i also like the idea that MPI is built into Mac OS X as well as associated math libraries for FFTs, BLAS, LAPACK... out of the box. i *think* i can get that same out of the box experience from Microsoft, if i have Windows Compute Cluster Server (which apparently isn't free) which will mean having to install all the stuff myself. Although, Apple may be more closed than Microsoft in certain areas, there are other areas where Microsoft has yet to catch up. Of course, the least closed source systems are Linux-based. i also noticed the Unix core of Mac OS X is open source, and so is the WebKit rendering engine for Safari.

but on the other hand, from a coder's point of view, i wish Microsoft would include the GNU toolchain as well as the Unix scripting environment, e.g. bash/Ruby/Python/Perl, just like XCode does. trying to convert Visual C++ to run on Unix-like systems can be quite difficult.

i'm thinking by being in control, they seem to be the first 64-bit OS to be mainstream (I'm assuming here that 32-bit Vista is more common than 64-bit Vista and the same for most Linux distros?). And 64-bit without too much compatibility problems (or am I wrong here) compared to the other OS's.

1. Try doing alt-tab when you have 15-20 windows open! 2. What happens when you need to have 2 (or 3) blocks of code side by side? 3. What if you have a laptop (which will be in landscape mode, unless it's maybe a Tablet PC), but you need portrait mode through a second monitor? 4. Very frequently, I need to have one window open (e.g. with Google/Wikipedia results, or a PDF document), while I code in a second window based on what I see in the first window.

Yes! Here's my configuration... Laptop + 17" LCD via VGA-out port Typically, on the laptop I have: a. Putty: for submitting/monitoring jobs on the supercomputing server (which as 80 CPUs) b. Notepad++ for makefiles, PBS job scripts, INI files, or Octave/GNUplot files. c. Coding: with Notepad++, Putty+VI, and/or Visual C++ 2008 Express d. Filezilla: to monitor files generated by the jobs on the server e. Explorer Window - to display image files downloaded from server, to make sure the jobs are running properly. f. MS-Dos console (sometimes) for testing code on the laptop before submitting to the server. and I typically put the following on the 17" LCD a. IE, Firefox, or Safari b. Email: Microsoft Outlook or another IE tab. c. Adobe Acrobat Pro The third monitor is on my second computer running Ubuntu with Compiz Fusion installed and the desktop cube activated. Often I test code in the Linux environment before submitting the jobs to the server. Sometimes I run extra jobs here. Having 2 (or more monitors is especially useful for coding multiple languages (C++, Fortran, Octave, GNUplot, scripting languages) and for multiple environments (debug on Windows, run on Linux).