Something That Happened.

Thank you, Boris Dimitrov, for telling others about my works and the works of other artists via your editorial position at Ourmedia.org this week. Ourmedia.org is my favorite new place to go to download or stream the audio, video, and electronic text works of independent artists.

I'm a multi-operating system kind of fellow these days, simultaneously using Mac OS X, Ubuntu (Linux), and Windows (again). So which is the best OS? I honestly can say (at least, I think I'm being honest) that I don't know. Each one of them has their own particular strengths and weaknesses, and I find myself jumping from system to system to perform the various tasks that each particular system outperforms the other systems in. Perhaps that is the ideal way to compute in today's world.

You see, lately I've been composing my podcast on Windows, as this system seems to have what it takes to get the job done - or very nearly, anyway. I may have to switch back to my Mac system, or perhaps even a Linux system, as my primary system for this task. The Windows system is Celeron-based and has less memory than the Mac, and apparently my preferred audio editing application, Audacity, wants to chew up as much RAM as she can get. Yet even with alot of memory, Ubuntu just seems to run Audacity better than Windows or even Mac OS. That's right - the choice system for audio producers, Mac OS X, is being outperformed by a Linux distribution running on the very same hardware. It seems that Mac OS X's Aqua-ified version of Audacity is struggling to keep up with the X-windowed and original flavor of Audacity we find on Linux systems.

For my email, news reading, podcast downloading, and general office-type and communication tasks, the Windows system seems the ideal performer. Everything just works the way you want it to, you know? The resumes you create in Microsoft Office format the way you want them to, the applications you want to use to communicate (such as Google Talk) are available for the OS, and most everything is just, you know, the way you need it to be to perform your daily tasks. My main concern, however, is the spyware/virus problem...

I'm learning a bit of programming these days, and Ubuntu is my preferred system for this task. All the development tools I need are available free of charge for Linux (and Unix) systems, and I'm not about to pitch out a ton of money I don't have to run Visual C++ on Windows. Many of the same tools I'm using are also available for OS X, so I can jump between the two systems to continue my self-education in the programming arts. Additionally, for some reason it just feels better to be learning programming on a Linux (or Unix) system.

As for the Mac - well, working on the Mac is simply a pleasure in itself. The Mac OS is a joy to work with: it's snappy and responsive, I can easily perform most tasks via keyboard commands, and it looks...just...beautiful. Placing my problems with the OS X iteration of Audacity aside for the moment, most of my favorite audio applications are also built for the Mac OS, so many of my audio production tasks are still performed on the Mac. The same goes with my preferred website and image authoring tools, such as PageSpinner and GraphicConverter.

All this is to say that I am currently exercising all three of these operating systems in my daily routine. So again: which is best? Again, I don't know. What I do know, however, is that it sure is helpful to have all three systems available to perform specific tasks. Perhaps the computers of tomorrow will enable all of these operating systems to run on the same machines simultaneously...what a wonderful world that would be, indeed!

Is the Wi-Fi lifestyle all it's cracked up to be? I recently became a member of that particular jet set, though the skies I'm flying are far from luxurious: I'm accessing the web wirelessly using an old PowerBook G3, running at 233MHz. The RAM installed in my machine seems barely equipped to handle the Mozilla browser I'm using. Still, at least I'm able to do the thing.

And what thing is that, anyway? You know, the thing: cruisin' the coffee shops, laptop in hand, with the uncanny ability to fire up your portable computer and surf, blog, work, and play from most anywhere - all while enjoying delicious cups of coffee in fun, frivolous, and inspiring settings permeated by the rich aroma of coffee, cakes, and people...

Ahem. Not exactly. As much as it pains me to say, it's not exactly as described. Yes, the coffee is usually good, but the Wi-Fi is not always as speedy as expected, sometimes barely matching the speeds of your old dialup modem - and it's not always easy to get much work done in the sweaty and loud atmosphere of the coffee crowd. Remember, these people - including yourself - are jacked up on caffeine. Once that chemical hits the bloodstream, bodies want to move, and since coffee houses aren't usually equipped with dancefloors and disco balls, most folks turn to exercising their vocal cords in order to satisfy the itch to twitch. Apparently, talking as loudly as (un)comfortably possible has been deemed an acceptable way of behaving in the modern coffee houses of America.

I'm just grouchy today, I suppose...