I just came across your entries about your switch from Mac. I wish you luck as you explore different options. It sounds as though you’ve done far more research than most and will likely find a good solution.

Well-wishes out of the way, I wanted to plug two different options:

First, you might consider using Windows as your primary OS and then running a virtual machine for Linux. Though I am mostly a Linux user (there are several scientific programs I need that are Unix only), it isn’t the primary OS on any of my five computers.

Rather, I run it in a virtual machine. Due to some tweaks in the Kernel (called paravirtualization), Linux knows when it is running natively on hardware versus when it runs in a virtual environment. Such awareness allows for the Kernel to optimize itself depending on the environment it happens to be running in.

This greatly improves performance. On my main computer at work (a quad core scientific workstation), I sometimes forget that I’m working in a virtualized environment.

With this arrangement, I can use Windows and its superior hardware support while still having access to all of the Open Source tools I’ve come to rely on. It really is a best of both worlds scenario. Moreover, I can have multiple Linux desktops installed at the same time; each one corresponds to a different testing environment.

If you go this route, you might want to look at VirtualBox, a free solution from Sun. I personally use VMWare workstation 7 (and would recommend it to anyone), but it can feel a bit pricey when there are free alternatives.

Second, if you are looking for a good Unix backup GUI, you might take a look at Time Drive:

http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/science-and-technology/time-drive

It puts a wrapper around the excellent command line utility, Duplicity. (I’m also one of the main devs, so I have a bit of a conflict of interest. But it never hurts to plug your own program.)

As a sometimes Mac user, I am also sorry to hear about the treatment you’ve received. But, if I say something negative about the mother-ship, I get similar comments. What is truly terrifying, however, is that they come from some of my scientific colleagues. You would think that intelligent people with advanced degrees wouldn’t be quite so snickered into the same cult-like mindset.

Cheers,

Rob Oakes

As for something like Dragthing, after cruising around the Dragthing forums and finding a user asking if there ever was gonna be a port for a windows environment (snarky, elitist, comments included) some of the users suggested these:

Launchmate (it’s commercial though)
Cooltabs (looked interesting but not my thing)
RKlauncher (looks like rocketdock IMO but with more complexity)
Objectdock (the mac user who promoted this one gushed about how he/she could customize it to look almost like a MAC among other things)
I also recommend Nexus dock which includes, among other things, a way to skin it to look exactly like MacOSx leopard

Try those, however I feel like Windows 7’s dock is good enough for me and for anything to complex Rocketdock is still my choice.

Folder specifically:
http://thedig.in/65

Pin anything:
http://thedig.in/66