Matt Cutts 30 day challenge for October: No Microsoft Software | Hacker News Reader

Matt Cutts 30 day challenge for October: No Microsoft Software

mattcutts.com

46 pointstshtf38 comments

Having not used any MS software for years outside of work and occasional troubleshooting for friends, this just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose, but for someone who could even consider doing this (i.e., no vital Windows-only applications, no PC gaming, etc.), I can't imagine it making much of a difference. If my day job didn't involve .NET, I'd never touch MS software and wouldn't really notice. The only practical difference to me is remembering whether to type "ls" or "dir" and that installing/upgrading software on Ubuntu is easier and requires less rebooting.

Okay, on second though, this is sounding like I'm bashing him, which is absolutely not the case. His previous 30-day challenges involved substantial lifestyle adjustments, with non-trivial time commitments and the whole 30-day challenge concept is awesome. It's just that compared to previous challenges, "use Ubuntu" seems not very ambitious.

Is it just that I've gotten unusually lucky in my experiences with Ubuntu or something?

> Is it just that I've gotten unusually lucky in my experiences with Ubuntu or something?

I don't think so. I made the transition from Windows XP to Ubuntu earlier this year and it was surprisingly painless. In fact, the main thing I noticed is that most of the things I do with a computer actually got considerably easier in a Linux environment.

What I find interesting is how incredibly easy it is to do this. I use Microsoft products maybe once or twice a month, almost exclusively for testing (or opening up the occasional Excel file, but that's just because I haven't yet bothered to install OpenOffice on my Mac). I don't even go out of my way to avoid Microsoft software, their products simply don't provide anything that I need.

Yea seriously, if you don't use windows it's not that tough. I'm a student using mac and haven't touched word this year yet, and that's about the only Microsoft app I can even use. Mac comes with text edit, calculator, even vim and bash. Great 'cause the environment is so similar to my Linux server.

Where Microsoft gets you is with advanced uses. People with sophisticated macros, vbscript, corporate workflows integrated with some Outlook feature -- these are the reasons why M$ is entrenched.

Challenge for November: No Google Software.

That's where I'd have trouble.

Search: I can use Bing or Yahoo, no problem here.

Mail: gmail is integrated deeply into my workflow. Hard to live without it.

Money: Adsense pays for my hosting bill so can't drop them, besides there is no worthy competitor with Adsense (for small blogs)

Analytics: Google's product is great and free but i would be very happy to try some alternative.

Docs: don't use google docs a lot. Not important.

Calendar: I have too few plans/appointments so a calendar is useless :-p

I can use Bing or Yahoo, no problem here.

I tried using Bing for a month. I lasted about 48 hours. One problem was that Google dominates Bing for technical searches and searches in Japanese, both of which are sort of important to me.

A bigger problem was that my fingers will type www.google.com into my URL bar without me even asking them to any time I have a question about something. (In browser search box, what's that? I'm stuck in my ways...) The only way I could have overcome this habit would have been using my hosts file to redirect google.com to a Bing server, and I was worried that would lock me out of the Google services I need to run my business.

I am using ctrl+l on chrome, so 2 keystrokes to get to a search 73,000 key presses (asides from search terms + enter) if I am doing 10 searches a day for 10 years.

If you are using the mouse to get to the location bar that's an insane time delay, but if you are using ctrl+l then typing "www.google.com" you are at something like 584,000 over the same 10 per day for 10 years period. That's an entire novel of "www.google.comwww.google.comwww.google.comwww.google.comwww.google.com", plus the time spent typing and the time for the extra unneeded page load. Think hard about changing to ctrl+k on firefox or ctrl+l on chrome (or ctrl+l plus "g" hotword on firefox if you got rid of the searchbar).

the dropdown suggestion bar will reduce the 584,000 somewhat

Makes you wonder what is easy to change. Apart from search, it's all difficult to swap over. In many ways, more difficult then office software or even an OS.

We're getting there.

besides there is no worthy competitor with Adsense (for small blogs)

If your blog has a product focus or could contextually be linked to a product (e.g. if you blog a lot about cameras, say) then I know people have had a lot of success with Chitika in this regard.

Y!'s analytics are neat.

