Episode: 1883
Title: HPR1883: Don't Get Locked In
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1883/hpr1883.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 10:46:34

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This in HPR episode 1883 entitled Don't Get Locked in, it is hosted by ITWI and in about
18 minutes long.
The summary is, ITWI discusses how he uses tools from several major software platforms
to get his work done.
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On the edge of real and cyberspace, there's one place you can go.
Welcome to NightWives.com.
I'm tired of choosing between Max, Linux and OSX, listen to the NightWives.com podcast,
and learn how to decide from operating system to operating system using our hack tips and
tweaks for cross-platformheeks.
To detect into your way of life and let technology work for you instead of the other way around.
Hey Hacker, public radio, this is NightWives from NightWives.com calling.
I haven't done an HPR show in a while.
Hell, I haven't even done my own podcast in a while.
But I had some time to spare today, and I also had some gear that I wanted to try out.
So I just wanted to share a little story with you guys that happened to me a couple of weeks
ago.
As you know, I do the podcast NightWives.com, which is a podcast with hack tips and tweaks
for cross-platformheeks.
So I kind of focus on being cross-platform using multiple operating systems and letting
that technology work for you.
So I'm not OS biased in any way.
And since a year and a half ago, I started my own company as a freelance IT architect.
One of the things I do on occasion is visit small or medium-sized businesses and take
a look at what they have IT-wise, take a look at how they work, and then help them to optimize
that environment.
And recently one of my clients asked me if I could come down and take a look at their
network and do a complete survey of what they had and redesign their network for them.
I'm not going to get into the content of that, right into the nitty-gritty details of
the network itself.
That's, of course, confidential between me and the client.
But what I did do was bring my gear along.
I'm an IT architect that don't have a big tool bag.
But when I go out, I mostly have my gear with me to do what I need to do, so kind of
make state of what's around, scan the network, make notes, write reports, do presentation.
And on that particular day, I had an interesting set of tools in my tool bag.
Now, on hyper-public radio, I know that the leniency, that the, you know, the average
mood of the HPR listener contributor is ProLinux anti-windows and Mac is evil.
And I kind of like all three of them.
And at this specific mission, I took not one, not two, but three devices with me, with
three different operating systems on them.
So what was in my bag was my Dell XPS 13 developer notebook edition.
That's the HD screen edition, it's a beautiful laptop.
It's kind of like an 11-inch form factor, but it has a 13-inch screen.
I have the full HD edition, there's also a QHD edition with a touch screen and an insane
resolution.
I didn't go for that.
But I've got that with me running Ubuntu 14.04 with that Nome 2.
The second device I had with me was a Surface Pro 3, running Windows 10 and MacBook Pro
15-inch running OS X.
Now, I know what you guys are going to say, like, why the, why the crack do you need all
three?
Well, I'll explain.
Sorry for the cars.
I'm on my lunch break and I'm on a walk.
So the Dell XPS 13 has Linux on it and it hosts, it hosts most of my networking tools.
Like for example, ZenMap, which is the graphical front end for NMAP, and you know, some other
network discovery tools.
And I needed that to plug it into the network and kind of get a general feel of what was
going on, which hosts were connected, what kind of machines were on there.
And with the end map and ZenMap, you can do quite a bit when it comes to that.
So all the network-y stuff, the really technical stuff I did on the XPS 13 running Linux.
The second machine I had with me was the Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10.
And whenever I go to a client, I have this device with me.
And why a, it's a nice tablet laptop combination.
I have the lightest version of the Surface Pro 3, the i3 with 64 gigabytes of storage,
but still it's a very nice device.
So what I do on it is take notes, because I really suck at taking notes on paper.
I tend to lose paper all the time, either I lose it while I'm still using it or I lose
it shortly afterwards.
And second, I don't believe in paper anymore.
When I go to visit clients, I have the Surface Pro 3 with me to do the general thing,
but also to take notes on.
So what I was doing is using the Dell XPS 13 to walk around the entire site, plug it
in, do all the end maps, save all the screenshots, do all the exports.
And in the meantime, I was taking notes on the Surface Pro 3 with the stylus and the
one note application.
Because I had two systems with me, I didn't have to switch screens all the time, or even
sit down.
I could just walk around with the Surface Pro 3, take pictures when I wanted to, and kind
of write down the notes that I needed to have, and especially when you're kind of discovering
a small home, a small business network, it's kind of a complicated situation, because
nobody knows how stuff is set up.
And you have to ask people how does this work and how does that work.
You quickly have to jot down notes, and that's why I use the Surface Pro 3.
Third reason, a lot of traffic today, third reason I use the Surface Pro 3 is because it
impresses people when you just casually set it down and start writing without using pen
and paper, especially the small to medium businesses, that's impressive.
One note's great application to work with, the stylus and stuff works great.
