Given the popularity of Linux in the Lifehacker community, I would've found this post more interesting if it focused on what features are specific to the Mac versus Windows versus Linux.

Try Ruby, right now, in your browser! It only takes 15 minutes!

Ruby or Python to do things from the command line.

VOTE: Pidgin

@Dr_Smoke: you think it's reasonable that I'm not allowed to record, via video tape or computer, certain TV shows? If I'm allowed to loan a video tape to my friend, why can't I put it online and loan it to anyone who missed the show? I should maybe even be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars or jailed? I…

After being a hardcore Windows user and sysadmin, both on the desktop and on the server, for many years ... I made a full switch to Ubuntu almost 2 years ago. And I've never been happier :)

every few years i have a cinnabon. i'm sure i could have one every month and my body would be none the wiser.

1) customize your laptop's case (if resale isn't a concern) ... a laptop with a custom paint job and with your name on it, etc, is less likely to be lifted (harder for the crook to resell)

@restaurants, we do something like:

We have a TV in our bedroom. It doesn't get nearly as much use as the one in the living room, but we use it on Sundays when staying in bed late and on most nights for falling asleep. It's also good when you're getting sleepy and you wanna move to bed to continue watching something.

I'm with ph15h but, instead of being an insomniac, I'm a programmer :P

WOW.

I use and like Pidgin because ... uh ... it's free, works well, and it pretty much the standard open-source IM client? I've been using it for 5 or 6 years.

I really don't mind if people can see my wishlist delicious tag.

@Urza: "I think I can safely say you're the ONLY person here who even cares remotely about the Windows EULA."

I *LOVE* Vista. It got me to switch to Ubuntu, and I've never been happier!

This is my current favorite SATA/IDE -> USB2 connector. I've got abunchof these. They're small enough to always have one in my bag for sysadmin work.

I don't know about all of you ... but we're telling our clients to re-email their attachments as good old .doc files

I always have a few thumb drives on me, like folks always used to have floppies back in the day. For awhile, I ran portable apps. I tried out portable OSes. My favorite setup was to carry around the websites I was working on, running xampp on the drive.

I dunno about other folks but, given the resources required by linux ... I have yet to retire a PC. I can still use my 400MHz celeron boxes ( which I have 2 of ) as a friggin desktop ( tho it's happier being a headless file server ). I hope to give away PCs to school but, for now, I always find good uses for them…