Why all the blather about Microsoft vs Open Source? This is not a technology blog. I really don’t care enough about either platform to devote much time to writing about them. All they are to me are tools. Whichever tool works best for me is the one I’ll use. And that, then, gets to the heart of it. For what purpose do I intend to use the tools?

Good question, and unfortunately, I’m not certain I can sum it up in a single sentence. About a year ago, I had the great luxury of 5 months off of work. I quit a job that wasn’t the right fit, and had enough of a safety net to be leisurely about finding a new one. When I moved to Manhattan 3 years ago, I had about 3 days before I had to report to my new job. I had never really spent much time getting to know the city, except on weekends and the occasional day off. Now I had my chance.

I spent a week doing nothing but exploring Central Park. Another week walking the neighborhoods, and another week spent in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And that week in the Met was when it hit me. I know almost nothing about the things I enjoy. Looking at Vermeer’s “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher” in the European Paintings galleries, I realized I was one of those boobs who knows nothing about art, but knows what he likes. I was genuinely moved by this painting, and I had no idea why. Vermeer is one of those trends that comes along every once in a while, and I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t reacting to the fact that I was anticipating liking it, and so therefore I did. Was I just hopping on the bandwagon, or was there something more to it?

Walking back home, I decided I had the time now to learn about art. I also thought it would be a great time to do all of those other things that I’ve always wanted to do, like learn about film, start writing more, and learn to play a musical instrument. When I got home, I started creating a list of all the things I wanted to do with my time off.

Over the next few weeks, the list evolved into more than just what I wanted to do with my time off, but what I wanted to do in my life. Some of the items were actually things I had already done, and some were things that could never really be checked off because they were life-long processes. Ultimately, by the time I finished the list, it had 81 items… and it was time to go back to work.

During my time-off, I didn’t really get to do any of the things on the list. I had just enough time to come up with the items. But what it did was give me a chance to focus on what was important to me. The list, or 3cube3 as I came to think of it (3 cubed x 3 = 81), was just a starting point, a way of clarifying what I wanted to do.

And that’s why we’re here, because #40 on the list is Create and Maintain a Personal Website. Additionally, in order to better understand and appreciate what I am doing while trying to accomplish these things, I’ll be tracking my progress in this blog. I understand that this is not a terribly original idea (a tip of the hat to 43 Things and Ellen Degeneres, and may be even a little nod to My Name is Earl), and I don’t particularly care. In fact if more than one other person is reading this (thanks Mom!) I am frankly stunned.

While infinitely happier after switching my laptop and PDA back to Microsoft applications, changing my web host from Linux to Windows was a slightly different story. Microsoft got in the web server game significantly later than Linux/Apache/PHP, and by the time they did, a standard had already been adopted. Most people who develop web sites, develop on the open source platforms, and that makes it a little harder for your average Windows-hosting user to do what he needs to do on the web.

As an example, this blog. Previously, I was using Nucleus, which uses PHP and MySQL, typically on an Apache server. All of these things, except the hosting, were free to me. At least, I didn’t have to give anyone money to use them. What it did cost me was a significant amount of time. I have a decent familiarity with HTML and CSS, and could probably put together a not too ugly website from scratch. However, I had never used Nucleus, and learning how its templates and skins worked was a little tricky. There was no support line, no user manuals at Barnes & Noble, and no WYSIWYG editor. What there was, though, was a vast ocean of dedicated users willing to help.

These people are remarkable, and I have nothing but good things to say about them all. With their help, reading their posts in forums, their scrabbled together manuals, and their infinite patience, I managed to get a decent looking blog up and running. All in all, it took about a month to get to that point.

Then I wanted to add a photo gallery to my site. This meant learning another program’s skinning and templating system. I balked, and my site lay dormant for a few weeks. Then, I went to Boston for Microsoft Partner Conference, and everything changed.

After I switched to Windows, I found two major differences. Because they got in the game so late, there are far fewer (free) applications available for the Windows Server platform. There are also far fewer people in the community willing to help a novice get his feet wet.

I installed DotNetNuke on my website, and was up and running in literally minutes. Rather than taking weeks to learn how to skin the program, I went to Snowcovered.com and bought a set of templates, slightly modified them with the graphics and CSS formats I had already used for Nucleus, and had a personalized website (albeit with no content) in less than a day. And it cost $90.

