Comfortable in an Open World

Now when I use my laptop I mostly boot into Ubuntu Hardy (8.04). The only time I boot into Windows Vista (which I still think is a better OS than XP) is when I need to use MATLAB. However, this is becoming more of a rarity since I have started using Octave and have become quite comfortable with its interface. In addition I find that compiling and running programs is much easier under Ubuntu. I suppose I could set it so that it is just as easy under Vista but that would require some work. All of the applications I use on Ubuntu are Open Source, with the exception of Adobe, and this is only because I find that it is considerably better than any of the Open Source aternatives I have found thus far. I used to have WINE installed but removed it once I realized that I had no need for it sicne it could not install MATLAB and I'm not much of a gamer so really everything I need can be done with Linux compatable programs.

As far as programming goes I have started using Java. It isn't that difficult to pick up since I know C/C++ it just takes a little getting used to. I might go back and try to convert some of the solutions I did for SPOJ problems and convert them to solutions in Java (they are all in C++). Learning a new language really can't hurt since there are some problems I see and am like "I know how to do that but I can't fit the necessary data into as a long long (64 bits) is C++, if only I could use Java's BigInteger."

Next week is the South East Regional Programming Competiton for ACM. Wish me luck. I feel pretty prepared, I have a grasp of most of the basic algorithms we coverd. It is just coming up with the correct data structures to use that is giving me problems now, but that should soon be fixed.