I finally did it & now ashamed of my prejudice

A couple of years ago I planned to build A Dual Boot Hackintosh with Windows and macOS. You can read more about my hardware selections in this old post.
But after installing macOS and configuring it for my hardware, I got sucked into the Apple ecosystem and did not even bother to check for windows.

The Switch

For over a year, I used this custom-built machine with Linux and Big Sur as my only computer. It is when I recently bought a 13" M1 MacBook Pro on a deal, I stopped using this custom-built.
My Hackintosh was not lacking in any performance, but working from anywhere on a 13-inch lightweight easy-to-carry machine, whose battery holds for more than a day, is better than sitting or standing at a desk at a fixed place.

This switch rendered my Hackintosh a bit useless. So I decided to play with windows OS.

The prejudice.

I had been using windows for 15 years and had a preconceived notion that windows-OS is very slow compared to macOS.

What I missed realizing was the fact that I’ve always used MacOS on my machines but my windows machines were always company-provided machines.
It was not Windows OS that ruined the user experience but it was those perpetual file-system scanning software, sluggish antiviruses, firewall, and much more internal software that were always running on those company machines.

Also, a lot has changed in Windows 10, Maybe my prejudice is justifiable for earlier windows versions.

Current Windows is/may-be better

It may be a very controversial statement, but not for custom builds. Nowadays windows, OS is a far better choice than macOS for custom-built machines

Better Hardware

The biggest problem with macOS is, you can not install it on any intel processor above the 10th gen. The OS and architecture is completely different since the introduction of the M1 Mac. Therefore, you are stuck with either 10th gen processor with 400 series motherboards. Or older.

However, with windows, you can choose any latest hardware.

Hardware related Softwares

Another point in favor of windows is hardware-specific software.

There are many Softwares which can configure custom hardware behavior but you can install them only on windows. Like my Gigabyte-Arous-Ultramotherboard configurator, XPG color schemes, etc.

macOS Trackpad multitouch gestures

This was one of the great features that were not available outside of MacOS.

With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced the concept of Multi-Desktops that you can swipe across with gestures, including some more multitouch gestures. But due to hardware, the experience was never close to working on a MacBook.

That problem can be solved by this Logitech M720 Triathlon mouse where you can configure many gestures with Logitech Option + and they work flawlessly.
I use this mouse, but there are many others to choose from here, which you can configure with option+ and have a macOS-like experience

The Boot time

It's blazing fast, if you do not add a password and have only one user, in less than a second of switching on the power you will be inside windows. At least that's how it works on my Machine.

A fluid design

From Windows 10 onwards, the windows experience is as fluid as MacOS, provided you are not working on your company machine :-)

The terminal

If you are a technical user, you might hate windows for its CMD prompt with a limited command set and love MacOS for its easy-use terminal app, which can be configured with any shell although Zsh is enough.

You can however install bash on Windows OS by turning Developer-Mode on. However, it's not as powerful as the Terminal app & Homebrew combination. working with PowerShell is a nightmare in itself. But it still gets the simple tasks done

In the past, I had been very hard on windows OS, so I had to get this article out to repent my sins. :-) . That's all for this post, happy computing.

Comments

An Introduction to Quartz Scheduler

It's a common use case to have an enterprise application, perform specific work, at a specific time or in response to a specific action. In other words, “There is an ask to execute a Job upon a predefined Trigger ”. This brings us to the need for a Scheduling System. A system, where Jobs & Trigger can be registered and the system will manage the remaining complexity. Thankfully for the Java systems, Quartz is for rescue. It‘s an open-source library that has been extensively used in enterprise applications for more than a decade. Components in Quartz Sub System: Following are the all major component in the Quartz subsystem: Scheduler : It’s the control room of Quartz. It maintains everything required for scheduling, such as managing listeners , scheduling jobs , clustering, transactions & job persistence. It maintains a registry of JobDetails , Listeners & Triggers , and executes Job & Listeners when their associated Trigger is fired. SchedulerFactor

Unable to Redo in VS-Code & Intellij

Since the beginning of personal computers, few keyboard shortcuts are common among all operating systems and software. The ubiquitous cmd+c (copy), cmd+v(paste) , cmd+z (undo) and cmd+y (redo) I am not sure why, both of my favorite IDEs, Visual Studio Code & Intellij decided to not use cmd+Y for redo.Below are the quick steps to configure cmd+Y for a redo in VS-Code & Intellij Visual Studio Code Open VS Code & Go to keyboard shortcuts There will be a search bar at the top Type “ redo “ in the search bar. You can see on my system its still mapped to shift+cmd+z Double click on ⇧ ⌘ z and the below box will appear. Do not click anywhere or type anything on the keyboard except the key you want to assign, in our case it was cmd+y, so type cmd+y Press Enter and you are done. Now you can use cmd+z for undo and cmd+y to redo like always Intellij It is also as simple as VS-Code Open IntelliJ & go to Preferences In the search bar search for the redo. In the ri

My Custom Built Desktop. The Questions & The Answers!

If you want to avoid overpriced pre-builts like the M1 Mac Mini, Mac Pro, or Dell XPS Desktop without compromising on performance, a self-built desktop is a preferred option. It's also a great choice if you enjoy building things. custom built with ASUS-PRIME-P If you choose to build a custom PC, be prepared to invest time in researching and assembling compatible components. In this post, I'll share my experience building this colorful powerhouse. I'll cover: Why did I do it. Key questions to ask when selecting components Thought process behind component choices Components used in my build Benchmark comparisons . ** My second custom-build **. *** Disclaimer: Not an Apple product. Just a free apple sticker is used *** Why did I do it I decided to get a desktop during the pre-MacM1 era (yes, that’s a thing). After browsing many websites, I found that well-configured prebuilt PCs were overpriced, while cheaper ones had subpar components. Unable to choose between the option

Time Zones, Meridian, Longitude, IDL… It's more politics than science.

Once, I was working on a few geospatial APIs handling many time zones. While writing tests, I realized I did not know much about timezones. A lame excuse might be, my subpar schooling as a village kid. Nevertheless, I decided to turn the pages on timezones, what I found was more politics than science. Photo by Arpit Rastogi on Unsplash Before diving into anomalies, let’s talk about history then we will go to science followed by politics. History The world without time zones By 300 BCE, the western world agreed that the earth is round. Each developed civilization devised its unique distinct system to measure distances, times & absolute locations, but relative to prime locations within their civilizations. It all worked in ancient times because long-distance travel was not prevalent among common people. Only merchants or armies traveled long distances. And they already developed systems that worked on their predetermined routes, irrespective of the time differences between locatio

BDD (1) — Behavior Driven Development

A wise man ( narcissist me ) once said, “Life is all about the question and answers. The trick to a meaningful life is, To ask the right questions to yourself, so you can get on the right path to search for the answer .” The very first question one should always ask oneself is WHY. Let's discuss our WHY in the current case. Why BDD Let's take a step back and start with the well-known software development practice TDD ( Test-Driven Development). In TDD, the very first thing developers do is, set up the technical expectations from the code by writing failing test cases. After the expectation is set, the code is written/modified to finally pass all of the failing tests. It's an Acceptance driven development strategy . TDD works fine to create a robust technically working product. But the whole TDD approach revolves only around technical teams. It barely involves the business analysis or product owners to validate the business aspect of a feature, they get involved only aft

kaleidoscope

Search This Blog