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For more than a decade now, I am building up and relying on my personalized computer
environment.
Well, what does that mean?
I have not created a new operating system (although I would like to).
And, of course, I do not have a perfect, humane working environment already,
but I am striving for it.
I just started to work with Linux, so some of the following features are still
MSWindows-only features, but I will soon have my Linux to behave like I want...
To put it all together, the "perfect workspace" I am aiming at should be:
I am agreeing on and influenced by many of Jef Raskin's design principals. In particular, I appreciated reading his famous book The Humane Interface. You might also look at his (unfortunately!) last great project: http://rchi.raskincenter.org/ (formally known as The Humane Environment).
I am currently using the following applications, tools, shell extensions to realize (as far as possible) my perfect workplace. Whenever possible I try to use applications which are (a) open-source and (b) cross-plattform running on every OS (the same way).
E-Mails
Mozilla Thunderbird (freeware) is my choice to handle e-mails. I am using IMAP to store and manage my emails, which is important to guarantee the ubiquitous constraint. However, this also demands for a good (broadband) internet connection.
You can install extensions for Thunderbird. One of my favorites is the QuickFile extension, which allows move some email(s) very quickly to some email folder. You invoke moving the email(s) by pressing ALT+Q. Then you enter a few letters of the envisioned folder and the extension searches incrementally for matching folders. Choosing the correct folder and pressing ENTER finally moves the email without having to browse the email folders with the mouse. This extension is a must!
Surfing the Web
Mozilla Firefox (freeware) is my choice to surf the web. It allows convenient and quite safe browsing. Furthermore, you can install useful extensions. One of the most important ones is the adblock extension, which allows to filter out annoying advertisements.
Bookmarks... I am never ever using the proprietary and dump bookmark management
that is realized in any standard web browser. The categorization of the bookmarks
have to be done manually (instead of semi-automatically), you may and must choose
exactly one category (folder) per bookmark, searching for bookmarks or categories
is a punishment, and the bookmarks are kept locally on the PC and in proprietary
format (even the HTML output of mozilla is ugly).
The alternatives I am proposing and using are not good but better:
1. I am (miss-)using a blog (WordPress) to store interesting web pages together with some short description, info. That way, the "bookmarks" are stored at one place and, hence, ubiquitously available to me and my friends. As nearly all blogs react to a standard API (e.g. MetaWeblog-API), even applications can easily use my bookmarks for whatever cool stuff.
2. del.icio.us offers a simple web interface for bookmarking interesting web pages and keeping them at one place. Bookmarks can be "tagged" using multiple tags, whereas del.icio.us automatically processes the web page and proposes good tags you or other people use - great!! It also offers an easy to use API to manage the bookmarks from within an application.
Development work
eclipse is a cross-platform
and open-source development environment.
I am coding Java with it and, since last week, even LaTeX-ing with it
(see here).
eclipse is good and growing. You can get plugins for nearly everything. And, for me,
the best thing is, it is the same on any PC and on any OS.
Multi-Desk
XDESK (not freeware) is my choice to enable switching between multiple desktops. Although this tool is not freeware, I am willing to pay for something that is such important for me. Moreover it provides some additional, "addictive" features.
In the past, I used a freeware tool called multidesk, however, it did not cooperate well with all applications/tools.
Multi-Clipboard
Hamsin Clipboard (freeware) is a must when doing text work. With this clipboard extension you can copy/cut several text snippets to the clipboard as normal (using CTRL+C/X). These text snippets are stored in a clipboard stack and can be pasted in the order and amount you like. For example, you can copy three text snippets, then paste the last one, then the second one, then first one and then, again, the second one, etc. For coding work this tool is absolutely a must.
There is another tool available, which is also freeware and seems to be even better: ArsClip. Unfortunately, I did not yet manage to change ArsClip's shortcuts to coincide with Hamsin's. So, I would have to change my decade-long behavior, however, this would hurt my dependable constraint - well, sorry...
It is important for me to be able to invoke frequently used actions/tools in a fast and dependable way, whereas dependable means modeless and always in the same way.
To achive this, I added a folder in the Windows Start menu. The name of this folder begins with "1", e.g., "1_Apps". In there I store links to applications/tools and shell scripts I often need. The important thing here is to give the links names with different starting letters/numbers. For example: Start menu / 1_Apps contains (among others) the following links:
That way, I can invoke the so often used shell by pressing the keys WIN,1,1. Note, that the Windows key is not hold done, but released before pressing the number key 1. Pressing "1" the second time finally brings up the DOS shell. The same way I press WIN,1,i to invoke IrfanView.
You can of course have more than on such folder. The important this here is, that the key sequence to invoke something is always the same, i.e., that the invocation stays modeless and, hence, dependable.
I have configured my KDE (Linux) to listen to the "same" shortcuts. Well they are not really exactly the same: I had to change the key sequences to WIN+1,1 (hold WIN while pressing 1) instead of WIN,1,1 for the shell for example, but it's similar enough that I do not have to think about it and can go on working without loosing my flow.
Talking about keeping/loosing the flow: Using the Program folder in the Windows or KDE start menu is not appropriate! Whenever you install another programm, a previously memorized key sequence may not lead to the same program as before. This is not only annoying but also distracting and eventually leads to losing the "flow".
In KDE (Linux) you can of course use ALT+F2 (enter command) to invoke applications, however, I would discourage using the drop-down box for the most recent applications matching some entered starting string as this is again not modeless.