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What you're talking about isn't a usability problem per se, but an interface difference. And you're right -- Linux and Linux programs are different from Windows. KDE is similar, but it's not the same. And it will never be. Some things will always be different -- either because of design differences or because Windows just does the wrong thing. And that's not a bad thing either.

For me, the best way to really learn Linux is two get a second computer and put Linux on it (if you're really adventerous, put it on your only computer, but I wouldn't recommend that). Don't dual (or as I call it "duel") boot, because you'll always fall into the trap of "I know how to do this in Windows, so I'll just use that". There's still that temptation with two computers, but IMO, it's not as bad since you still have the Linux one up to use. Gradually, you'll learn more and more about Linux and how it operates (it actually is fairly logical and intuitive -- just not the same as Windows).

You may want to use something like Putty to ssh to the Linux computer from Windows and use both at the same time. You'll learn about Linux while using the more comfortable (for you) Windows GUI.

One other thing to remember -- you can't hurt the Linux computer while you're not root (unless, as root, you give your user account permission to hurt it). So don't be afraid to poke around (especially in places like /proc) to learn more.

Personally, I don't think Linux has as many usability problems (at least not in general) as people claim. After all, most Linux softare is OSS, and most OSS developers actually use the software they're developing. So, the developers are the users. In that case there is tremendous user feedback and interaction in the development of OSS. It may not be usable for everyone (it may not even be usable for most people), but it is usable for someone. For example, gcc is a very difficult to use program. In fact, most developers rarely execute it directly, except for very simple compilations. Usually, the gcc command line is built by make through a Makefile (at work, we use imake to make exceedingly complex Makefiles from Imakefiles). Some compile command lines can be dozens of terminal lines long, and would be difficult to type in by hand. But gcc (and other compilers) are powerful tools intended only for experts. They really aren't intended for average users, and thus don't need to be usable for them. But they are usable (or usable enough) for developers, and work exactly as developers want.

I think most of the perceived usability problems with Linux (and KDE/Gnome/etc) are because of different expectations by the users. KDE and Gnome are certainly very usable (I only run Linux at home now). But different expectations lead to this perceived "crisis" in usability that can apparently be fixed (I'm not sure it can ever be completely addressed). While some tools could use improvement (especially integrating with hardware), there are a lot of tools that do have good (or at least usable) interfaces.

Anyway, sorry for the rant :)

They also tried to kill the bnetd - an open source battle.net server.
It now lives in the UK, as the DMCA only works in the US...

With the cost of upgrades, the continued security holes, the perceived instability, the required activation, and the neutering of XP Home... I really don't see myself or others upgrading from Win98 or Win2K without being forced to.

How's that going to happen? Microsoft is going to have to discontinue support for those operating systems.

And, I suspect that's their longer term plan. By cutting support, when the next window of bit-rot or software bloat forces a user to consider their options, I think Microsoft is banking on intimidating them into a newer version of the OS, no matter the cost.

It was precisely the anticipation of this world wide event that made me switch to using Apple's OS X (based on FreeBSD!) and start finding non-Microsoft solutions via Linux.

I've found a new mouth piece as well. When I went to evangelize alternate solutions to friends and family, I got the standard "but you're a geek" roll of the eyes. I was, however, able to convert my wife of alternatives to Microsoft with the use of applications such as Mozilla's Firefox as a browser replacement to get rid of pop-ups/adware and Thunderbird to stop her from getting infected with viruses.

Upon learning that there are alternative solutions with better features that let her not have to deal with everyday annoyances, she was an easy sell on Linux, and now uses Putty and SSHing -- something I never thought I'd see!

She's the one who gets creditability marks with her friends. They know she's an artist and not a computer geek. If she's raving about it, they want to try it, because obviously it's not above their level.

Linux, however, is going to have to compete hard with Microsoft. It isn't Linux's free price tag or outstanding stabilily that's holding it back. It's complexity.

The learning curve is too great for the non-technical user to setup and immediately start using it. Microsoft scores big when it comes to easy install for a basic system, and they actually do automatic updates quite well from a simplicity standpoint.

What many geeks don't get is simple computer users are willing to give up power and features for ease of use. If someone put out a basic distribution that auto-detected hardware, did an easy install, and set up the basic environment with nothing but the standard Office tools -- much like a dumbed down version of Mandrake or BeOS or the free OpenBeOS version.

