A Microsoft World
For years everything was Microsoft-based, from MS-DOS (replaced CP/M) to Windows, and then Windows for Workgroups, with added networking connectivity and group sharing. If that was not enough, Microsoft developed a GUI (graphical user interface) for Windows that was again user-friendly, with their release of Windows 95! After '95 came Windows 98, and then Windows 98se, with enhancements and user environment tweaks that really made for a nice computing environment.
To the surprise of the world, Microsoft then improved on this interface and did a wonderful job with the release of Windows 2000, the inter-twining of Windows NT Workstation functionality with the Windows 98 user interface, making this particular release the best Windows release ever! It was reliable, stable, user-friendly, and connectivity was at an all time high!! Microsoft then, almost as if by magic, improved on perfection when they released Windows XP Professional, a tweaking of the 2000 interface, with yet another revamping of the GUI. This new release was to be the most popular ever for Microsoft! It was so popular, that for many years afterwards, with later releases of their OS, users simply refused to give up the Windows XP Professional! It was the top of the line for Microsoft!
Then, in an insane move to improve perfection, Microsoft came out with what I refuse to call a real operating system! They called is Windows "Vista". And a "vista" it was, for users all over the world were literally taking a "vacation" from upgrading their Microsoft systems, and for the next several years Windows XP Professional was the defacto standard for a PC operating system!
There Is Change In The Winds (or in the Windows)
With the release of Windows XP, Microsoft had come up with a product that was driver-friendly, with a friendly user interface, and easy networking connectivity between other workstations. Microsoft had reached a "peak" in their design of the user working environment. Then, with the release of Vista (not a real operating system), virtually everything was locked down, or the user was nagged to death before they could perform the task they wanted! I believe this was their attempt at battling the evergrowing, surmounting virus attacks that were aimed specifically at the Microsoft operating system, but this version just went overboard! It marked the end of an era, as users began to look "outside of the box" and consider the possiblity of using something else!
The world was no longer just a Microsoft world. People found that they liked having a free choice! Apple's products were proving to be a very good alternative, with ease-of-use, reliability, and a stable environment that looked really appealing! Additionally, and to their advantage, Apple doesn't change the GUI appearance with each new update to their operating system, as Microsoft had been doing. The users get a chance to become familiar with the OS and how it works. When the OS is updated, things just get better ... but they still work the same. You don't have to go to school again to learn the OS all over! People found that they loved this, and began to migrate over to the world of Apple!
The Fight To Complete!
LINUX has for many years, wanted to compete in the market for the PC's operating system. After all, LINUX was an operating system that already was running over half the servers around the world, and was rapidly replacing Windows servers because it was basically "FREE"! With the stability that could only be challenged by Solaris UNIX, LINUX was not only a good server OS, but an excellent OS for PC's and notebooks as well! It was reliable, powerful, and most importantly, it did not require even half the resources that Windows new "Vista" was demanding, just to function normally! LINUX could be run even on the older PC's, with minimal upgrades to memory, etc. and still do a wonderful job ... and all for FREE!
Then why wasn't LINUX growing in popularity? What was it's problem? The GUI. The user-interface, working with the OS, and even sofware compatibility, all were working against LINUX, in keeping it from being a serious challenger to Windows or Apple, for a popular OS.
It's A New World!
Today, however, with the most recent updates of openSUSE (v.12), and especially Ubuntu (v.11.10), things are looking up! The PC can now support a serious "student" of the new LINUX OS, and with great finess! Here's some of the items that are replaced in LINUX for Microsoft products, with continued functionality ...
Microsoft Office
was replaced with LibreOffice, an ancestor of the famous OpenOffice. The original OpenOffice suite was written to replace Microsoft Office. It reads/writes in the Microsoft format, (in addition to it's own), and easily replaces Microsoft Office in functionality, system load, and price! Two important key factors are counted for it's great success: (1) the user interface doesn't keep changing with every update released; and (2) it's "FREE"! These two are important factors for users! And to make things even better, LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice) runs on "all platforms"! You can run it on UNIX, on LINUX, on Mac OS/X, and even on Windows! Finally, user's are no longer "locked" to a particular Offie Suite, but rather have the freedom to 'choose' what they want, and what operating system (OS) they want to run it on!