>Money: Adsense pays for my hosting bill so can't drop them, besides there is no worthy competitor with Adsense (for small blogs)

Project Wonderful? They seem to get decent results:

http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/project-wonderful-v...

second that. Microsoft only during compatibility testing.

Google search, I'd hate to count how many times every day.

Other than that, analytics and adsense.

AdSense is a toughie.

Yahoo has a competitive analytics package (http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/), and really, Bing results are generally just fine. Sure, it'd be harder, but that's the point of the experiment.

That's why I try to keep our dependence on adsense to a minimum.

"... Challenge for November: No Google Software. ..."

That is a challenge. My blog is on appengine, I prototype appengine, groups, search. Have to think about that one.

MS is not a problem. I rarely use it now but Google I could not avoid. Gmail, Reader, Calendar, Docs etc etc etc

In some parts of Academia this would require no change at all. Our lab is all Linux or Apple.

A more eye-opening challenge would be: no free-open source software for a month, no services using open source software (no sites running on an open source OS or server etc.) and no operating systems which are even partly open source (so no OSX either).

Another less radical but still quite interesting variant would allow using open source licensed software (BSD, Apache etc.) but no free software (GPL, LGPL etc.).

I'm not sure if it's still true for Windows 7, but I remember that XP also used some BSD code in the network stack. The challenge shouldn't really be eye opening. Free working code will make its way into many pieces of software.

Your second challenge is more interesting, as it may illustrate the effect of using more restrictive copyleft licensing in terms of code reuse.

How is this a challenge? I've microsoft free for a few years. As mentioned above, the challenge would be no google software.

What about no Windows CE? You wouldn't be able to use many ATMs

Also a lot of POS (Point of Sale) software runs on windows. So no overpriced Starbucks coffee for 30 days.

Although his challenge is no software I don't get why he wont ditch his MS keyboard. There are plenty of nice keyboards out there they are not expensive so making the switch seems like a worthwhile thing to do.

In general, Microsoft hardware does a lot better with standards compliance than their software.

Why is it worthwhile if the microsoft one is good? I've never had any problems with microsoft keyboards or mouses myself, and he clearly says that he thinks they're "very nice".

This would be tough for me. Notepad and especially Calculator are an important part of my Quick Launch bar. And I'm kind of stuck using Vista because last I checked they don't write poker software for Linux.

Before I got this new laptop, I probably went more than two years without using a Microsoft product.

I don't know if I use any MS stuff in my day to day life anymore. I don't have Windows, but more importantly I don't use office. I do all my office related work on Google Docs. With that out of the way and being on the Ruby stack I don't have any real need for MS apps.

Ya if he actually gets to not using Google this won't be just a stunt saying "Hey Microsoft sucks, but I can't say that publicly so I'll instead show you how when Google OS comes out using it won't be a problem at all".

I've been dabbling in Linux for years. But recently I had finally had enough with worms and rootkits on my main XP desktop. I am witting this form Ubuntu, and couldn't be happier.

That's kindof like trying to quit smoking cold turkey. It's killing you, and you know it, but you still have to make the transition gradually.

Bad analogy. It is actually easier to quit smoking cold turkey than gradually. The reason is that a nicotine addiction comes back every time you smoke a cigarette. So if you've just tried to limit your smoking, then you are constantly in the position of craving a cigarette with a recently re-established addiction. You're drawing out the pain. By contrast when you quit cold turkey you have a rough time until the addiction fades, but then it is over.

It's been three years for me. Still not over.

You're no longer chemically addicted, but you're still fighting the habit you've formed.

Some people are chemically dependant, some smoke through habit, most are a combination of both. Knowing which applies to you can really help you quit and there's questionnaires that can pinpoint which you are.

Sample questions:

Do you smoke a cigarette when you wake up? (low nicotine in the blood)

Do you smoke after a meal? (force of habit by mental connection)

I strongly suspect that I am (was) a lot of both. I also strongly suspect that the distinction is hard to make.

I smoked to wake up, to go to sleep, to be alert, to relax, to suppress hunger, to get an appetite to think, to take a break or to sooth the lonesome heart. I really loved smoking. Still dream I'm smoking (and feel guilty) about once a week.

What a load of waffle. You still get to write documents, do spreadsheets, you just use different products to do it. Products that have some advantages, and disadvantages.

It is more like changing your brand of cigarette.

Clearly not a follower of logic, are you?

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