Microsoft sees that "we don't get it" and aren't catering a special distribution to "grandma", and with that fact they leverage Windows into homes, knowing that once someone invests in learning something, they usually don't switch without good cause (frustration, cost, or inapplicability to task).

what?! you're a graphic designer?

Invasion of privacy? ... Yes. However in this day in age when the "average joe/jane" prefers to not stand up for his/her rights others are somewhat painted into a corner. And as the famous Bugs Bunny said "If you can't beat them, join them"

And here's is how I do it. I have three spots I can toss a headless server running linux in a basement. (My Dad's basement - Cable, My Mother's basement - Cable, and My Grandmother's basement - DSL) Most ISP's don't block or legaly restrict port 22 for SSH access. So I set up some secure Linux boxes all with SSH and X tunneling. I toss PuTTY [www.chiark.greenend.org.uk] and TightVNC [www.tightvnc.com] on my Wrist Watch [www.thinkgeek.com] and I'm all set to abide by there arcaine rules and yet all MY stuff is safe secure and packaged away on secure Linux boxes and many layers of encryption. They can't legally invade that.

As for a Desktop; I would suggest an alternate OS. In the past 4 years I have been able to live without a windows based machine (Yeah I fix them all the time) but I personally never had the need for one (Except some games which I quickly satisfy using a PS2, Thanks to WA, Windows Anonymous)

Yes, I carry a handgun for those few ISP's that block port 22 (That would be a joke!)

(and just as free as TeraTerm!)

Actually, PuTTY is much more free.

PuTTY, from here:

The PuTTY executables and source code are distributed under the MIT licence, which is similar in effect to the BSD licence. (This licence is Open Source certified and complies with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.)

TeraTerm, however, from the readme.txt that comes with the source packages:

Without written permission by the author (Takashi Teranishi), you may not distribute modified versions of this package, and may not distribute this package for profit.

You may not copy any file, module, subroutine and resource in this package to create commercial products (including sharewares), without written permission by the author.

If you want to distribute modified versions of Tera Term widely, you need also the permission.

You aren't the only one with this problem. Appearantly, it was fixed in 0.54 (well, somewhat). Try downloading the latest version.

emerge putty

Many people ask me whether or not TTSSH will support SSH protocol version 2. It does not and (unless someone else decides to try) it will not. Sorry, I don't have time to do it. Please don't ask me about it.

Is there anything TeraTerm Pro and TTSSH do that PuTTY doesn't do better?

I use TeraTerm Pro and TTSSH regularly for accessing remote systems from my Windows machine. Very nice tools, with plenty of options.

I used to use TeraTerm, but a couple of years ago I switched to PuTTY and haven't looked back. Great application (and just as free as TeraTerm!).

-- Pete.

I used to use TeraTermPro / TTSSH as well. It was very nice, but alas, TTSSH only has SSH 1.5 and most likely won't be updated to SSH protocol v. 2.0. AFAIK, That means that you won't get the most recent security fixes, as well as other nice features of SSH v. 2.0 (like compression).

A good alternative is PuTTY. Works like a charm in all flavors of Win32.

I have been picky as hell over the years when it comes to terminal emulators. As far as windows-based emulators, PuTTY is by far the best in my my opinion. Supports telnet, SSH, Rlogin and all kinds of other things linux Linux arrow key support.

For when you have to connect to Linux from a Windows box, it's the way to go. (Although the default font [Courier New] option is horrible for a console emulator, I always change it to Terminal.)

Other DNS software

Management tools

twa lets authorized browsers edit the tinydns data file.

ldap2dns converts an LDAP DNS database to a tinydns data file. tinyadmin is a graphical interface to the LDAP DNS database used by ldap2dns.

mkdns converts a MySQL DNS database to a tinydns data file. It lets authorized browsers edit the MySQL DNS database.

sql2tinydns is similar to mkdns.

dhcp_dns watches dhcpd for new DHCP address assignments, and publishes those addresses through tinydns.

tinydyndns publishes dynamic IP addresses authenticated through POP connections.

Servers

ldapdns publishes DNS information from an LDAP database.

MyDNS publishes DNS information from a MySQL database.

Posadis publishes DNS information from BIND-style zone files. Security history: Buffer overflow, allowing attackers around the Internet to take control of the server; fixed in m5pre2 (2002.03.30). Someone announced an exploitable buffer overflow in m5pre2 a few weeks later; the history here isn't clear from the Posadis web pages.