You can make screenshots, you can make pictures, you can all put them inside one document,
and you can write using the stylus, take annotations, draw on the pictures or the screenshots
that you take, and that for me is very handy, and it puts it one level above ever enough.
And after I did the whole network discovery thing, whole technical thing, and I had taken
on all of my notes, I kind of exported everything into a Dropbox folder.
I sent the one note notations to Dropbox, I sent the screenshots and exports from Zen
Map into Dropbox, and then I took out my MacBook Pro.
Because at the end of the day, you have to kind of display your findings, and for that
I kind of like working on a big computer, having a medium to big size screen, the MacBook
Pro is kind of my desktop-y thing, I do take it along with me to do presentations and
stuff.
And especially if you have to present your results, I love using the MacBook Pro, it's
really reliable, it has keynote, which I probably use the most for my presentations, because
I love to rely on it, and I think it's a great tool.
And you can really take those technical information that you gathered, and those notes that
you're written down, and put them all together, and bring them into one presentation, and you
have a large keyboard, big screen, you can kind of mush it all together, and make a great
final presentation.
So what I did is I wrote up the report right there, right then and there, and I also made
a small presentation to give to the owners of the company to show them what I had done
that day and what I had found out.
I completed doing the entire network report, the paperwork as it is on the MacBook Pro,
sent them everything out, and closed up the project.
Now I know that some of you are going to say, hey, nightwise, you could have done that
with one machine.
And you would probably be right, I could have done it all on the MacBook Pro, I could
have done it all on the surface, and I could have done it all on the XPS, but it was a little
bit more convenient, especially with the XPS and the Surface Pro 3, to work side by side
to have one computer in one hand, and another machine in the other hand, especially when
it comes to taking down notes.
Well, the MacBook Pro, well, you have to present it in an elegant way.
I'm not saying that you can't do that on a Linux machine or you can't do that on a Windows
machine, but they're not their core strengths, at least for what I feel when it comes
out to doing presentations.
The moral of the story is you use the tool you need for the job you have to do, and you
take the best tool.
I am not somebody who says that it has to be A, or it has to be B, it has to be Linux,
or it has to be Windows, I just use what works, and especially in the business environment,
I don't have the luxury to say, I will only use this, or I will only use that.
I mean, when it comes to flexibility and hackability, the Mac is perhaps not the best platform
when it comes to utter reliability and being virus proof when you plug it into a strange
and possibly hostile network, Windows might not be your friend, and when it comes to putting
up an elegant presentation that doesn't look like it came from the 90s, Linux might
not be the ultimate tool to use, but what I did learn is I use the tool that works for
me, and I use each platform according to the strengths and weaknesses that platform has.
And I use it in a business setting, that means that it just has to work.
I don't have the time to tinker, I don't have the time to mess about.
It has to be right from the first time, and I don't, I get paid by the hour, so doing
some R and D work on the client's time is not something that I can afford to do, I have
to give them results.
So in the conclusion, it's great to be pro one OS, and anti the other OS, it's all pretty
easy, but when you don't do that, and you don't limit yourself to a certain platform,
you have the luxury of using whatever works for you and letting it work for you and not
being held back by things like, you know, what I call semi-religious operating system
or platform bias, because at some point you have got to admit that one platform is better
for one thing, and the other platform is better for the other thing.
And once you kind of admit that to yourself, you open up a whole range of options and
possibilities into really letting technology work for you.
So not only as a, sorry for the wind, not only as a cross platform geek, do I hear by
advocate the use of, you know, multiple operating systems, also as a professional, I can see,
merit in doing that.
And it's pretty cool to, you know, work with different operating systems at the same time
and see how the combination of all of these OSs can really work for you.
So just a tip, before you kind of lock yourself into one operating system, because here at
HBR we hate proprietary software, we hate vendor lock-in, and the thing that we must ask
ourselves from time to time is how much of that lock-in is something that we do to ourselves.
And how, you know, choosing only Linux and only open source is also locking you in to
some operating system and some commitment.
So you know, it's what I always say, let technology work for you instead of the other way
around and use whatever works best for you.
I hope you enjoyed the show.
It's a little short, I'm on my walk during lunch, enjoying what must be the last of the
summer days.
I'll probably be airing nightwise.com episode very soon, and getting back on my horse, on
my podcasting horse, as a night, haha, but yeah, that will come soon.
So until then, you can find the website at www.netwise.com, that's K-N-I-G-H-C-W-I-S-E.com
and, you know, subscribe to the podcast and learn more cross-platform ways of getting
things done.
Cheers.
Now, let's talk about cross-platform geeks.
Tired of choosing between Max, Linux, and OSX, listen to the nightwise.com podcast and learn
how to decide from operating system to operating system using our hack tips and tweets for cross-platform
geeks.
To detect into your way of life and let technology work for you instead of the other way around.
www.k-n-i-g-h-t-w-i-s-e-dot-com.
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