Ok, so I'm bored and feel like typing something. So here we go...
Answer if you want, delete if this is inappropriate, whatever.
Anyway, how much are we controlled by habits?
I use Outlook Express as my email program. Yes, we all know that OE is a script kiddy's playground because of its security vulnerabilities. I know this. Yet I still use it. Well, to correct that, I really don't even *use* it. I use it to send and receive email. That's it. I don't use the Calendar, or Notes, or Journal. I don't use its message rule filters. I hardly ever even use the address book! I click my girlfriend's name in the little Contacts list whenever I want to write her an email, just because it saves about a second and a half over typing her address out. But for the most part, I have an almost photographic memory and just naturally remember any email address I write to with any regularity. And I type at about 70wpm on a bad day. So its almost faster just to type out the emails than to dig up the person's name in the Contacts box. As for the security stuff, I am smart enough to know not to download any .VBS nonsense, and I have an up-to-date anti-virus app running anyway. And I'm not connected to a huge corporate network. So I'm as safe as the next guy as far as that goes.
What was the point of all that? Well, since i don't actually use any one feature that is proprietary to OE, why do I continue using it, when there are so many other great email applications out there that offer more features, better security, and an outlet from the Microsoft empire? I DON'T KNOW! I've tried a ton of other email apps, but for some reason I am just stuck on OE. I find little bitty gripes with all of them and decide that I may as well just stick with OE anyway. For what it matters, I could just as easily write my own bloody email app in VisBasic with exactly the features I want in exactly the places I want them. (It would be a lovely experiment in minimalism!) I actually started doing this awhile back. But eventually just gave up and stuck with OE, since I knew that was what would inevitably happen anyway.
Same deal with browsers. For a good long while I was stuck on IE. I had all the other browsers installed, I just never used them. Not because I didn't like them... actually I *liked* Mozilla a lot better than IE. I was just used to the way IE looked and acted and felt. I've been "using" Mozilla since, well... M16 is the first version I can ever remember using. But I never *used* it because IE was there and had ingrained itself into my habits. Then when I started developing the website for the company I work for, I started making myself use Mozilla because of the tabbed browsing and the better standards compliance, and the OptiMoz mouse gestures. (Which begs the question, why not Opera? Well, Mozilla's free, Opera's not. You do the math.) Now when I'm at work, IE doesn't even enter my mind. But at home I'm still having to make myself use Moz instead of IE because I'm really trying to get into that habit, since its a much better browser than IE anyway, imho.
I'm all into customizing my desktop. Stardock ranks right up there with Blizzard in my "Software Companies Jamin Gives Props To" list. Yet I always found problems with the various shell replacements and continue to stick with Explorer. Even tho LiteStep is so much more configurable and customizable and cooler looking (not to mention way higher on the l33t scale), I just never got into it. Explorer for me, thankyouverymuch.
Of course, Infopop is nice and safe with me being a creature of habit, because I don't think I could convert to vB if I tried!
So anyway, I'm not exactly sure what the point of this post was. I was just bored and hyper and my figers were twitching anyway, so I might as well be typing something.
Any thoughts? Comments? Answers? Suggestions? Complaints? Ideas? et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
---Jamin
.