NSD publishes DNS information from BIND-style zone files. Security history: Unclear. The NSD documentation includes bugs like ``Very strange coredump in hash_destroy() that happens sometimes'' without any analysis of their security impact. Is that an exploitable buffer overflow?

PowerDNS publishes DNS information from MySQL databases, PostgreSQL databases, Oracle databases, IBM databases, LDAP databases, or BIND-style zone files. Security history: Unclear, like the NSD security history.

MaraDNS is a general-purpose DNS server.

lbnamed is a load-balancing DNS server.

lbdns is another load-balancing DNS server.

Oak DNS Server is a good example of why novices shouldn't try to write DNS software. The digitallumber.net domain, served by Oak DNS Server 1.0, is inaccessible to a huge number of clients that try AAAA lookups before A lookups: the server incorrectly returns NXDOMAIN for AAAA, effectively wiping out its own A record.

Caches

pdnsd is a DNS cache. Security history: Remotely exploitable buffer overflow; fixed in 1.1.7a (2002.01.18).

MaraDNS can act as a cache.

I don't know why anyone would want to use these caches in place of dnscache .

DNS clients

adns is a DNS client library.

ares is a DNS client library.

perldns is a DNS client library for Perl.

The Buggy Internet Name Daemon [how very professional... *sigh*]

BIND is a monolithic server/cache; it also includes a client library, libresolv. Security history: IQUERY buffer overflow in BIND before 8.1.2-T3B (1998); NXT buffer overflow in BIND before 8.2.2-P4 (1999); nslookupcompla

My PERQ Workstation came with PNX (an ICL UNIX derivative) from 1981.

PERQ image
PERQ info

This had a command "winit" to start the *windowing system*. Whilst not X, it's a similar concept, and referes to the 'areas you can resize/move/minimise/cover" as windows.

It has enough battery life to last for a couple of weeks, and if the batteries run low it takes standard AAs...

And since they're 1988 technology, they're also extremely cheap these days. I've still got two of them knocking around.. Definately built to take a few hard knocks.

• Abiword - Word processor, supports .doc, .rtf, GPL.
• Open Office - Whole Office suite, including a database frontend and BASIC macro language.
• Perl - Scripting language
• Python - Scripting language
• Cygwin - UNIX emulator. Can create Windows programs, reliant on a cygwin1.dll.
• MinGW - Port of some of the UNIX utilities (BASH, gcc, vi...) to Windows.
• djgpp - UNIX emulator for DOS.
• Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird - Web browser, e-mail client, IRC client, lots more.
• Filezilla - FTP client.
• xchat - IRC client.
• putty, pscp, psftp and others - Telnet/SSH clients.
• Gaim - Client for IRC/Yahoo/MSN/ICQ/AIM and more.
• gzip - Compression (usually better than .zip).
• tar - Extracts/Makes tar archives.
• bzip2 - Totally ace compression (usually better than gzip).
• Info-ZIP - Support for .zip. Good free substitute for Winzip.
• 7-zip - Support for multiple compression formats.
• frhed - Hex editor
• Ext2fs - Several programs for doing Ext2 under Windows.
• Antiword - Converts documents out of the proprietary .doc format.
• MySQL - RDBMS.
• Apache - Web/Proxy server
• sendmail - Mail server
• squid - Proxy server
• freeamp - Audio player
• winlame - MP3 encoder
• cd-ex - MP3/OGG encoder?
• gimp - Very detailed graphics program.
• imagemagick - Graphic manipulation. Provides the 'convert' utility under UNIX.
• freeciv - Civilisation clone.
• gnuplot - Plotting package.
• TightVNC - A fork of VNC, with enhancements.
• RealVNC - The original VNC.
• rdesktop - Access Windows Terminal Services and Remote Desktops.
• Nmap - Well known port scanner.
• John the Ripper - Password cracker. Does NT and MD5.

Why are we still using passwords for everything? I must sign up for 2 or 3 new websites a week. I've been using the Internet for 32 years now. So that means I've signed up for just over 8388640 passwords.

