As I write this, I’m running Windows on my laptop, here at the dinner table. It’s been almost a year since I worked on Windows, meaning actually running it for a few hours and doing real work with it. With my computers usually running some flavor of Linux or Mac OS X, Windows has mostly only been run only in those rare instances I need to run Windows-specific software. My most recent acquisitions, being an Asus Eee (running on Linux) and a Mac desktop, have brought me farther away from Windows, I was almost tempted to wipe it out from my laptop.

And yet here I am. I’ve booted up good ol’ Windows XP because my wife wanted to play Sims 2 (to get ideas for home remodeling). Looks like I haven’t forgotten how to use it.

Or perhaps it’s because I’ve learned to be platform-agnostic when it comes to work-related matters. With a lot of apps these days running over-the-web instead of locally, you would learn to be such. A lot of my documents and spreadsheets are hosted on Google Docs, so I could access them from any computer of mine, anywhere. My task list is on TaDa list, and my schedules are on Google Calendar. Let’s not forget Gmail. And then there are the instant messaging apps, which you could actually run online, or through cross-platform software (like Pidgin).

Then, of course, most (if not all) sites I work on run WordPress. So it’s usually the same thing no matter where I access the sites from, no matter what browser I use. Sure, there would be some differences in how shortcuts or keystrokes would be used on a Mac compared to a PC (such as the big CMD vs. Ctrl issue), or differences in the workflow (such as using alt-tab instead of Expose). But it’s essentially the same.

Still, being platform agnostic in terms of blogging means I would have to be well-versed with other blogging software as well, instead of just WordPress. I’ve had my share of using Blogger, Typepad and Movable Type, though not as extensive as my experience with WordPress. Managing a blog network with all blogs running WordPress I would have to be an expert (or try to be). But working mostly with Web apps, the Web browser has been my main “platform” so the operating system it runs on becomes a secondary concern.

And so as I close this, I would probably move back upstairs to my home office to fix some sites on the Mac, or perhaps even on my Asus Eee (small screened as it is, you could still squeeze out lots of productive time due to the fact that you can take it anywhere). Different OS, but because I’ve made the browser my “platform” I don’t think I would need much adjusting.

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