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Pepping Up Windows
PhairOh writes "Toms Hardware has an article about improving Windows with free and Open Source Software. It features everything from the obvious like Gimp and OpenOffice and also some interesting choices like Virtuawin. From the article: 'The average Windows user tends to be less than satisfied with Windows. And that's no surprise, either, given the rather woeful state of its default applications.'"
I like WinDir Stat. It gives a nice colourful representation of your disk usage by directory and by file allowing you to see ther really big files on your system like .Vob, or clusters of really small ones like .jpg.
It's really a fun little thing to look at and use.
IS this an on topic first post?
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It's one thing to point out some nifty FOSS apps to people that may not have heard of them. It's an entirely another thing to jump on the anti-MS bandwagon and claim that this functionality should have been included in the OS.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
My older brother is a 100% MS man. He spend about half of our visits together telling me how I have wasted the last 10 years working with Linux. On one of his last visits he saw me switching virtual windows in X and thought that looked like a cool app. I searched the web and Virtuawin. When he came over I installed it on his laptop and he has reported that his productivity has increased. I don't know what he is using for a metric, but he likes the idea of switching windows to applications that aren't buried behind muliple instances of IE.
I guess there are still some ways that *NIX can influence Microsoft, but at this point everyone is using and recycling each other ideas. Few companies are actually building new and interesting interfaces.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I get the impression that there are more users who actually _like_ (not just put up with) Mac OS X (or maybe even GNU/Linux) than there are who actually _like_ (not just put up with) Windows. Anyone here actually like Windows? I'm not trolling, just want to know. If you do, what do you like about it?
MS already has a power toy for multiple desktops.
r toys/xppowertoys.mspx
I've been using it for awhile, it works pretty well.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powe
I've installed Cygwin and Emacs to my Windows install at work. I was looking for some sort of grep functionality a while back and decided Cygwin was the way to go since I also get a BASH shell and piping, too. I also installed emacs a long time ago. It's the Emacs for Windows, not the one for Cygwin. Both of those have increased my productivity tremendously without needed to install a full-blown Linux distro on the box.
Don't forget UnixTools, GVim, Password Safe, Paint .NET, Cruise Control, Subversion the list goes on to infinity.
This is a bitter-sweet pill. It's great that OSS is making the Windows platform so rich, it bad that it's creating inertia to change platform entirely.
I'd have switched to Linux a long time ago if the application stack for Windows hadn't been so greatly improved
by the army of budding OSS developers. Progress is being made though. I'll never use Microsoft Office again now that
I've fallen in love with Open Office 2.0.
It's no so much Open Office that made my mind up, it's the fact that we've got OpenDocument. OpenDocument is far more important that anyone really realises right now.
Why is it important? Well, I used to work for a company that wanted a web based way of doing sales quotes. The problem is that you need a nice document at the end where they can enter a bunch of text so that it feels tailored to that particular contract.
With Word this involved a bunch of mailmerging with the horrible Telemagic database with a bunch of Macros to create the document. With OpenDocument I can generate the base document itself from the database using any language of my choice. I can even add my own XML namespace so I can denote sections of the document that
were generated automatically and those that were added by the user.
The power of OpenDocument is not just in the ability to switch Office suites although that is obviously nice. It's in the ability for application developers to author and manipulate documents in powerful ways that simply aren't possible with macros or mail-merges.
OSS, through it's openness, is threatening to transform computing just like the PC transformed business. It's fucking awesome.
Simon.
Media Player Classic (open source). Who needs WMP anyway? :)
IrfanView (freeware) for image browsing and very basic manipulation, like gamma correction or applying photoshop filters
Notepad serves me just fine. Paint is crap. Wordpad works fine as well.
Windows gives alot of room for 3rd party developers to make money off of the lack of default applications. There's room for improvement and so people make those improvements and then are able to earn a living off of it. If the OS were to come with 4 copies of every imaginable type of software it would come on too many discs, be bloated, and leave no room for a developer to make money from their work. Yay linux! Reducing the software developer to a novelty act for decades.
Anyone besides me read that the first time through as Peeping Up Windows?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Whoa wait a minute here....
They're less statisfied because of the woeful default applications, unlike Linux you have to buy/download all your additional tools.
However when Microsoft tries to bundle things with the OS to solve this problem (think IE), they're demonized for being a monopoly and trying to leverage their OS to cut out the competition.
So which is it? Do we want an all-in-one OS and application suite or do we want a distinct separation of the OS from it's applications to prevent abuse.
