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Closing Windows 001: Whoa.
Through my college years, I ran Windows because all of the applications that I needed for school would run under it, and there were a few vitally important applications that would only run under it. I disliked the Microsoft monopoly, and I disliked the ever-more-intrusive "features" they were including with each subsequent "upgrade". I liked the open-source philosophy, but at the time, Linux, BSD, and other open-source OSs were difficult to install. Applications were few and far between, and their compatability with The Stuff I Had To Use was questionable at best.
After I graduated, my first couple of jobs involved extensions of my college capstone (that's basically a "Bachelor's Thesis", for those who weren't reading this journal back then). I needed MS Office to make sure that my Office-generated documents didn't lose any vital formatting, and I had a legacy copy of the Industry-Standard GIS Software that, again, was a strictly Windows application.
Over the years, OpenOffice became increasingly adept at opening MS Office documents, and more than one open-source GIS package has emerged. The one thing keeping me in Windows was that Industry-Standard GIS Software; map files created in it are notoriously twitchy about migrating even to other copies of the same software.
Well, as I mentioned before, that application has completely given up the ghost.
There is now nothing that I do with this system that I cannot do with Linux.
It's time to seriously look into migrating.
After I graduated, my first couple of jobs involved extensions of my college capstone (that's basically a "Bachelor's Thesis", for those who weren't reading this journal back then). I needed MS Office to make sure that my Office-generated documents didn't lose any vital formatting, and I had a legacy copy of the Industry-Standard GIS Software that, again, was a strictly Windows application.
Over the years, OpenOffice became increasingly adept at opening MS Office documents, and more than one open-source GIS package has emerged. The one thing keeping me in Windows was that Industry-Standard GIS Software; map files created in it are notoriously twitchy about migrating even to other copies of the same software.
Well, as I mentioned before, that application has completely given up the ghost.
There is now nothing that I do with this system that I cannot do with Linux.
It's time to seriously look into migrating.
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http://grass.itc.it/
...
Unfortunately, the de-facto standard is Arc. Not sure how well it runs under Crossoveroffice, though.
Mixed reports, currently from a quick google search.
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Of course, I'm not limited to just ONE application, am I?
And, yes, Arc is currently the Industry Standard -- but if an employer or client wants me to use Arc, they can damned well PROVIDE it.
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