But, the blog application in DNN is really lousy. For that matter, I have yet to find any Windows blog application that is very good at all. I’ve heard there are a couple that are fairly good, but they require a bit of expertise in areas where I have none, and the forums for Windows are much different than those for Linux. Most posts start off with the assumption that you know something, which I do not. So it takes signinficantly longer to research an issue than with Linux.
For example: I’m having a problem with my sprocket.xsl file. I look it up, and find a post saying that the sprocket.xsl file isn’t the problem and all I really need to do is change the frimfram parameter in the figginit configurator. Well, since I know nothing about the figginit configurator, I now need to look that up as well. Ad (almost) infinitum.

There was also the underlying feeling that everything posted in these forums will only take you so far. It felt like they were holding back crucial pieces of their knowledge so they can either charge you for it later, or laugh at you for not knowing. It always felt like there was a fee or a curt dismissal lurking behind every conversation.

Which is exactly the way it should be. These people spent years of their lives gaining this knowledge, and their careers, oftentimes, are based on it. They spent much time and money acquiring their skills, and if you don’t understand what they’re saying, why should they spend a half-hour of their time explaining to you what it took them years to learn? Either you have the requisite knowledge to know how to fix the figginit configurator, or you should pay someone to do it for you.

Microsoft, as I said earlier, is a business. People depend on them for their living and livelihood. And just as I wouldn’t expect my car mechanic to walk me through changing a fuel pump for free, I shouldn’t expect a programmer to walk me through the finer aspects of XML and .xsl files for free.

So why is it so different in the Linux world? Because, as I also said earlier, Open Source is a religion. Where businesses have marketing departments and salesmen, religions have evangelists and proselytizers, people who are willing to spend much of their time helping those who cannot see the way. While there are tens of thousands of people who make their living from developing non-Windows applications, there are millions of hobbyists eager and willing to share their knowledge.

There are also millions of hobbyists using Microsoft tools, but they seem to be focused on using the tool for the tool’s sake, rather than for what it can do for them. So far, I have been able to find every answer I have looked for, but I still have not found a decent blog program. One response to a post was, “Why don’t you just write your own?” And that exemplifies another aspect of the Microsoft user community: most of them are extreme tech-heads. Posting that comment on a Linux or Mac board would have seemed incredibly snotty. On this board, it was actually kind of nice, as the poster assumed that if I was there, I must of course have the knowledge to write my own web application. Perhaps that is why there are no good blog programs available for Windows, because everyone just writes their own.

A while back, I decided to try to keep my life relatively Microsoft-free. I used only Palm PDA’s. I uninstalled MS Office from my laptop, and began using OpenOffice. I opened a Linux hosting account and started blogging using PHP and MySQL. I used Firefox & Thunderbird instead of IE and Outlook. I was fairly happy, and wore the badge of inconvenience as a medal of honor.

Sure, PHP and MySQL on Linux were a little tough to get my head around, but I managed. And, boy did OpenOffice try my patience, but at least I wasn’t supporting the Evil Empire. And, Palm, don’t even get me started with that schizo company and how often they change their hardware compatibility and logo and name and…. But, I could rest easily knowing I was striking a blow against the Beast of Redmond.And then I went to the Microsoft Partner Conference. [full disclosure: I work as a consultant for a firm that helps businesses implement ERP and CRM solutions, some of which are Microsoft-based, some of which are not.]

The darkness was lifted from my eyes, and I understood. Microsoft isn’t evil. It’s merely neutral. Microsoft is a business, and all they want to do is make money. They do that by making products people want to use. And they do that by making their products easy, inexpensive, and reliable.

Open Source, for most people, is a religion. They have a God (Free Information), a devil (Microsoft), and Holy Scripture (Linux). Things are not done for profit, but for the love of God and scripture, and to defeat the Devil. Microsoft will let all of the open source people do whatever they want, and when they come up with a good idea, Microsoft will copy it, make it easier to use, and add a few features to it. Then, they integrate it so it works well with all of their other programs (most of which you already own anyway) and you don’t have to worry about it. As technology advances, they will make it easy for you to upgrade anything you have done for the last 10 years. You’ll pay more money, but spend a lot less time trying to make the things work. Though Open Source may not cost any money, the amount of time an average user spends on developing it far exceeds its value. Here, take my $400 and give me back Microsoft Office.

I got home from Boston and quickly reconfigured my laptop. I uninstalled OpenOffice and re-installed Microsoft Office (thank God I have MS Access again!). I decommissioned my Palm Tungsten and bought a Windows Mobile 5.0 device (I love it). I switched my hosting from Linux to Windows (more on this later). I re-installed Outlook and installed IE 7 (Better than Firefox, way better than Thunderbird). And I haven’t looked back.

When I told a co-worker about my decision, he just smiled and said, “So, you drank the Kool-Aid.”

Must it always be about religion?