Why I need Windows (at least for now)

• Quicken and TurboTax are not available for Linux.

• Adobe Acrobat is not available for Linux (although Acrobat Reader is).

• Various commercial websites insist on Internet Explorer.

• SBC Unified Communications (Web-based voicemail and FAX) requires Windows because it wants to install the Java Media Framework for Windows only. It also works in Internet Explorer but not completely in Mozilla Firefox. (The message player applet seems to require IE.)

• I use Cakewalk (now available as Sonar) for my occasional music work. I'm looking forward to Rosegarden under Linux catching up with Cakewalk at some point.

• Beyond Compare is a great tool for comparing and merging source trees. If there is a Linux tool that's as good, I don't know what it is (diff does not fill the bill). I find this to be an indispensable tool, and I use it also on my Linux filesystems via Samba.

• Xenu is the best tool I am aware of for checking website links, and as far as I know it's a Windows-only application. (This would pertain only to people maintaining lots of hyperlinks at some website.)

• I often need to try out a demo under Windows.

• Historically, commercial software products support Windows first, the Mac second, and Linux/UNIX a distant third or not at all. However, there is a lot of free software aiming to fill these holes on the UNIX front.

• Apps for which I prefer Windows include MS Word and Power Point. OpenOffice (formerly StarOffice) provides a set of Linux apps which are counterparts for (and supposedly even compatible with) MS Word, Excel, and Power Point, but I have consistently had minor problems with Word and Power Point documents -- mostly missing ``list bullets'', font substitutions, and spacing/layout errors, but sometimes broken figures and spurious lines. I also have not been able to get media files to play from a click in the Office counterpart of Power Point. I do not often create Word or Power Point documents, but I frequently receive them from students and colleagues. In place of Power Point, I use the ``powerdot'' class file in L^ATEX to create hyperlinked PDF files (see FC5 section below). (Others use the beamer class file in L^ATEX, which is comes standard with the tetex distribution.)

In summary, I need Windows mainly for ``random compatibility'' and a few key applications not available under Linux, and I generally use Linux for all development work. When I need to work in Windows for extended periods, the Cygwin distribution helps immensely (UNIX tools compiled for a windows environment).