Use a computer… FAST!

I’ve been using computers for over three decades now, and about two of those decades have been professionally, you know, as part of my job for work. When using a computer I like to get things done, like, fast.

Back when I used Macs in the pre-OS X era I used BBEdit, which doesn’t suck, and along with the Finder of the day, I could do things really fast. I could edit files fast, and I could manage files fast. It was good.

Eventually I moved to Mac OS X, and found jEdit and things were slow at first. I even mentioned that it seemed like I was using a computer with gloves on. Things got faster.

Sometimes I see people use a computer and I get twitchy watching them try to select some bit of text, not starting at the end, or not double or triple clicking, or even just trying to retype some code instead of copying and pasting it.

I wonder if I could teach a class on using computers quickly, at least for dealing with text…

Of course I’ve also learned how to use find/replace, including regex, and tons of terminal tricks to deal with text and files and the like. And there’s still a ton I don’t know! There’s *nix tools that I could probably add to my toolbox to do things even more efficiently.

Anyway, if you feel like you could use a computer faster, you probably could. Really, in the old days we spent time waiting for computers, but if you’re dealing with text, chances are the computer is sitting around waiting for you.