I’ve become pretty conservative about changing the software I use.
It’s usually just not worth the effort. The software I use is
generally good enough now, and most updates add little or nothing
I want. And the updates may be unstable or worse than the original
(as with Acrobat Reader 6.0, which seems to take forever to start
up, but which doesn’t do a single thing I care about better than
Acrobat Reader 5, or 2, 3, or 4, for that matter).
February 22, 2004
Changing Software Programs
November 18, 2003
If you use Windows XP with an LCD screen…
… be sure to turn on ClearType. It makes a big difference
to legibility of text on LCDs (flat panels and laptop screens). And
it’s not turned on by default.
November 9, 2003
OpenOffice: by programmers, for programmers?
When I last rebuilt my hard drive, about a month ago, I installed
OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. I wanted to see how
practical it would be to use it instead. Turns out, it’s pretty
practical. I’ve created files that I’ve sent to Microsoft users
without a hitch, and opened files they sent me. I even collaborated
on an RFI document with Microsoft Office users.
November 2, 2003
Robocopy
Robocopy is a Microsoft tool that I only recently discovered.
It’s a bit like rsync, but very Windows-specific. Really,
robocopy is a smarter xcopy. You use it mostly like xcopy,
but it recognizes when the source file is the same as the target
file, and skips copying it.