Would someone please write a browser plugin that will enable public/private key authentication using my ssh agent

ADV: Get your own 'no password required' virtual private server

• Win2k Sp4
• Thunderbird 0.5 (upgrading shortly!)
• PuTTY 0.54

It doesn't have a remotely useable shell

It doesn't have one installed by default, you mean. Try Cygwin. I remotely log in to my Windows XP machine on a regular basis via Cygwin's SSH; in fact, even when I'm at it I connect to itself through PuTTY, since I like its terminal features much more than WinXP's normal DOS emulator.

If you really want, though, you could log in via Remote Desktop Connection and open a DOS window that way. Believe it or not, it's quite usable even over a 56k modem.

The Bat! - An Email client

ZoomPlayer - A video player

FlashFXP - an FTP client.

UltraEdit - A text editor

PuTTY - A Telnet/SSH client

Yahoo Messenger - An IM program

Kazaa Lite - To get even more stuff

BitTorrent - A BT Client

Google Toolbar - A toolbar for IE to use google easily and quickly

ACDSee - An image viewer

Here's my top 10 list.

1. Sleipnir - Greatest tab browser, made by a Japanese guy, there's an English translation, if you haven't tried it and been using other IE based tab browser, you should give it a try. It's IE engine only. (For those who'll have trouble navigating Japanese web page, here's the download link to English version)

2. PuTTY - Just like others

3. Exact Audio Copy - Very good audio ripper for CCCD.

4. Adobe Reader - Though getting like a bloated software with Printme ad, I encounter PDF just about everyday...

5. GIMP - I thank GIMP team for such a great freeware tool.

6. VideoLAN (VLC) - Great media player + rich network functions, can play DVD (with libdvdcss, check your own law) without any commercial licensed softwares.

7. EmEditor - This is the best text editor I've found to date (tried, textpad, editplus, ultraedit what have you...but I'm not a emacs/vim guy). For what's better, it's free for academic use! It's got regular expression search/find, keyboard mapping, document tabs and all the feature you'd expect on a good text editor. I used to use EditPlus(registered) before this, but I switched.

8. ffdshow - Codecs for DivX, Xvid. No more need for official ad-full DivX codec installation.

From here, I don't have them installed, but these are worth mentioning.

9. burnatonce - A great tool for writing CD/DVD media. It's actually a Windows frontend for cdrecord and ProDVD, small and efficient.

10. DVD Shrink - To extract DVD data and back it up, no writing function, but good for storing it on HDD.

I could go on...but I've reached ten =)

VirtuaWin - Virtual desktop manager

PuTTY - SSH client

WinSCP - GUI-based SSH file copier

Mozilla - The Web browser

CygWin - UNIX-like command line tools and environment

FuhQuake - QuakeWorld client with advanced rendering.

Vim - text editor extraordinaire

VoodooLights - screen saver (alas, no longer supported or available)

TweakUI - Allows tweaking of various Windows UI details

DeliPlayer 2 - music player, including support for "MOD" formats

Schwab

• Aida32, hardware display and diagnotics
• CoolTaskBar to sort out the mess (particularly in Windows 2000)
• FreshUI, tweaking utility
• TweakUI, same as FreshUi, but different options, these two combined give you a lot of different options.
• PowerToys, tweaking utilities. In particular the [Send file name to clipboard] and other options which I cannot work on Windows without.
• Get everything from SysInternals, a ton of wonderful stuff here, too much to mention, but will let you track every file access, every registry write, every debugging message. Tons of great command line tools too. For instance, ever wanted to delete a file only to get a "There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use" message ? Where Windows doesn't even know for sure if the file is in use or not. Get Process Explorer from SysInternals.com and type the file name in its [Find][Find Handle] menu. Close or kill the appropriate process if necessary.
• Desktop Manager or FlashDesktops, gives you 4 desktops just like on Linux.
• Alt-Tab Replacement, Gives a screenshot of window Alt-Tabbing, useful when you have multiple unsaved docs open, etc...
• OpenCommandWindowHere, right-click on folder option to open command prompt window at that folder, useful for deep or complicated folder names
• Memstat XP, lets you monitor memory usage in tray, small and simple but not that useful.
• NetMeter, lets you monitor network usage in the tray, small and simple but does not seem to work on all types of network interfaces. Online Eye Pro works better and has lots more options, it's based on WinPCap just like Ethereal (see below).
• TrayMeter, lets you monitor cpu usage in the tray, small and simple.
• WinRAR, unzip anything you want, supports tar.gz, zip, rar, arc, and much more.

