Javability (Java, Zaurus, Linux, Live)

26.12.04 16:04 My Office Desktop (

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At home, I use since 4 years only Linux and open source applications. Read my previous post.

At the office, I use Windows XP pro. And even if some of you (and specially some of my friends) will kill me for this, I really think that Windows XP is a good desktop operating system. The major problem is still the lack of transparency that I love on Linux/Unix. You don't know when you change something what it will affect. Sys-V OS with their /etc configuration files are much easier to understand (at least if you want to understand what happens in he background or when you try to identify the source of an error).

Another question is which application I'm running. And here I must say that I see no need for MS anymore.

Mail: I'm used to Outlook because it is the standard at work, but most of the time I use thunderbird, and also kontact on Linux. They offer many advantages that I miss with Outlook. Security, mouse gestures, customization, plenty extensions, themes, very good Bayesian junk mail filter, spell checking, digital signature/encryption, cross platform, message labeling, search folder, ... And all this build in or very well integrated. You don't care about X third party products you have to add to your mail client before getting this functionally.

Browser: not much to say here, Firefox is better than IE in all aspects. Security, accurate rendering, very good html printing, tabs, popup blocker, search without window, extensions (I use weather, blog this, gestures, switch proxy, download manager tweak, rss). All plugins are working nice (java, flash, shockwave, real, acrobat).

Office: OpenOffice 1.x is already quite good, even if sometimes not everything is as expected: look and feel not such nice as other windows apps, few MS office import filter problems, no numbering in tables, ... But it is already very usable. Impress (presentation) worked well most of the time (import of PowerPoint presentation was mostly no problem) and Calc (sheet/excel) was exactly what I needed. But now comes OpenOffice 2.0 and everything I complained about previously is on the roadmap and (more or less) implemented: application looks very nice ("Native System Theme Integration"), no problem for now with any MS Word document, tables look much better and lists/sub-tables are working, more wizards, context sensitive toolbars, digital signature and last but not least: access like database front-end with build-in database (works on external database to through jdbc/odbc). OO Base offers table creation/change, query editor (graphical), forms editor and reports. Try it out, you will be impressed.

Development: being Java developer, I use Eclipse, even though JBuilder is great to (never used IDEA, sorry), but expensive. Eclipse is my development 'workspace'. It integrates Java, C/C+ dev tools, debugger, profiler, web development, database, J2ME, Junit and graphical GUI editor. I missed many thing, so check out Eclipse by yourself and add plugins you prefer.

Updates: Windows update works fine for me, even if I would like not only use it for update but also for installation. I love apt-get, time to port it to Windows :-). FireFox, Thunderbird, Eclipse bring there own update mechanism.

Web editor: Even if NVU is quite new and only beta for now, it offers exactly what I need to maintain my homepage.

Audio editing: Audacity is nice. What I miss is save of midi files, but it is planned.

Project management: I don't think MS Project is good for project management, but at least it makes nice gantt diagrams which are good to explain the schedule other peoples (you should not use it for resource management, automatic schedule ...). A good alternative is Ganttproject. It can build gantt diagrams, assign resources to tasks, export as html, PDF or csv. It is actively developed and you can try the webstart version (no PDF export in this version). Big missing features are: no MS project import/export, focus. Many features are on the wish list.
Update: Open Workbench seems to be a good alternative. Will try it out and blog about it soon.

Charts: I didn't found so far an alternative to Visio. On Linux, kivio is nice, on Windows I tried SmartDraw which I don't like (but at least it is much cheaper than Visio). I saw also Dia but didn't try it out so far. If you know some, let me a comment.
Update: for UML, JUDE seems to be an alternative.

As you see, there are also many good alternatives on Windows to proprietary Software.

posted by Jean-Marc Autexier | 0 comments | Permalink | Send to Friends | Google it!

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