Microsoft Outlook (email client, contacts, etc.)
Thunderbird's email client has been "nice" up to date, but their latest enhancements move it to the "wonderful" status! It's an excellent replacement for Microsoft Outlook, with text email or HTML formatted options, supporting custom fonts, formatting, and even customized signatures! The best thing about this client is that it uses IMAP and "sync's" with Google's gmail, so that your email and contacts, are all on the server, and yet on your PC as well! If, however, you don't want to install a "client" on your system, you can use Google mail in whatever browser you prefer, on any operating system! And why not? Google mail supports customized formatting of your email message "and" your email signature! It has vacation mode, filtering, and even customized email signatures for different email accounts, in case you send from "several" different email accounts using that one web-based interface! Oh, it's a new world out there now! And it's "FREE" with choices!
What About Windows-Only Apps?
With the release of "Virtual Box", you can now have any PC you want "on" your LINUX system, and still have the performance benefit of having LINUX as the main OS for your hardware! I have been running Ubuntu LINUX on my notebook PC and also had virtual sessions of Windows XP Professional and Solaris UNIX also running ... "at the same time"! It was like having 3 PC's hooked up to the network!! Only, I can take all of these in my IBM Thinkpad Notebook, and fold it up, and carry them with me!
Here's a good example of what you can do, for Windows needs, when you are using LINUX. If I need to run DreamWeaver, the website development software, and I know that DreamWeaver only runs on Windows, then all I have to do is to launch a "virtual" session of Windows XP Professional! With Virtual Box, you can run a Microsoft Windows XP Professional session on your LINUX workstation, and then utilize that app or the whole operating system (XP) while you are running LINUX! That's right! The Virtual Box is like VMWare, in that it allows you to run another OS's as separate systems on your PC, all at the same time! Unlike VMWare though, Virtual Box is absolutely and totally "FREE"! You heard me right - it's "FREE"! It's what is called "Open Source" ... developed by mankind, for mankind's use!
In LINUX, you can have 4 desktops to swap around between. This makes it easy to gather up all of your email sessions on 1 screen, and say your project on another, and a server OS maybe running on a 3rd screen (like SOLARIS UNIX), and then you can run a virtual session of Windows XP Professional on yet another desktop work area!
After you launch the Windows XP Professional "virtual" pc session, it switches to "seamless mode". A "Windows START BAR" appears at the bottom of your screen after it boots up. (I might add that Windows XP boots up really fast as a virtual system!) Now that you've booted Windows XP, you can run any Windows application you want to, on your system! To any casual onlooker it looks like your LINUX also runs Windows apps! In reality, it is possible because you can launch either from the same window. Any files you save go right back to your home directory on the LINUX system. You don't have to maintain 2 different copies of your data files! The best thing of all, though, is that LINUX does a wonderful job of allowing Windows XP to "hitch a ride", without loading down the system! Windows actually runs better on LINUX as a virtual system, than it did in native mode as the only OS on the hardware!
The mechanics behind how this works is not important to most users ... only that "now", they don't have to boot up into separate operating systems to get what they want! They can just boot up LINUX and start working, swapping back and forth where they need to in order to get the job done quickly! And with all that power that is now built into PC's just to be able to run the Windows operating system, your LINUX system will literally "sizzle" in performance!!
My Personal Solutions: (for you to try)
EMail:
I use "Google" for my email, exclusively. I use the Google email, calendar, tasks, and notes, and because it's all on Google, I also have it on my PC and on my smartphone! I don't have to 'sync' anything because it's automatically sync'd every time I use it!
And, if I want to run Thunderbird for my email client, it syncs all of my email, folders, contacts, etc. with Google. I can swap back-and-forth between the web browser client and Thunderbird! My email is always backed up/safe on the Google site! If I am where I do not have a network connection, the Thunderbird allows me to review all of the emails I've downloaded/sync'd and reply to them. Then, when I have a network connection again, these all "update" to Google right away! The emails get sent, any new emails come down, and it's all transparent to me!