Network Utilities

• Xmanager, excellent X-windows manager.
• FreshDownload, Download Manager
• ssh, scp, wget, rsync... comes on CYGWIN
• Putty (and friends), ssh client and other utils (but ssh is part of cygwin and works just as well)
• WinSCP, a wonderful SCP/SFTP client for windows (scp is part of Cygwin but this is easier to use)
• NetScanTools a GUI interface for most command line tools also found in cygwin
• WebDrive, mount various types of network protocols (ftp, http, ssh) as local drives, buggy but useful (RiverFront)
• POPfile the best spam remover I've found so far (works with outlook express and any app)

Amen to the comments on EditPlus! Great damn program for the money.

I have more than 10 in my "start from scratch" install, so here goes:

• Acrobat 5
• AdAware 6
• EditPlus (the best damn win32 text editor.)
• Macromedia Fireworks
• Microsoft Remote Desktop (damn good Terminal for Win32)
• Microsoft Office (counting it as one program)
• Nero
• Offline Explorer Pro
• Putty (god bless Simon Tatham!)
• Screen Calipers
• Trillian
• TweakUI
• VirusScan Enterprise
• WinAmp
• WinZip

I'm going to have to check out FileZilla... I've used CuteFTP, LeechFTP, and some others... I've never found one I'm completely happy with. PDF Creator and SpyBot SS look like good programs to have too... thx for the links!

Cygwin usually goes on a machine after a while, but it's an "install as needed" item. I've decided to use RealAlternative instead of installing RealPlayer for the rare occasions I need to view a RAM stream.

I SysAdmin a significantly sized heterogeneous network and to my dismay, I often have to set up new Windows machines and/or reinstall Windows machines.

As an aside, in sysadmin-land, the general rule is to reinstall a machine after someone leaves and/or every two-three years max. Any longer than that and the machine's OS & registry gets too clogged up with crap (among other things) that the machine goes so slow and a complete & clean reinstall is the only way to really regain that lost productivity.

Anyhow, the first 10 or so programs I install on these (primarily w2k) machines are as follows:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (if you don't install this from a cd before you put the machine on the network, you will get a virus).
• Windows Critical & OS Updates
• Netscape
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Sophos AV (served over the network via EMLibrary)
• Office 2002/XP including all service packs
• PuTTY
• WinSCP
• Winzip or PowerArchiver
• Shockwave (since I don't allow user admin rights on most clients)
• Google Toolbar (just a convenience)
• Real Player
• ABC Image Browser

I install these programs first on new Windows machines.

• firefox
• cygwin (including emacs, ncftp, wget, openssh, grep, sed, and other favorites)
• putty
• ntfilemon/ntregmon
• Java2 SDK
• winamp
• VideoLAN Client
• wget
• WinPT/gpg
• Filzip

VNC, Emacs for Windows, VMWare, CDEx, Vorbis Tools, DaemonTools follow. I like Photoshop but as long as it's crippled (currency watermarks) and activated I'll never buy another license for it.

For a Windows install my choices are :

1. ZoneAlarm Basic - Mandatory firewall
2. Windows Update - Mandatory updates
3. Mozilla - Why would you use Internet Explorer any longer?
4. Winrar - This little program is doing its job
5. Winamp
6. Acrobat reader
7. Putty - An efficient ssh client to communicate with your Linux boxes
8. OpenOffice.org - Word processing
9. Microsoft Office - Sometimes OpenOffice.org can't do the job...
10. Adobe PhotoShop

For Linux my choices are :

1. Update your installation - yum, apt or up2date
2. xmms-mp3 - Enable mp3 playback (freshrpms.net)
3. mplayer - The best video player (mpg, avi, dvd) (freshrpms.net)
4. perl-Video-DVDRip - Add a movie collection beside your music collection (freshrpms.net)
5. CodeWeavers CrossOver Plugin - Enable Microsoft plugins in Mozilla
6. Quicktime (via CrossOver Plugin)
7. Windows media player (via CrossOver Plugin)
8. Shockwave player (via CrossOver Plugin)
9. CodeWeavers CrossOver Office - Run Windows application in Linux
10. Microsoft Office (via CrossOver Office)

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot SS - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

1. Firefox
2. The Adblock extension for Mozilla/Firefox
3. mplayer
4. Flash and Java plugins for the browers

Windows:

1. Putty
2. Firefox
3. Mozilla
4. The Adblock extension for Mozilla/Firefox
5. Spybot S&D
6. Flash/Java/Acroread plugins for the browsers
7. WinSCP
8. Cygwin (including XFree86 and Windowmaker)
9. OpenOffice

The only Windows I use is Windows XP Professional as a unix admin in a corporation, so some items may be notably absent. My entire Windows list is software that can be used royalty-free for commercial use )with an obvious emphasis on Free Software).

