...is my new wallpaper. It also describes my approach of minimalism towards my software environment.
My main machine is running Mac OS (although I have a windows box and random-linux-flavored VMs around) and one thing I really enjoy is having most of my computer needs satisfied by the default apps. My mantra is “The less I install, the easier it gets to reset my system”, something that I might have to do in case of emergency (breaking the system, disk failing, etc..) or simply because I like to have my system clean every semester.
There are only three non-default apps in my dock: Adium (only if I could get rid of MSN and just use iChat), Transmission (I don’t see Apple releasing a bittorrent client anytime soon) and Textmate. I do have more apps around for special purposed, but those are wiped in every clean install and installed on a need-basis.
And I get really annoyed when I read twitts about getting “Rucksack for Mac OS X completely free” and about those popular bundles that people buy just because its cheap and not because they really need that software. I won’t install software just because it’s free and cute. I have a nanoBundle2 just because it was free, but I’ve never installed any of the apps, because I don’t feed the need for any of its features.
And regarding Rucksack, OS X unarchives zips, tar, gz and unix stuff out of the box, and I’ve installed unrar via HomeBrew for all the rars that get piled up in my Downloads folder. I even made a simple context-menu service that makes it really easy to use.
And I am really happy with my software real estate. The less I have, the less I will lose, the less will annoy me, and the more I will get from the few really good and useful tools I work with.