Contacts:
I sync my contacts with Google! They are also on my Thunderbird email client, sync'd as well! They also update/sync with my Android smartphone, and can sync with an iPhone as well!
Calendar:
I sync my calendars with Google! My calendar even updates/sync's with my Android, and I used to sync them with my iPhone before I moved over to the Droid BIONIC (Android) phone that I use now, so I know this works with the iPhone too!
Tasks:
I sync my tasks with Google's gmail, using the Google Tasks! My Android updates/sync's using the GTasks (Google Tasks) app, which is available for both the Android and the iPhone. I installed this on my wife's iPhone and she loves it! Now, she can "track" what needs to be done, and we can use the same email for the tasks if we want to use a common task list! It's perfect! (and, it's available on any OS, LINUX, UNIX, Mac's, and even Windows!
Notes:
I sync my notes using Evernote. I haven't found a straight "notes" to sync with Google ... at least not one that is usable of all OS's, so I chose Evernote! Evernote allows me to go way beyond just notes. I can set up a project and create notes under that category. I can also include links and all sorts of stuff in these notes! It's like a portable "wiki"! Evernote sync's to the Evernote servers, backing my notes up to my account there, so I don't have to worry about losing them! AND, this means that they can be shared between my workstation and my smartphone, just like the email and calendars! Like Google, the Evernote service is free! And they have a client for Apple Mac's and for Windows. Unfortunately, they do not have an application for LINUX. Not to worry though! We LINUX folks are a resourceful breed! We now have "NixNotes"! NixNotes syncs with Evernote's servers, and is regularly updated when Evernotes is updated, so it's totally compatible! It's also FREE, so now we have "notes" syncing cross-platform, between OS's and smartphones!
*NOTE: I've never understood why, but many of these "cloud" vendors do not seem to see the value in maintaining synchronized, updated notes and tasks between your PC, phone, etc. along with the contacts and calendars. It's almost like they never have to take notes, or track tasks that need to be done! But, the solutions above should help you with your issues, allowing you to be very "mobile" with your data, and backed up as well! And, most importantly, they will allow you to "cut the chord" and set yourself "FREE" from being "locked-in" to Microsoft products! Now, you can use whatever you want!
Take a trip to the Apple Store! Check out their products! And, if you're really into exciting things, and on a budget, check out the various versions of LINUX! You can actually download them and burn a CD to install these OS's (LINUX) for "FREE"! My suggestion? Check out the Ubuntu first ... you'll love it! And if you like the "launch dock" that Apple has on their Mac's, no problem - LINUX has it for "FREE"! You'll find it by Googling "Cairo-Dock" ... you'll love your new "FREE" world of software and applications! Like I said before, it's a brand new world!!
On A Personal Note:
I have this pet 'deal' with any software vendor that thinks the whole world runs on Microsoft products, or on Apple products for that matter. They don't. In fact, much of the world is now migrating from Microsoft to Apple, and LINUX users are rapidly growing in numbers in leaps and bounds! There are countless users who are running LINUX systems, with Ubuntu being the most popular at the moment, and folks who are just checking out the other stuff like SOLARIS UNIX, or Apple's Mac OS/S (also a version of UNIX). It's a brand new world out there!
With the release and excellent support folks developing Firefox (web browser) and Thunderbird (email client), we have fantastic clients and features that now work on UNIX, LINUX, Mac's and even on Windoz ... uh, Windows! It's a courtesy folks! If you develop something, don't be so tunnel-visioned that you think your particular OS is the only one in demand. Think outside of the box! And remember, this is America! We are a land that prides ourselves on "freedom"!
IMPORTANT LINKS:
Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird
Evernote: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evernote&hl=en
NixNote: http://nevernote.sourceforge.net
Google Tasks App: http://www.appbrain.com/app/google-tasks-organizer/com.tinjasoft.tasks
Google GMail: http://www.gmail.com
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