I am NOT defending MS. I'm personally on the side that they're exploiting a monopoly. However this means you can't expect everything to "be there" when you're finished installing Windows.
Just a random ponder.... I wonder when M$ or others will accuse SuSE or RH of trying to stiffle the competition by bundling apps with the OS.
</devil's advocate>
... PuTTY
The Tomasek http://www.tomasek.cz/stary_soft/sdesk/ version not the newer one from Bresner.
It works amazingly fast and supports sticky windows, draging windows from one desktop to another, dekstop names, any number of virtual windows, short cut keys for any window. Lots of features than I have not seen in any other pager for Windows.
Rather than messing with the GIMP on Windows, I prefer to use Paint.NET for my light graphics needs. It's not as powerful as Photoshop or the GIMP, but it is quite nice and available under an MIT license.
If you want a dedicated terminal emulator replacemet for the truly sorry Windows telnet and HyperTerminal programs, Simon Tatham's PuTTY is an excellent choice. It also includes a solid scp (secure copy/ftp) client.
Cygwin in particular is what keeps me from chucking the whole thing and running Linux. I get all the command line scripting and Unix-like tools without the bother of having to figure out how to make my employer's mail client work on Linux.
At the very least I'd like to see compelling evidence supporting the statement. "The average user" is probably frustrated with computing in general, "the average user" hasn't tried any other operating system, and in my experience, when "the average user" tries another platform, the initial frustration spike caused by evertyhing being slightly different, is enough to see them run back to suckle at the Microsoft's corporate teat.
I sometimes feel I'm in a silent majority here, who actually acknowledges that all their average user friends except the arty kid, not only user windows, but haven't even considered anything else.
the majority of windows users are perfectly content
The majority of Windows users don't know any better.
Hell, that's Microsoft's business model.
Technoli
Bingo. But the topic becomes integration versus bundling. There is nothing wrong with providing a tool, such as including a web browser, chat program, mail program, graphics program, word processor or so on.
The link is not between the operating system and the applications, but the act of choice.
The key to Linux is that inserting a CD doesn't give you every tool you could want, but rather you need to tell it what you want by selecting "hey- I need productivity tools" and clicking it. You need to go "hey I need to dialup to the Internet" and install modem and PPP tools.
Contrast that to windows XP that offers _NO_ choice to software installed. If you think there is choice, you're thinking of Windows 2000 or 98 where they let you check off whether you wanted media player and outlook express (be it that it may only hide them, it still does the same end effect for the user). Windows XP installs do not prompt for software inclusion (maybe if you start tweaking INF files...).
Media player just shows up as the default media player and takes over associations from time to time. IE pops up for a Web URL and has an icon on the desktop by default. An install of XP doesn't give the user a choice to say "you know what- FireFox is the browser for me. no thank you " and then install FireFox. It doesn't give you the option to decline installing media player. Sure you could go through a nest of confusing (to a new user) menus for Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/remove components | system components | media tools followed by a very full dialog of information.
Given that, there is a degree of tools that are necessary and don't really compete with their counterparts. Notepad is a good example, as well as calculator. These are handy tools that don't mean a lot, and if you do need a powerful solution, you'll get UltraEdit or similar. These are arguably a part of the O/S that may or may not need removing.
So where am I getting at? The key reason why Microsoft got in trouble was it's INTEGRATION (IE as a part of the OS) and LACK OF CHOICE (media player installed by default) and not the fact that it was bundled on the CD. It's that no matter what a user thinks, IE is installed. That no matter what you say, you're getting a copy of media player that will always come up from time to time. That the user is not INFORMED that "hey- I have the option to install media player... maybe there are better/other players out there I should research and find something that is faster".
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Microsoft's Virtual Desktop Manager is not a powerful application.
Most of us looking for multiple desktops probably come from the Linux desktop world, and want many of those features: Keyboard navigation, edge flipping, an easy way to move application windows between virtual desktops and sticky windows.
Microsoft's Virtual Desktop Manager does none of this. In addition, it's pretty buggy-- switching between virtual desktops can leave many artificts on the screen, the toolbar for each virtual desktop may actually list applications from another virtual desktop and the toolbar may lose the toolbar icon for items on your current desktop.
And Microsoft hasn't really updated any of the features of this application in 3 years.
VirtuaWin is a pretty good app, and has most of the features listed above. In addition, there are dozens modules to add various features.
It's a little confusing to configure.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Pcalc - A very nice calculator with no stupid number buttons to get in the way. For when you don't need something complex that can do graphs and animations.
