Windows is primarily popular for its apparent user-friendliness. Unix-based OSs are chosen for their open and active communities. Windows is sufficient for ‘general purposes’ like listening to songs, playing games, making documents, sending mail, browsing the Internet. Unix-based OSs may seem more convenient for ‘geeky purposes’ like tweaking with the computer, writing programs, and pushing boundaries.

One feature that strongly separates Windows and Unix-based OSs is the shell. Windows has a command prompt from where various programs can be run using commands. It is more powerful than what most realize but is rarely used. On the contrary, users of Unix-based OSs greatly depend on their very powerful shell (which is run through a computer terminal or console) and run most programs through it.

Users forced to switch to Windows are commonly peeved by the limitations of the command prompt. Nevertheless there is an alternative to make them feel more at home: Cygwin. In fact, there are a few other alternatives, but Cygwin is what I’m very comfortable with and is also, IMHO, more exhaustive than others. Learning Cygwin is very useful even for Windows users to feel more comfortable when they ever encounter Unix-based OSs, or work in a multi-platform environment where you might have to mix Unix with Windows.

From here on, we shall regularly try to learn Cygwin, a nibble at a time. Share this news to your friends who are interested in learning UNIX or Cygwin. We’ll decide on the bite-size based on the community response.

Post from: EveryJoe

Windows, Other Operating Systems, Cygwin

Speaking about hope, for those part of a small startup and already feeling the pinch of the enconomic crisis, don’t lose hope. Check out Jason’s good news about Microsoft’s BizSpark helping startups. Who knows, this could be just perfect for your needs. And we all thought M$ is a selfish giant taking away our $s. Well, many still do.

Milo thinks that Windows 7 may be faster, but wonders whether it is because of the applications that are not installed on the laptop. For the beginners, Windows 7 is the Microsoft Windows successor of Vista.

Juan is impressed with the new sleek Aluminum MacBook, raving about its touch and feel, and how the old MacBook looks like a boy in front of the new all-grown man. :-) Pun orignally unintended and here unexpected.

Claire shares a few features to look forward to in Ubuntu 8.10 and a tool for GNU/Linux that reads your email and e-books aloud for you.

Did you ever use Windows 3.x? Do you still think about it? I do get nostalgic once in a while about some Windows 3.x OS on which I had learned Excel and Foxpro. Jayvee gives us the sad news that Windows 3.1 is no more. Gone. Dead. Puff!

Post from: EveryJoe

Tech Channel Roundup After Election Fever Dies