It's been a while since I've posted on my blog </classic> but I'm heading to a software engineering conference in Montreal called CUSEC 2012 and I figured I'd blog about it.

But I haven't left for CUSEC yet, so I figured I'd give a little update into my feats (and defeats) as a software engineering student, web developer, hobbyest photographer and amateur graphic artist.

My Dilemma with Operating Systems

Windows is Required

In May of 2010, I had to purchase a new laptop for web development freelancing. I was contracted by eCenter Research to work on their proprietary web software, so I required a larger screen and faster hardware. I chose the ASUS K72Jr for its price and performance, knowing I could dual-boot Ubuntu along side the factory install of Windows 7.

By this time, my entire family and my friends knew me as "The Ubuntu Guy" and were mildly shocked when I kept Windows 7 on my machine. I had been using Ubuntu since Warty Warthog 4.10 and as my main operating system since Dapper Drake 6.06. I figured it was time to stop hating other operating systems, especially since no one operating system is perfect and can suit everyone's needs.

With the new laptop, I used Windows from time to time to play some games with my friends, but found gaming on my laptop awkward and expensive to upkeep -- buying new hardware and games every couple months is too expensive. So in October 2011, after a long hiatus of gaming, I purchased a PS3.

At eCenter Research, I was required to use GoToMeeting, which forced me to use Windows. I would reboot into Ubuntu soon after those morning meetings.

When it came to freelancing, I found myself going in to Windows every so often to use Photoshop. I had Photoshop CS2 running through Wine, but due to the glitchiness of the window handling, including the fact that designers were sending me CS4 or CS5 PSD files, meant I had to use Windows to use Photoshop CS5.

I tried splicing the PSD, exporting the PNGs and JPGs I required and rebooting into Ubuntu to use my favourite text editor, gEdit. However, while working at Whatever Media, I found myself using Windows more and more for work related purposes. Yes, this means I now had to use Windows for Photoshop CS5 and Office 2010. What's a working man to do?

 Apple Makes an Entrance

In the summer of 2011, I purchased an Android phone. Knowing a lot about the underpinnings of Android and watch the Android market boom, I figured it was finally time to jump in. So I purchased an inexpensive LG P500h.

Unfortunately, it was the most frustrating experience of my mobile-phone-owning life and I knew immediately I made the wrong choice. Not that Android is a bad mobile operating system at all, but the hardware LG chose to use made the phone lag even when I was unlocking it. Yikes!

Well in October, my girlfriend, who owned an iPhone 4 for over a year, wanted an iPad for homework and entertainment purposes. Knowing I would use it every so often, we split the cost. 5 months later, we are still using it every day.

Seeing this software in action, from its ease-of-use, to slick display, to new and exciting software, I knew Apple was doing something right. By this time, they were the most valued company in the world, so maybe I was coming to that realization a little late. Truthfully though, I've always loved Macs. I used them as a kid in school, I used them in high school for video editing and even for graphic design when I co-oped for BrandHealth.

Getting sick of my cheap LG phone, I bought an iPhone 4S. No lag, slick animations, never crashes, long battery life, incredible apps, slick camera and records video in 1080p HD. I couldn't believe this fit in my pocket.

Being an amateur photographer and using Adobe Lightroom, I need to have a monitor that displays incredible colour parity to how a photo will print and how it will look to others as a digital medium. I've been using a standard resolution (1280 x 1024) 19" Dell 1905FP since 2005 and it has handled my workload very well, but it has some issues with greys and I found I was often crushing my blacks. Having a need of incredible colour correctness on my screen, getting a Mac was a no brainer. Whatever Media values me as an important employee to their organization, so as of January 2012, I now use a 15" MacBook Pro.

Ubuntu Has Not Been Lost

I still use Ubuntu as a server where ever and when ever I can. I am running an Ubuntu virtual machine on my Mac, just for LAMP. I run an Ubuntu server in my basement for backups and hosting files. I've set up Ubuntu servers at other companies and still support it on my friends' and family's laptops. I haven't lost faith in Ubuntu, but for digital work, it just does not compare with the software available to Mac and Windows.

I know, of course, that this isn't Ubuntu's fault. I hope Ubuntu and Linux in general doesn't stay allergic to proprietary software and come up with a solution, like the Ubuntu Software Manager, for Adobe and others to deploy their software. Users that are all about FOSS can ignore the availability, while people such as myself can use an open-source and secure operating system while using the programs I require for work.

What do you think?

Originally published for my current employer at the Whatever Media blog...