TClockEx - A nice little desktop utility that lets you configure the format of the system tray clock any way you want. (Note: Does not look good in XP unless you use the classic theme)
Technoli
TheOpenCD has a nice collection also
I've never used Virtuawin, but I have been using Virtual Dimension and have been really impressed with it. It integrates almost seamlessly with windows and is decently configurable. Another option to consider if (like me) you feel hindered without virtual desktops.
I thought WinDirStat looked cool so I checked it out, and lo and behold it's based on a similar Linux (KDE) application: kdirstat. Downloaded it just now ... very cool.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
I'm just one datapoint, but I sure hated Windows. I knew it, and I used it for ages, but I also fought it and struggled with it, watched it trash my data, fill my hard disk with clutter, cover my desktop with pop-up windows and spyware.
I tried Linux for half a year, really tried to like it. Ended up with a Mac, and now I like using a computer again.
Heh, and Windows is even worse once you've used OS X.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
In addition to all the lovely foss for windows, the only closed source program I ever recommend is nLiteXP . You basically copy your XP disc to a directory, and then sick nLite on it. It extracts the cabs and can really neuter it (Highly customizable with a slick GUI) and you can get your default XP install from ~2GB down to 400MB highly usable. Less if you wanted. nLite will make a new iso file that can be customized for auto install and service pack slipstreaming and driver install, all sorts of nifty things. You burn that and install.
So basically, you can have 350MB of core windows XP and another 500MB of the best FOSS for windows. A highly capable and speedy efficient XP box, its a great option for a lot of older hardware. I was doing this two years ago after getting fed up with closed and crappy apps, and then realized I might as well go all the way and use linux, so its a good intro to people who are curious about what open source offers. A lot of people were cautious about bringing free stuff to a closed platform, but I think it can only be good, as it increases awareness and may spur a platform switch like me. Also, not spreading freedom into an area where there lacks freedom sounds a lot like not donating food to an area that is starving. Neither will get people to move to linux/out of the third world.
Not mentioned: the PuTTY terminal emulator and ssh client, which lets you connect from your Windows box to some other system and so get some work done...
It also includes an scp implementation so you can securely transfer files between your Windows system and Unix boxes.
(Perhaps a niche market, but XKeymacs is useful for Emacs junkies stuck with Windows applications... there's also the Windows ports of GNU Emacs and XEmacs of course.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Let me add yet another recommendation - I really like Steffen Gerlach's (free) Scanner. It shows disk useage as a simple pie-graph, and lets you drill down to directories, delete stuff, open an explorer window, etc.
I'm quite impressed with it anyways, and it comes with source if you're into that.
Mac equivalents include WhatSize (free), OmniDiskSweeper (commercial and no reason to buy it, as WhatSize clones it completely), and even the Finder.
The problem is that I spent a long time on hibernation, and while I could sometimes get it to stop properly, it almost never restarted properly.
For sleep mode, Linux would usually work; but again, not always. I have far fewer problems with Windows than I did with Linux.
For the network: I know that Linux will do DHCP. That's how mine was configured. My complaint was that if I managed to make the laptop go to sleep on network A, and it woke up on network B, I would have to manually do the ifdown/ifup dance. Windows seems to assume that if it has gone to sleep it needs to renegotiate the network config when it is woken up, which is a safe assumption much of time, and a harmless one the vast majority of the time.
I'll admit that I don't mess around with changing my display resolution much; except that when I am docked at the office, it seems silly to be stuck in a 1400x1280 60Hz display if I have a 1600x1400 85Hz capable monitor sitting right in front of me. And that, plus the real, full-sized keyboard, is the only necessary justification for docking; anything else is just gravy.
Regarding the CDRs: the unfixated disks require something called DirectCD (part of the Roxio suite of products) in order to read; nothing else has been able to read them on any platform I've tried. I was stunned too.
And I've tried WINE. I even paid for CrossOver. And there are still some things that don't work under it (the Cisco switch management applet thing is the current gate).
The point of all this is that yes, I could do much (perhaps all) of my list on Linux; however, I'm not an 18-year-old living in my mom's basement anymore. I have a life, a wife, and a child; I no longer have hours and hours on end to fiddle with this and tweak that or whatever. If I can get things done without the fiddling and fussing it works much better for me, and for my employer.
But keep hacking on this stuff. Once it all "just works", I'm sure I'll come back to it because I really hate Windows. I just need it right now.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utili ties.htm