and thirdly

The rules for computing happiness

Back by popular demand:

Alex Payne has the following rules for a healthy computing experience. I do agree with all of them.

The list

On software:

Use as little software as possible.

Use software that does one thing well.

Do not use software that does many things poorly.

Do not use software that must sync over the internet to function.

Do not use web applications that should be desktop applications.

Do not use desktop applications that should be web applications.

Do not use software that isn’t made specifically for your operating system. (You’ll know it when you see it because it won’t look right or work correctly.)

Do not run beta software unless you know how to submit a bug report and are eager to do so.

Use a plain text editor that you know well. Not a word processor, a plain text editor.

Do not use your text editor for tasks other than editing text.

Use a password manager. You shouldn’t know any of your passwords save the one to your primary email account and the one to your password manager.

Do not use software that’s unmaintained.

Pay for software that’s worth paying for, but only after evaluating it for no less than two weeks.

Thoroughly delete all traces of software that you no longer use.

On hardware:

Do not buy a desktop computer unless your daily computing needs include video/audio editing, 3D rendering, or some other hugely processor-intensive computing task. Buy a portable computer instead.

Do not use your phone/smartphone/PDA/UMPC for tasks that would be more comfortably and effectively accomplished on a full-fledged computer.

Use a Mac for personal computing.

Use Linux or BSD on commodity hardware for server computing.

Do not use anything other than a Mac at home and Linux/BSD on the server.

The only peripheral you absolutely need is a hard disk or network drive to put backups on.

Buy as large an external display as you can afford if you’ll be working on the computer for more than three hours at a time.

Use hosted services in lieu of hosting on your own hardware (or virtual hardware) for all but the most custom applications.

On file formats:

Keep as much as possible in plain text. Not Word or Pages documents, plain text.

For tasks that plain text doesn’t fit, store documents in an open standard file format if possible.

Do not buy digital media crippled by rights restriction technologies unless your intention is to rent the content for a limited period of time.

My own (Minimal)

I’ve been living by those (and similar) rules pretty much since I started using computers on a professional level.

What I would add is the following:

Keep your desktop free of clutter.

Try to use open source software whenever possible.

Donate money to the programmer that wrote the program that is good in your opinion and you use it frequently. It will help maintain a higher standard of software out there.

Stay away from DRM, it’s bad for your health.

DO NOT USE WINDOWS. It’s flawed by design, it’s unstable, it’s insecure and considers people to be dumb.

DO NOT USE IE (Internet Explorer). Use a browser that adheres to web standards and that has a minimal and clutter free UI (user interface). The web experience should be as easy as possible without the need to try to understand a badly designed UI.

Take time after you installed a new OS or bought a new computer to properly set your firewall.

Use encryption when saving your personal files.

DO NOT OPEN binary attachments that arrive on an email. Even when they come from friends and family.

Stay away from social networks. If you insist in being part of a social network, DO NOT POST your entire life on it.

If you are part of a social network and will upload a photo in which another person is featured, ask for his/her permission first.

DO NOT TAG PICTURES on social networks.

99% of the places DO NOT need your social security number or any other personal ID number. DO NOT REVEAL this to anyone unless it’s strictly necessary and you are present. Certainly NOT over an email or phone.

STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS. It’s bad. (Yes, I know I already wrote about this)

Turn off your computer when you are not using it. It will save energy and money and it will keep bots and other nasties from probing your computer for security vulnerabilities.

I have some more but these pretty much summarize everything.