Consistent with the previous post, I’m going to offer some narrative about my internal process so that you’ll understand how it works.
For the time being, I’ll be using the fancy router as my home server. Right now that’s mostly a matter of firewall and FTP server. Only a couple of folks have expressed interest in the FTP service, but that’s fine. It’s my personal cloud storage; I use it and that’s reason enough to run it. Meanwhile, this sexy workstation computer bought with your generous donations is the place where I create and format the content. It is still very much the shadow server behind all the stuff I do with the two blogs, the books, and static website content, etc. So the basic question is what can I do to make this thing overlap as much as possible my comfort zone for producing and shaping that content, with sufficient flexibility to adapt when I discover God has something different in mind.
I run Windows in a virtual machine on my computer. I actually like Windows, mostly for what it does manage to do, despite all my other objections. Microsoft is accountable to God, not to me. All I can do is offer my reaction to what they’ve done. It is horrible technology, but Windows did a marvelous job of capturing the vast majority of user’s instincts and general hopes and dreams for what a PC could and should do. Sure, some of it was the result of manipulation and destroying sometimes better options offered by competition, but were the net result unacceptable, nobody would be using it. You can theorize all you like about whether the current business environment would be the same without the Redmond Borg’s market behavior, but we are where we are and this is how we get things done right now. In the context, I still like running Windows for some of my work.
What I can’t tolerate is how Microsoft seizes increasingly greater levels of control over users’ work environment. Somewhere between Win2K and XP was the pinnacle of usability and adaptability. It was buggy and riddled with security vulnerabilities, but that period was the best balance between moving forward with new technology while keeping the door open for old habits that served well some major portion of users. It was also just vulnerable enough that technicians could find ways to pry open the fingers of Microsoft management and do some of the things Windows was not supposed to do. With Vista and Win7, MS managed use the excuse of security and stability for closing those doors. Windows became less breakable and more tightly locked in every sense.
When MS gives with one hand, they take far more with the other. For example, I’ve discovered through some background tech chatter that if you choose to install Win7 now, one of the first required updates you get will break Windows Update on many systems — and you cannot fix it. While we cannot be sure of the criteria, it’s probably entirely intentional that your hopes of a fresh install of Win7 on some hardware now will be subject to the MS’s approval. And with every passing week, we get new announcements of yet more ways MS portrays the Borg mentality about what you will and will not be allowed to do with your hardware and their software.
Again, I don’t hate the technology but the attitude. I use Linux because, while I still have to deal with a certain amount of attitude from developers, it’s nothing like what we get from MS. So I run XP in a VM where it’s protected and I can still use the productive technology that’s frankly better than what I can get on Linux otherwise. I also run WINE for a couple of programs that work well enough without having to fire up the VM. These are choices I make in pursuit of God’s glory, so human logic and the opinions from various advocates just don’t matter.
By the way, in WINE I run Notepad++ for every day plain text composition and HTML formatting tasks. It does more with less hassle and less horsepower, and does it better, than the editors I can get made for Linux. I run Word 97 for basic pre-formatting in my books. In the VM with XP I run Word XP for the final product passed to my publisher. I use those versions because I have copies with valid product keys. If you must know, LibreOffice comes with some frankly nasty defaults that ruin the document formatting so that the published product is flawed. Changing those defaults doesn’t seem to stick, as it keeps inserting them back into new documents regardless of what I do with the templates. Complaining to the developers has proven pointless. And to be honest, I have grown much more comfortable with the subtle collection of habits associated with MS Office up through the XP version. The XP version won’t run under WINE; Office 97 does and I still think it was just dandy, but my publisher doesn’t like it.
Some of this reflects simply being set in my ways. There is nothing inherently good or righteous in change itself. I also don’t reject change that improves my service. We each must explore our own convictions and follow the path that brings us peace with the Creator.
