vim modes or how to efficiently use it. All they knew was <Esc> :q and <Esc> :wq They didn’t know why sometimes they were able to enter text and sometimes the cursor keeps on moving from one end to another and suddenly the text starts showing on the screen. There had been situations where people had to close the telnet client to exit the editor. Thanks God, atleast they were in a better situation than this guy.