A clean desktop is a happy desktop!

* After a long hiatus, I have returned, prompted by ‘Surviving Windows’ by Charles Sebold and Chouser’s ‘Tools to make Windows Livable’. Both are in a similar situation as myself. Unix admins (of one flavor or another –more likely several flavors) who find themselves confronted with the necessity of a Microsoft Windows based computer for daily business use. They have listed the tools that they each employ on their desktops in order to get their jobs done. So, like the good little web-monkey that I am, I will follow suit.

o CygWin
o Tera-Term
o Multiple browsers - Netscape, IE, Opera
o QCD Player

Not exactly a long list, but allow me to explain. Besides testing website designs in multiple browsers, using Lotus Notes for corporate messaging and playing music (QCD Player), all of my day to day work is done from within the protective familiarity of the CygWin environment. I am fortunate enough to have a dedicated SunBlade workstation at my disposal so I perform my work from there. However, I am not particularly fond of an over-crowded work environment. Having both my windows workstation (a laptop with a docking station) and a Sunblade workstation on my desk is a bit overwhelming. I much prefer the austerity of a clean desk surface. My telephone, a writing pad, my cup of water and my laptop (sans monitor- I just plug the machine into the docking station to utilize an external keyboard and mouse) are the only things on my desk. This does force me into certain workarounds in order to do my job, hence the list above.

The CygWin environment gives me local access to a multitude of unix tools- a bash interface, ssh connectivity, keychain management, vi and others. CygWin also allows me to start an X-server on my laptop, ssh into my Sunblade and execute a window manager on the Sunblade, having it display on my laptop’s X-server and giving me access to a full compliment of unix tools- perl, emacs, grep, awk, fnord, etc… So, sitting at my desk, looking at my laptop, I have full access to both the windows environment (native to the laptop with Windows2000) and to the Gnome interface from the Sunblade. Quite acceptable.

The only real exception to the list is Tera-term. It is a windows program whose sole function for me (it is capable of telnet and ssh as well) is to provide a reliable serial interface to the various pieces of hardware I may have to configure. Sure, I could use hyperterm for this, but I much prefer the logging, configurability and stability that comes from using Tera-term.