

How I Use My Dell - davejohnson
http://nullisnotanobject.com/2008/11/how-i-use-my-dell/

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Oompa
No cygwin or anything, but you use the terminal "a lot?" I think I'd kill
myself without a proper shell…

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dfarm
If you're stuck in windows like I am at work you really need to try MS
Powershell. It works great. I'm just as comfortable with it as I am with bash
at home. It's object based scripting is quite cool also; you can do COM
automation in a very simple manner. I do traditionally file maintenance stuff
and more slick MS Office automation with Powershell. Totally recommend it if
you have to use Windows.

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Oompa
I've heard of the product, but never anyone saying if it's good or bad, thus I
never messed with it. Thanks for the heads up.

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iamelgringo
I use PowerShell for over a year. Console2 makes a pretty nice wrapper for it
as well, giving you multiple tabs and cut/paste.

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donw
Um, if you were happy with Windows before, why did you switch in the first
place?

One of the biggest things that keeps me from using a Windows machine, is the
lack of a proper shell. One that exists as a first-class citizen, and not as
some bastard add-on hack. Cygwin really doesn't cut it for me, and the only
other real option is to run VMWare, at which point I might as well run Ubuntu.

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wizlb
What do you need a terminal for in Windows?

I'm not being snarky, it's a serious question. I'm a programmer, but I use
Visual Studio 2008 and I rarely have to touch a command line to do anything
that I need to do...

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breily
I've never done any serious development on Windows, but I'd imagine you
need/want a shell for the same reasons you'd use one on a unix system - using
vim, scripting, an array of useful programs (e.g. whatever the Windows version
of grep is), etc.

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wizlb
I've been programming on Windows for about 10 years and I can honestly say
that I simply don't have to use a terminal outside of running the occasional
command. For automation I use AutoHotKey or AutoIt. For searching text in
files I usually use a program like Notepad++ or UltrEdit. YMMV of course, not
everyone's the same.

I guess the reason is that I can usually find a GUI program to do whatever it
is that I want.

I use Linux all the time too (I've built Asterisk boxes, LAMP servers,
firewalls, etc. at work and at home), but I think the culture is just
different, so it's natural to use the terminal for many things on *nix.

Actually I do use the Windows terminal a LOT (the Run box actually) for one-
off things like "net start/stop some-service", "services.msc" or "ipconfig
/all", something like that.

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Flemlord
Interesting Dell Tip: Don't ever buy a computer straight off of Dell's web
site. Set up a corporate account--our account rep always gets us 20-30% off of
the list price on their web site.

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davidw
You can search for discount codes too.

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josefresco
Yeah if you're not getting at least $200-400 off the list price with a coupon
you're getting screwed. Even big box stores can undercut Dell prices
w/coupons. I used to think Dell would always have the lowest price until I
found that stores like Best Buy can undercut even direct sales from online.

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unalone
_What is amazing is that most Apple users even agree with me that it is
completely terrible._

How is that remotely amazing? Mac users tend to be honest about what their
stuff is like. Liking an operating system doesn't mean you can't be critical
of parts of it.

Although, I like Finder more than I do Windows Explorer. What features does
Explorer have that put it leagues above Finder, like this article would
suggest?

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davejohnson
Yah Exploring is not for everyone nor is Finder. I think that the tree view in
Exploring while still showing the contents of the tree is great (compared to
thee sliding panes in Finder for example) and the context menu integration of
many apps is also good (eg win merge and tortoise).

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unalone
_I think that the tree view in Exploring while still showing the contents of
the tree is great_

But that's something that Finder handles, also. The CMD-2 view. Or am I
missing something?

Also, what are in Merge and Tortoise? I don't get what context menu
integration means.

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elai
the cmd-2 view shows files & folders in one window, while explorer shows a
tree of folders only on the left and the contents on the right.

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unalone
Sounds a bit excessive. But whatever works, works. Thanks for clarifying!

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jwilliams
The author claims that with a 2.4ghz/2gb Mac they couldn't run Eclipse... I've
been running Eclipse on a similar/lower spec (2yo MBP) for ages - and this is
a Java,C/C++/Flex workspace.

No problems at all.... In fact it seems to churn the disk considerably less
than my colleague's Vista Dell machine.

So not sure where that is coming from at all. The MBP is almost the ideal
Eclipse workstation imho.

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DenisM
Maybe yor are running different version of Eclipse? I have a feeling that
Ganymede is slower than Europa.

FWIW, I also find eclipse (Ganymede) to be a bit slow on my 2.4Ghz Mac Book
Pro (Mac OS X). I think I'll splash out for a solid state disk as soon I find
one with good ratings.

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jwilliams
Yeah I'm running Ganymede - was running Europa - seems a bit slower, but not
significantly.

I'm using Java and C/C++ at the moment - but I used a base install and then
added the bits I wanted. Maybe the J2EE/whatever Eclipse releases have a whole
lot of other cruft? Not sure, but it's plenty usable for me.

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Brushfire
Although I cant say I fully agree with his use of eclipse europa and rad
rails, I would tend to agree. Ive been more annoyed by macs than I have
windows recently.

Although, Git support and proper shells are valid problems with windows.
Powershell helps, but the git people really need to get a valid, working, non
retarded git client for windows. Like Tortoise SVN which is freaking awesome.

Until then, windows will be an inferior development platform for anyone doing
ROR stuff.

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LPTS
The only thing I'd use a dell for is to order a mac from apple.com. Then I'd
wash my hands and read a book.