For example, I use XFree86 shipped with Cygwin for my X server, WinSCP for secure file transfer, Spybot S&D (and not AdAware, which is another excellent product, but would require a licensing fee be paid).

I don't use Winzip at all, since that functionality is built into the explorer interface in Windows XP Professional (don't know about the others), and is also available through Cygwin.

On the occasion I'm visiting a friend who runs Windows on a personal desktop, I also recommend Zinf, the audio player, since it's free software and just plays the music without any corporate spyware tie-ins, eg., contacting a server based on mp3 header fields as WMP and Winamp have started doing.

1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Microsoft Office
3. PuTTy SSH Client
4. WinRAR (will check out Izarc too)
5. WinAMP
6. POPFile, an Email Filter
7. SmartFTP, gonna FileZilla a try though..
8. IrfanView, a free picture viewer
9. NetTransport download manager, also downloads media streams
10. Windows Media Player 9-- its actually pretty good!

1. PuTTY (secure client)
2. Cygwin (Linux emulation layer)
3. Gaim (instant messaging)
4. Scite (editor)
5. Firefox (browser)
6. TortoiseCVS (version control)
7. Spybot S&D (malware detector)
   
8. Privoxy (filtering web proxy)
9. Gimp (graphics)
   
10. CacheSentry (to fix IE's cache, in case I use it)

These are not in the right order, just threw em up there as i thought of them.

Kerio Personal Firewall - great software firewall, a must on any Windows box
F-Prot AntiVirus - another must have, antivirus software
Tray Wizard - extentions to 2K system tray
DAEMON Tools - mount ISO images off your harddrive to virtual CD drives
FlashFXP - FTP Client with loads of nice features
UltraEdit - must have text editor, nice features such as syntax highlighting
IrfranView - multi-format image viewer
Media Player Classic - replacement for WMP that blows it out of the water
WinRAR - multi-format archive app
PuTTY

1. Cygwin - get the POSIX environment on!
2. PuTTY - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
3. TightVNC - get to some other computer
4. OO.o
5. vim - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
6. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
   • Flash
   • Acrobat Reader
   • StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
7. Winamp - get the groove on
8. MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
9. MultiDesk - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
10. Windows PowerToys - because every little option matters

More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...

Besides what was stated in the news story, and what is grabbed on Windows Update...

Miranda
Lightweight ICQ/IM app with plugin support for IRC/Jabber/etc..

FilZip
Free zip, rar, etc... util

PuTTY
Best SSH client for windows, and it's free

WinSCP
SFTP/SCP Client, free

Crimson Editor
Text Editor / IDE, supports color-coding source code and such. Very handy.

Mozilla
FireFox is nice, but I need a decent mail app and I like Moz for that.

Media Player Classic
Best. App. Ever. As long as you've got the codec installed, this handy thing will play the media files for you. This includes QuickTime, RealPlayer, and even Flash movies.

Nimo Codec Pack
A compilation of video and audio codecs as well as stream switchers, extra directshow filters, and nifty bits. Rather than hunting down individual codecs for XviD, 3vix, OGG, etc... this pack does it all in one operation.

Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator

Putty is available under the terms of an MIT style license actually. I agree that it rocks though, I use it to manage the Debian Linux servers in my college.

One of the first things I install on a windows machine is putty. Can't live without it...

Of course cygwin provides more of environment and the added benefit of remote Xwindows connections (without annoying cripple ware).

