Alan Coleman's

2008s project at work will be the next step in our re branding exercise, the development of an in house application to manage our content, otherwise known as a CMS. The technology will come courtesy of Microsoft’s .NET framework, that being a logical progression from the classic ASP (Visual Basic) set up used to create the web site and Intranet.

It is an exiting, if terrifying prospect, one that threatens a complete immersion in a whole new area of uncharted technology. However there is hope, already the human logic of those that developed this framework has started to show itself as little different from those from the open source sector. For instance, I felt almost at home with the concept of Microsoft’s Data Tier Components, and begrudgingly acknowledged that someone has probably put a great deal of thought into what I’ve always known as, Layer Separation.

This is only the beginning of a momentous project, but what is clear already is that the .NET Framework is not quite the bloated WYSIWYG editor that people like me used to say it was.

What’s this, Something positive about Microsoft?

Maybe, only time will tell.

There are busy times ahead. The company I work for as a web developer is changing its name, brand and identity. It is, to say the least, a task that involves an incredible amount of commitment and organisation from every aspect of the business.

The initial meetings of a few months ago seemed like a formality, just do this then that then everything else should slot into place, that was the plan anyway. Everything seems so easy when scribbled down in a flow diagram with arrows in yellow highlighter, and I’ve always found that approach to be quite good for holding back from getting stuck in.

There comes a point, as with anything in life, when the talking stops and the physical activity has to begin, which is usually the point where the scale of the undertaking is realised. The web site in question has evolved over a number of years and apart from some basic product titles and codes it is entirely static. It does however employ some fairly cool code that communicates with our CRM and back end on the fly, this is its saving grace.

Photoshop Elements, a fantastic product and a piece of marketing genius. A stripped down version of the fully fledged software install, with all the functionality you’re likely to need unless you work in Hoxton or drink Latte Coffee or wear a Nike Windcheater. Ideal for developers like myself who just need to cut and crop and maybe do bit of contrast correction. It had the Adobe professional interface from Illustrator and Photoshop so if you learnt on one then it’s all easy, same menus, same shortcuts, same everything. All for about £50 – it’s all good, as everyone says now.

So Photoshop Elements, it’s all good. At least it was.

So there I was in one job using my trusty old Elements to great effect, then I got made redundant and moved on to my current position and they used Illustrator for Photo manipulation. Bad as it is impossible. No, “Elements” I said nodding happily, “That’s all I need”.

Elements turns up and it’s version 5 which I start to get exited about. After loading it up however, nothing could have prepared me for the horror that awaited me in my new bling monitor. I actually felt my heart drop with disappointment as I looked at my beloved Elements in utter amazement.

It’s been domesticated. By that I mean it now looks like the kind of thing that you got free with a cheap digital camera in 2003. Gone is the familiar interface, shortcuts and working environment, and in its place are huge buttons and tacky picture album templates. It is, f**king awful. Nothing works now, a prime example is the resize tool that you can no longer constrain with the shift key! The most basic piece of Adobe functionality!

Also, it’s made the Microsoft mistake of trying to be too helpful. It leaves an icon in the tray that leaps into action whenever a new device appears, helpfully looking for photos. “No, stop! Go away, I don’t want you to help me find those pictures tucked away deep in the bottom of my Flash thingy”

So now I’ve got to go back to the IT manager and ask for CS like a greedy student who’s never satisfied. I’ll never use most of the functionality and the company will have to float on the stock market to afford it.

If it’s not broken, please, don’t fix it.

On Tuesday I wrote an article on BoomaBlog about how Apple Mac computers get on my nerves. It was a little harsh perhaps, but despite my obvious inverted snobbery it did get me thinking about the pros and cons of Mac or PC from a development point of view.

I once heard the Apple Mac touted as computers for people, an alternative to the human orientated wintel PC. At the time I was a Mac user and thought this seemed like a perfectly reasonable comment to make, after all the Mac has a half decent OS and the hardware is as stylish as it is well built. Also, SCSI and 16 bit sound came as standard. The PC on the other hand doesn’t look all that and has an operating system who’s musical equivalent would probably be James Blunt.

All was well and good with me and Mac until I left a creative industry to start college, which was a PC stronghold. The change over wasn’t that difficult as most things where in the same place, if anything the machines at college seemed to be that bit more stable than the Macs I’d used before.

The true turning point came on an autumn day in London. Whilst working for Fatty on a paving job at the Millbank Tower (that’s another story) I found a dented PC in a skip, covered in brick dust. Whilst it wasn’t going to break any records for speed, I used it for the whole of the first year and even used it to build an ASP site. Things got better when I realised that the cracked software available worked flawlessly, I was hooked.

The throwaway PC theme continues with our home network. The two laptops that myself and Mandy use were also dragged out of a bin. They can be customised, salvaged for parts or modified with open source operating systems very easily, and that’s where the fun starts.

It’s because the PC has become so cheap that users don’t get attached to them. As a patronising analogy, consider having a vintage Triumph Spitfire in the garage, great for impressing your mates, but an old XR2 would be faster, cheaper and more reliable. So despite the let down of its most popular OS, it is the common old PC that is actually the peoples computer. An everyday tool that can be anonymously recycled, never too precious to leave outside with a label on saying, ‘Please take me, I work’.

The end of the road for Microsoft Windows and myself could be in sight, just. I’ve been banging keyboards for years, swearing and becoming increasingly frustrated by the Windows experience.

For despite what the misleading adverts might suggest, the whole package is an unnecessarily bloated afterthought that makes for a clunky and tiresome encounter. If it’s not popping warning balloons up, it’s trying to download some security update or bloody instant message centre with pictures on it. There seems to be little distinction between a teenage bedroom and a professional environment.

In short, it’s simply not good enough.

So I’m turning to Linux for some salvation, and with some generous help from the forums and Paul in I.T. I’ve managed to load an old laptop with Fedora Core 5. First reactions are extremely positive. It’s fast, uncluttered and supported by quite literally millions of users the world over. For me however, it’s the nature of the open source software community that appeals. The idea that there can be a viable alternative that is a superior product based on functionality, rather than profit.

I switched from Mac OS to Windows after moving on from the music industry to web development in the late 90s.What’s most surprising, is that it’s taken me six years to finally jack it in and join the millions of other Linux users out there.