Architecture enabling business

For the last couple of months, I’ve been using a MacBook Pro (17″/2.6 GHz/4GB) as my primary machine. My workload is pretty diverse, from basic browsing (although these days “basic” browsing doesn’t have much surface area) to email to fairly heavy Excel/Powerpoint usage to development.

Here’s the thing: I split my tasks between Mac OS and Windows Vista under Parallels. Here’s the breakdown:

1. I do browsing almost entirely Firefox 3 under Mac OS. Occasionally IE 7 under Windows for intranet applications that require it.
2. I read personal email using Apple Mail and do corporate email using Outlook. I tried Entourage and I wanted to hurt myself after a very short time.
3. I run Excel/Word/Powerpoint under Windows. Once in a while I’ll use the Mac versions, but I find them particularly hard to use on an infrequent basis (mostly due to different shortcut gestures).
4. Development primarily in Visual Studio 2008. I’ve been doing some Ruby and Python on the Mac side, using TextMate. I’ve started using E, a TextMate-like editor under Windows, after a long run with UltraEdit, mostly because it has the same Python-based extensibility model as TextMate – although this advantage of this is mostly theory at this point. (As an aside, I’ve also been working with IronRuby and IronPython to take advantage of dynamic language capabilities with .NET; my good friend Harry Pierson is a Product Manager with the DLR group, focused on IronPython.)
5. I do notetaking mostly in VoodooPad on the Mac side, but this is a recent switch from OneNote, which I have a lingering love for. I had a brief tryst with EverNote (which is nicely cross-platform), but I couldn’t get comfortable with it. (And I really dig the plug-in model in VoodooPad, another reason I’m learning Python.)
6. I run MindJet‘s MindManager under Windows for brainstorming and organizing my thoughts. I haven’t sprung for the Mac version yet (another $349 – ouch – and also a version behind), but I’d love to have this in both environments.
7. I write blog entries using Ecto under Mac OS. I like LiveWriter, but haven’t used it much lately.
8. When I do UML, I usually use Altova‘s UModel (which I bought as part of their Mission Kit for Software Architects) under Windows, but this is pretty infrequent – not because I have anything specifically against UML, but mostly because I haven’t had the energy to devote to getting it accepted around here.)

So why put myself through this? This is a complex environment to live in – mostly because of the different UI paradigms in the different environments: just try training yourself to type Ctrl-A to go to the beginning of a line and Command-A to select all under Mac OS and Home/Ctrl-A for the same pair of actions under Windows. There are some integration challenges – clicking a link in an email on the Windows side opens Chrome, but whatever; Parallels makes sharing files between the environments easy, at least. I do use Dropbox as well to keep files in sync between different machines, including my host Mac OS and my guest Vista instance.

First off, this setup works for me – the Mac goes to sleep and wakes up faster than I’ve ever seen a PC take a nap (and can do so repeatedly without losing its mind), the whole thing is very stable, I can segregate resource usage by Windows applications, and I have the best PC and Mac applications to draw from to get my job (and life) done. I can snapshot my Windows environment with a single click, and Time Machine makes sure I have ongoing backups of the whole shebang.

Second: I have to run Windows because we’re a Windows development shop. But even if I didn’t have to, I still would. The things I do in Windows, Windows is best at. Arguably, some of the stuff I do under Mac OS would be better under Windows too.

The third, and most concerning reason for doing this is that I think I’m a complexity junky: I seem to enjoy managing all of the minutiae and training myself to work in the split environment. Whatever.

So, I’m a Mac-PC. I’m proud to not have any serious technology religion, and instead to use the best tool for the job at hand. There’s a price to pay, but I’m wiling, at least for my personal setup (i.e. this isn’t an enterprise strategy .