Well, I use my PC as a game box with some browsing only (with SSH if I need to access one of the unixish machines) so here's my stuff:

10 : Spybot Search & Destroy (Excellent spyware killer)
9 : Spyware Blaster (Recommended by Spybot author to run concurrently)
8 : Some form of browser.
7 : PuTTY (SSH client w/ tunnelling)
6 : Thief (awesome game)
5 : Thief 2 (more Thief!)
4 : Darkloader (allows one to run custom fan missions in the Thief games)
3 : System Shock 2 (creepy sci-fi rp/fps)
2 : For those days I feel like a slug-fest? Doomsday and the ol' Doom games. (adds real 3D and all the video card eye candy to Doom/Heretic/etc. A MUST HAVE!)
1 : Half Life You know it! (still has one of the best stories of any game around)

I admit, the closed-source UIs are very pretty, but they're easily outweighed by things like NFS, greater stability, etc.

I really hate to break this to you, but Windows has been a pretty stable /desktop/ environment since, oh, Windows 2000. File sharing over NTFS works pretty damn well, and there's a great *free* set of tools for scp'ing, NFSing, and whatnot. Lots of great 3rd party tools too.

Btw, not seen this mentioned anywhere, but John Udell did a great job of digging into how good Macs really are at connecting to network printers. Ain't pretty. Have to say, Gruber is bang-on when he says this is something that Windows is much better at. On Windows, connecting to shared printer is as easy as:

- type the URN for the printer (say \\kathy\printer) into Explorer's address bar (or navigate to it via Network Places)
- If you've never used that printer before, you are prompted to click "yes" to install a driver (Windows caches common drivers, or fetches it via the web, or asks you to insert a driver CD/floppy)
- the printer's now usable

Btw, I'm a happy and satisfied Linux user, but my interface of choice is bash via PuTTY since I've not yet met a Linux GUI that actually allowed me to be productive.

about tab support.

Not 75Mhz, but 30Mhz would have been easily possible: 10 years ago, the 30Mhz version of the ARM6/7 was available (and shipping in production hardware). Designed for low power consumption and low cost, not much different from the ARM processors we see in portable devices today, really. The Apple Newton was shipping too, and it had an operating system that would not have looked out of place in modern hardware. Plus the original Palm Pilot was shipping, and the OS there hasn't changed much in that time.

As the ARM was shipping in hardware in those days, a full set of support hardware and software was available, Digital was licensing the technology in order to develop the StrongARM (1995/6 for the 200Mhz version IIRC - got a Palm on my desk that's powered by one of those). ARM didn't have quite the same profile in embedded systems markets in those days, but they were well aware of the potential of their CPU: the ARM6 was the first CPU they specifically designed for embedded applications.

So no, the hardware was *NOT* the limiting factor. The main limiting factor was the will to make the devices, especially as the (ARM6 powered) Newton was not exactly setting the world on fire.

See Here for example, discussing the ARM6 core - in 1991!

I bet that calculator is powered by an ARM7/8. A direct descendant of a processor available in quantity 10 years ago, not that much faster, and it wasn't the only one around.

Try using the native Win32 wget and PuTTY. Both have no problems on SP2 build 2055 or 2082. Cygwin is just too much bloat for me.

That said, I wouldn't install a beta SP on my production box ever. I have run through several scenarios on VMWare though, including upgrading to SP2 as well as simply installing a clean SP2-slipstreamed copy. Starting to like the changes I see. The few applications that may break are worth the collective security of the Windows population at large.

When I want to download a new version of the ssh client I use on Windows machines, I goto Google and type "putty" in the search field. Then I hit enter.

Every time I am brought through the "deep web of billions of pages" to the most relevant site for Internet users looking for something called "putty." No, it's not SillyPutty (that's second.) It's not Home Depot. It is www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ which is the home of PuTTY, the Windows SSH client extraordinaire.

The Yahoo spokesperson who spun Yahoo's paid results as a benefit to using the "deep web" hopes his listeners aren't Internet users. Or, at least, aren't Google users. We don't fall for that crap.

You obviously haven't heard the (relatively) old adage about intuitive interfaces, have you. [clears throat]

"The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned." ---Anonymous*

* This article IMO comes to no definitive answer as to who actually first said it.

Maybe it has something to do with the way you point out those flaws...?

If you're a programmer working on something which scratches your itch, there a good chance that you already know how your own program works. Having someone come and say "Nonono, this interface is crap!" without actually providing suggestions for how to make it better is annoying at best.

Annoying as it may be, the "program your own version" may also be a valid argument from the programmer's perspective. If changing a UI is a lot of work, then the programmer may not actually have the time (or motivation; remember they've already scratched their own itch) to implement your set of changes. But you can still do it or get someone else to do it if you feel strongly enough about it. Remember, what you're getting is free (probably as in beer and freedom), so the programmer has no moral obligation to do anything for you.

