Compare Files and Folders

In Linux or Mac OS/X, using diff command at the terminal.

To compare two folders:
diff -rq folder1 folder2

To compare two files:
diff file1 file2
diff 'first file' 'second file'

For more options:
diff --help

For Microsoft Windows computer, use WinMerge, an open source software, to compare and merge files and folders.

Linux turned 20 on Aug. 25

The first Linux distro I played around was Red Hat Linux 5.2 in 1999.

After that, I backed to Windows for both professional development and personal desktop application usage. Before that I developed a FoxBase+ application on SCO/Unix in 1990 for a year. I tried again with another distro in 2002, I guessed. Still not a right time, back to Windows. Today, I'm using Ubuntu Linux on daily basic. I'm still using Microsoft Windows for software development (ASP 3.0, ASP.NET, C#, Microsoft SQL 2008, IIS 7, TFS) at work. Anything else, Linux. Android development: Linux. Web develop using PHP, Python, MySQL: Linux. Desktop word processing: Linux. Web browsing: Linux. Listen to music on computer: Linux.

My Next PC

My next Personal Computer (PC) will be a Mac. The first PC I used was an Apple computer, Apple II, when I was in college. After a quarter of a century using Microsoft Operating Systems (DOS, Windows), I'm switching to Linux. I'm so happy with Ubuntu and Open Source applications. I pick Mac not because it's better than Microsoft Windows PC or Linux PC. Mac is so expensive! The lowest MacBook is $999 while the you can get the Microsoft Windows PC for about $400. With a MacBook Pro, I can program or test number of difference projects: iPhone mobile applications, Android mobile applications, PHP web-based applications, Python programs, mySQL,... Using VirtualBox on MacBook Pro, I can run Windows and Linux applications on guest machines. I must buy a Mac machine because Mac/OS license is not allow to run on virtual machine. It must run on Apple hardware.

New Laptop

As I mentioned last month, my four years old laptop overworked. Its screen could not display more than one minutes. I must use an external monitor to see. It was my first laptop to fail. My other eight years old Toshiba laptop worked great with email, DOS applications, Windows-based applications, documents, spreadsheets, but not with media web-based applications or games. In the past, I upgraded my computer only when it was too slow and I need a fast CPU and big hard drive to work more efficiency.

At first, I thought I'm going to get a laptop with no operating system or with Ubuntu. I will install Ubuntu 10.04 by myself. Since last year, when I went back to GNU/Linux, I love to use Ubuntu. I used Ubuntu Desktop on daily basic. I also working with many Microsoft applications every day, everywhere. So, it's practical to get a laptop with Genuine Windows® 7, partition its hard drive into two. One for Microsoft Windows® 7. One for Ubuntu 10.04.

My first task: applied all Windows updates on my new laptop. Next, replaced the trial-ware anti-virus software with Microsoft Security Essentials. After installed Microsoft Security Essentials, I installed or updated to the latest version of essential applications:

• Adobe Acrobat Reader. 
• Adobe Flash Player. 
• Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla Firefox is my primary default browser. To me, it must more secure and faster than Microsoft Internet Explorer. It's better to have two browsers on your computer.
• OpenOffice.org, a free open productivity suite. My new laptop has preloaded Microsoft Office Starter 2010. I don't use them since it could not open my password protected documents. With OpenOffice.org, I can open any Microsoft or OpenOffice.org documents, spreadsheets, presentations.

In addition to these essential applications above, as a developer, I needed these stuffs to work:

• Notepad++, a free source editor.
• Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express. 
• Visual C# 2008 Express Edition. 
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express.
• Android SDK.
• Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers. 

That all for my Windows 7 partition. I will write about my Ubuntu next time.

Overwork

My four years old laptop overworks as its owner. It works more than 12 hours a day. As you see in the picture below, I'm using Oracle VM VirtualBox to run Windows Vista and Windows 7 inside Ubuntu 10.04. Since late 2009, I used GNU/Linux on daily basic. Using virtual PC help me to evaluate a new system, here is Windows 7, test and support my Windows and Web applications running in Windows Vista, while I'm working with new Android project in Ubuntu without reboot to Window partition or remote access to other computers.