Resolution Scorecard

I had set this year as the year I would become Microsoft free. I have nothing against Microsoft --- there were just some products I wanted to stop using: IE, Office, and Windows.

Office was initially a bit of a challenge. First, I had to stop writing for publishers who insisted on submissions using Microsoft Word. For code, I've long hated Word's autocorrect which you have to turn off in multiple places. For web based content the curly quotes often get translated into unreadable characters. Now my text editor is most often TextMate. From time to time when I have to work with an existing Word document or formatting is important I will use Pages. I've liked Pages for small tasks like writing a letter or creating an invoice but TextMate remains my go to editor.

Keynote replaced PowerPoint for me long ago. There is one PowerPoint feature I really miss but not enough to switch back. I used to be able to link out to Applescripts from PowerPoint. This meant that when it came time to run a demo from a presentation I could just click the link on a page and my demo would start up configured exactly as I needed. I would have expected this from Keynote, but Steve Jobs has been consistent in describing Keynote as a presentation tool that fits his needs --- and he presents with a separate demo machine.

Numbers is growing on me. The whole suite could benefit from Bonjour integration but all that is secondary. Mostly what I need to do with Office documents is read them and I can do that without anything external using Quick Look in Leopard. Leopard has allowed me to say goodbye to Office.

Windows was harder to drop. But then I realized that although there are some applications I might like to run that I can't on a Mac, there was only one program that I needed to run. I had kept my last Windows laptop alive so that I could boot it twice a year to update my QuickBooks file to work with my accountant. Sure, there have been Mac versions for a couple of years but they weren't adequate for my needs.

The first Mac version was unable to share files with the Windows version. I stopped by their booth a couple of years ago and asked how I was supposed send my files to my accountant. The guy at the booth told me that they had gotten that complaint a lot and he just didn't see why I couldn't print out a pdf that my accountant could read.

Fortunately the folks back in product development actually understood how the process might work and that this was one of the tasks for which pdf was not ideally suited. The following year's version got data interchange between Mac and Windows versions. But it didn't work for me. My accountant couldn't figure out how to get me a Mac version of my data. This year something changed. He was able to convert my file to the Mac version and I was able to open this file on my Mac, add in my records for the last six months, convert it back and send it back to him.

So Wednesday afternoon I sat in his office across the desk from him as he loaded in my file on his machine. It was a beautiful moment. It was the moment that I realized I don't currently need a Windows box.

Now, I may get a client who insists I use Windows or Office and I may say yes. This isn't a religious "I'm a Mac" vs "I'm a PC" thing. But it is nice to just get my work done without scratching my head or cursing at my OS or office suite.

I've had my current laptop since April. It doesn't run Parallels and I've never tried Boot Camp. I don't have Office for the Mac and IE jst isn't an option any more. The remaining possibility is the Windows Media Player. I haven't installed it yet but I am back on the radio and I'd need to install the Player to listen. Then again, I already know what I sound like.

Finally, to come clean, becoming Microsoft free has been a new years resolution of mine for several years. Along with losing weight, that was the one that never seemed to get done. Maybe 2008 will be the year I take up jogging.