Replacing NetBeans with Visual Studio Code

Although I’m not a fulltime programmer I’ve always been interested in software development, and during my time as Solaris systems administrator I quickly developed a fondness for Java.

Although it’s perfectly possible to write Java programs on a command line (which is even recommended as a learning experience) you’ll be more efficient when using an Integrated Development Environment, or IDE for short.

I quickly took a liking to the NetBeans IDE and have been using it ever since I got hold of version 4.1, now more than 12 years ago.

This week though it all came to an end.

And the most ironic part? I’m now using software which was designed and developed by none other than Microsoft, the competitor for Java if there ever was one. Am I slowly turning into a Microsoftie? 😉

Uninstalling build-in Win10 apps that cannot be uninstalled.

Windows 10 provides a lot of multimedia capabilities right out of the box. For example: if you have a webcam then you can fire up the ‘Camera’ application and start using said webcam right away. If you’re more into virtual reality then the ‘Mixed reality portal’ might be fully up your alley.

Heck: Windows 10 even provides out of the box support for an Android telephone; if you want to sent text messages with your phone then you can also use your PC to do it. Amazing!

But what if you don’t have a webcam, VR headset or an Android telephone? What if you don’t want to have all these applications installed?

Well, then you’re out of luck because Windows will refuse to de-install them. Bill knows what’s best for you 😉

Fortunately there’s a solution, and it’s name is PowerShell.

Windows 10 is amazing!

In November last year my trusty Windows 7 32bit machine with a whooping 4Gb of memory (of which only 2,7Gb could be used due to the 32bit restrictions) crashed for reasons unknown (later examination hints that the power supply might have failed). And this left me with quite a problem because it was the only Windows machine I had. And to make matters worse: in an attempt at creating redundancy I had set up dynamic disks to mirrored those. The strategy was perfect, but unfortunately you can’t easily access dynamic disks on another PC.

Alas; I managed to cope, thanks to my FreeBSD backup desktop, and had set my mind on getting a new PC. I wanted to go high end and earlier in January this year the new machine finally arrived. As one could expect it ran Windows 10, the same OS I had been actively trying to avoid for a long time (I even applied registry changes and installed anti-upgrade software to ensure that my Windows 7 environment wouldn’t get hijacked).

Although I did consider a downgrade first, as always, I gave the new environment a fair chance. And honestly? I came to enjoy Windows 10 quite a bit, I think it’s actually pretty good!