Ok, obviously I’ve lost my mind. But, I’ve got two things to report with Windows Vista and Microsoft in general that now allow me to feel a bit better about my move back to the darkside.

1) I was listening to a podcast (Windows Weekly) which was talking about some of the new initiatives Microsoft was making. The key one that caught my ear was their move to opening more of their APIs! Well, that may not be “Open Source”, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction! They are a for-profit company, so I certainly don’t expect them to open their source, but open APIs are a step toward a more conformed marketplace. Conformity is good when it comes to computers. I prefer to use the term “Standards” but it is what it is.

2) Symbolic Links! No shit! There are symlinks in Vista! This has to be the #1 feature that bothered me about Windows ever since I discovered the wonders of Linux. Symlinks are such a useful feature and have been in use in the *nix world for SO freakin long! It really bothered me that Windows did not have this functionality. Especially since it was such a trivial thing to implement! But, now it’s here! I discovered it thanks to a post on the How-To Geek. Here’s the gist! Oh, and you have to run the command window as Administrator.

C:\Users\username> mklink
Creates a symbolic link.
MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target
       /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
               symbolic link.
       /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
       /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
       Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
       Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
               refers to.

This is going to be a bit of a tip with some Linux evangelism thrown in. So, I apologize in advance.

So, I tinker a bit with Web Development (see Quanta Plus). Far be it from me to claim to be a professional developer, because I don’t get paid for it, but I like to think I know my shit. Just humor me. Actually, the simplicity of my tip will probably work against the whole “know my shit” thing. So, wait it out and you will be rewarded with my humility.

Lately, all I’ve been doing is playing around with themes on my blog sites. One of the most frustrating things is developing on a production server. So set up a test server, you say! I did, so shut up. So, now I use my test server to test the themes before I copy them to the production sites (and no, the theme for this site isn’t done). Well, that is a huge pain in the ass too! So, laziness being the mother of good code and practice, I came up with a solution. I still develop on my test server, but I’ve created a symbolic link on my production server files. So, when I change the test server files and upload the project, it uploads to the test server. When I want to propagate it to the production server, I just load that project and hit upload. Since the theme portion is a symbolic link to the test server files, it uploads the finished product, and I save about seven clicks by not having to copy it back and forth! SEE!? Simple!

Here comes the Linux evangelism part. What is a symbolic link, you ask? Ahhh, my simple Windows user, a symbolic link is one of the most ingenious creations in computing. Am I right, brothers and sisters in *nixland? My friends on Unix, Linux, and BSD (including OSX) know the joys of the symbolic link.

It’s a very simple idea. Basically a symbolic link is a link in your file system that points somewhere else. Could be a file or a directory. You Windows users might then say, “well, that’s a shortcut, dumbass!”

Oh, simple Windows user, you don’t know the power of the symbolic link! Unlike shortcuts, symlinks are transparent to programs. So, programs read them as their linked counterpart, which is SUPER handy. Sure, you Vista users have Junction Points now, but it really pales in comparison… Come on, Microsoft! Symlinks have been around for YEARS! Get with the program, already!