But I've usually found that if you are polite and above all humble when you suggest fixes (be it UI fixes or regular bug fixes), then people will usually do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Btw, you might check this link:

How To Report Bugs Effectively

Most of it also applies to UI bugs.

If you can't install much software, I suggest using Putty for your SSH. They also have an SCP program for windows, you can find it here.

there is no install you just use the executable from whatever folder it resides in.

If you haven't used windows in a while, you may be surprised by XP, I'ts faster and more stable than people will have you believe, I need to dual boot at work, and although I try to stay away from the XP side, when I do use it, it works fine. Don't forget that Perl, Python, Apache, Mozilla, etc. all run on windows, and most have a painless binary installer.

-G

Requiring admins to use XP and then not letting them have admin on their own boxes .. could be ignrance, could be insanity, could be you are being set up as scapegoats for when, not if, things fall apart. Expect y'all already have, update your resumes, immediately start looking for another job.

If possible set up a Linux box with plenty of ram on which you do have root as a vnc server. Insist the XP boxes have a vnc client such as tightvnc and a terminal client such as putty. Use the XP box as essentially an expensive dumb terminal to a vnc session, with the terminal as a backup in case of a problem. Do all of your email, web, etc on the server via vnc.

I set up our development teams this way. Productivity increase was such that several managers have since had me to help set up their teams the same way.

putty link.

• Simon's Win32 Cheat-Sheet - Written by a Unix fan who has moved to Windows when he started working for Microsoft.

• PuTTY - Probably the best Windows telnet / SSH terminal.
• NMap - yes, there's a Windows version of this port scanning / network security tool
• Windows XP Powertoys - the TweakUI control panel toy is probably the most valuable - it lets you set up X-Window like focus that follows the mouse

• #1. Get FlashDesktops, you have to pay for it, but it is utterly wonderful. Multiple desktops on windows as fast as Xwindows.
  http://flashdesktops.com/
• #2. Get UxUtils, NATIVE ports of lots of great unix apps.
  http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
• #3. Get The Bat!, it is a wonderful email client, fast, simple, can be totally driven by keyboard. http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/
• #4. Get FireFox, it is a wonderful browser on linux AND windows (I actually prefer the windows version). http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
• #5. Get gVim, vim is great on linux, great on windows too! http://www.vim.org/
• #6. Get OpenOffice, great on both platforms. http://www.openoffice.org/
• #7. Get WinSCP, a wonderful SCP/SFTP client for windows. http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/
• #8. Get Putty (and friends), wonderful ssh client and other utils. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
• #9. Get everything from sysinternals, a ton of wonderful stuff here, too much to mention, but will let you track every file access, every registry write, every debugging message. Look around, it gives you control of your box like you expect on a *nix. Ton of great command line tools too. http://www.sysinternals.com/
• #10. ClearTweak, a tool to let you customize your ClearType settings (a must for LCDs). http://www.ioisland.com/cleartweak/
• #11. Daemon Tools, lets you mount up to 4 ISO's as drives, and can emulate security protection. http://www.daemon-tools.cc/portal/portal.php
• #12. Memstat XP, lets you monitor memory usage in tray, small and simple. http://memstat.sourceforge.net/
• #13. NetMeter, lets you monitor network usage in the tray, small and simple. http://readerror.gmxhome.de/
• #14. TrayMeter, lets you monitor cpu usage in the tray, small and simple. http://www.thmundt.com/traymeter/
• #15. TweakUI, get control over some things you might want (like hover-to-focus, autologin, other). http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/p owertoys.asp
• #16. WinRoll, lets you roll up windows just like in lots of windows managers on linux. http://www.palma.com.au/winroll/
• #17. XP Log Reader, lets you watch the XP firewall logs. http://www.winxpcentral.com/windowsxp/fwlog.php
• #18. WinRAR, unzip anything you want, supports tar.gz, zip, rar, arc, and much more. http://www.rarlab.com/
• #19. Beyond Compare, best tool for comparing directories or files, great for syncing backups. http://www.scootersoftware.com/
• #20. Nero, the best CD writer for windows. http://www.nero.com/us/index.html
• #21. WinDVD, watch movies! http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp
• #22. WinImage, create images from CDs, very