Background

As a Web Developer and Computer Scientist, I’ve had to deal with research on both web browsers and operating systems and how each piece of software deals with hardware (memory, hard drives, processors, etc.), users, security and the interaction between all three. What has only been a recent development, with the invention of smartphones (iPhone, BlackBerry, Google Android), tablets (Apple iPad, BlackBerry PlayBook) and netbooks (more compact versions of Windows and Linux), is the merger of the web and operating systems.

Internet in its infancy

Computer research exploded during World War II when we needed faster ways to calculate artillery trajectories and later, a way to exploit the German message-encrypting machine called The Enigma.

Later, but before the Internet was invented and exploited by the public en masse, operating systems handled many scientific and business operations, such as intensive mathematical computations, spreadsheets, accounting ledgers and maybe the occasional game.

When the Internet was in its infancy, it was still used for manly scientific purposes – researchers sharing scientific documents – but it didn’t take long for companies and organizations to setup homepages for their businesses with contact information, store hours and store locations.

By the mid-to-late 90s, websites began to display and work with relevant information of user’s interest, including news websites and online stores. Think CNN, BBC, Amazon, eBay, Google and so on.

The Internet today

By the mid-2000s, smartphones such as the BlackBerry and iPhone began to take foot and now, in 2011, are the main source of communication between individuals in the Western World. We text, e-mail, check Facebook, write Tweets and catch up on the latest news, all from this little magic box attached to our hip. But have you ever encountered a data-outage where you can no longer use these services? Many people feel lost without their smartphone, especially when its Internet capabilities are disabled. It’s how we keep connected.

Enter Google, Chrome & Chrome OS

Google entered the web browser war in late-2008, against Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Opera by releasing Google Chrome. Many people wondered why the world needed yet-another-browser, but little did they realize the importance of such a development. Google postulated that in the next few years, the majority of citizens in first-world countries will completely rely on the Internet for day-to-day operations. Google is a web firm, with their income entirely based on the web through their online search engine, online advertising, e-mail (Gmail), office suite (Google Docs) and so on, so why wouldn’t a company that relies entirely on the Internet, create a program to view and explore the Internet, the way they want?

Google is now going one step further and releasing their own operating system based on Google Chrome, called Google Chrome OS. As you may have noticed, operating systems have slowly been merging with the Web for some time. Although researched since the mid-90s and before, Google is the first major corporation to put their money on the further integration of the two and to start selling devices based on their software.

Will Google Chrome OS do everything I need?

You are probably already using a device that is heavily reliant on the Internet, such as your smartphone, tablet or workstation at work. However, your workstation at work probably has a lot of other important applications other than your web browser, such as Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Quicken and so on. So what good is an operating system that is only a web browser?

Well, did you know that most of those applications now run on the web? Adobe Photoshop has been replicated to a great deal of accuracy through a website called Pixlr, there are online applications that mirror Microsoft Office like Google Docs (with many others following suit), and Quicken has been emulated by your bank (CIBC, Scotiabank, BMO, etc.) and third-party websites such as Mint.com.

So, not only will you be able to use all the same applications you’ve been using since the 1990s, the data you work with will be saved by these third-party websites, so if your laptop gets lost or stolen, none of your data will be lost and will in fact be safe from unwarranted parties so long as they don’t know your password. Even further, Google has a sync program that will allow all your bookmarks, extensions, themes and data to be synced across all your computers, so long as you’re using Google Chrome. So you can have Google Chrome on your home and work PC (running Windows, Mac or Linux), on your phone or on your tablet and your experience on one computer will be the same as any other computer or device you use.

No lost data and seamless integration across your devices. Sounds pretty good to me.

The future

With technologies such as HTML5 bringing patent-free video to our fingertips (which means streaming Netflix for Canadians) and the integration of OpenGL-3D for 3D data display (think engineering, computer animation and 3D video games), there’s no telling where the Web will go. One thing is for certain and that is our reliance on the Web will not be lessened by this evolution, but rather tightened, hopefully making a less painless computing experience for everyone.

Father called. Had a problem. He needed to delete a table that he started entering data into, but didn't want to go through and cut and paste data from every row and place it outside the table and then delete the table. A quick search found little results for OpenOffice.org but a couple for Word. So I decided to post this built-in trick that many might not know about.

If you have a table in OpenOffice.org Word Processor and want to delete the table with out deleting the data,

select Table > Convert > Table to Text...,

then select whether you have the data spaced out by tabs, semicolons, paragraphs or other (if you're not sure, keep the default),

and viola! You have removed the table without sacrificing your data.

Hope this helps!