Software
In the early days, main programming skills were VisualBasic, HTML, a bit of JavaScript & a shed load of applets using VisualBasic for Applications. Most of the applications I have developed were primarily for the M$ Windows platform. However, due to the unease of many of my clients regarding Microsoft’s draconian licensing arrangements, I’m starting to get heavily into Linux and the rich diversity of software and ideas that now emanate from the ‘Open Source’ community. Consequently, main avenue of enquiry today is PHP & mySQL. The new GarfNet sites are all Linux | Apache | PHP | mySQL based.
Like most of the computing world, I am already very familiar with MS Office. I have also become very disillusioned with Microsoft and its products. Consequently I have moved almost all my supported customers from MS Office to LibreOffice (the free open source office suite for Windows & Linux, available from https://libreoffice.org).
Most of my customers now run GNU/Linux, mostly Debian or one of its derivatives. As part of my support package, I perform all software upgrades remotely over SSH. I also offer off site backup using rsync over SSH
I think that open source will become very important over the next few years. Tux, the Linux penguin will gradually become a familiar sight on computer desktops all around the planet. Or to put it another way, I won’t be buying Microsoft shares anytime soon!
- To learn more about open source software, please visit DEOSS, Development & Education in Open Source Systems, https://deoss.com