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I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy computing. I’m a junkie when it comes to computers. Even more, I really enjoy operating systems. For most of my life I have been using Microsoft operating systems. My generation is pretty cool because I got started right during the peek of things. In school, I used early versions of Windows including Windows 3.1.

When Windows 95 was released, I was truly impressed. Amazingly, Windows today still has that same format but dressed up significantly. Over the years though, I have become less tolerate of Windows. As more time went by, slowly I started to prefer other operating systems. I purchased my first Apple computer about two years ago and I think that was the moment when I finally realized that there was more to computers than just Microsoft Windows. Today, I prefer Linux, specifically Debian/Ubuntu. I now consider purchasing my MacBook Pro as a stepping stone to migrating away from Windows. I do like Mac OS X, but for me, I like to build and customize things. I don’t want to sound like I am downing Mac OS X, because I’m not. The operating system is absolutely amazing, and in my opinion, flawless!

The reason why I prefer Linux is because I’m a builder. I’m creative and I enjoy customizing and tweaking things. You can’t really do that with Mac OS. With my MacBook PRO, you push the power button and it just works. Which is great, but Apple is responsible for its greatness, not me. When I build a Linux OS, I’m responsible for making it work. Linux is much like art. You can customize your computer and include the programs you want, all from scratch. Getting everything to work right depends on you. In other words, your computer is built right when you have everything you want, the way you want. Working with Linux is a challenge, it’s rewarding, and it’s amazing once you have things running the way you want.

But what about Webmasters? What is the best operating system to use for webmastering? I’ve considered this question for quite some time. I guess it’s something that could be debated without a final conclusion, simply because it’s based on the opinion of individual users. With the three common operating systems available (Windows, Mac, and Linux) which one do you think provides the best user functionality for webmasters?

In my opinion, I can say that it’s between Mac and Linux. Windows is completely out of the equation. If you feel differently, I totally welcome you to express your thoughts on why you think its best operating. My opinion why Windows doesn’t compare to either Mac or Linux is lack of speed, security, and stability. Even with Windows completely optimized for maximum performance, it’s still much slower than Mac or Linux. I don’t like to keep my computers running when I’m not using them. I power them down and turn them off. I’m pretty sure that components and CPU processors are only rated for so many hours of use, plus it wastes electricity. I believe that my computers will last longer if I turn them off then they are not in use. And admittedly, I look more at it towards trying to reduce my electric bill compared to the “Green” aspects. Sorry!

On both Mac and Linux setups, you’re going to see super fast startup times. Mac, in my opinion, is the fastest. Linux out of the box, tends to come with a lot of programs installed, thus slowing it down slightly. Linux is still faster than Windows though. Another consideration is security. Windows computers are buggy and always subject to failure. That’s not a very comforting feeling as a webmaster who stores important content, data, and graphics on a personal computer.

But enough about what I think… what are your thoughts? As a webmaster, what is the best operating system to use and why? What tools do you have that are only available on the operating system use? Lastly, if you could no longer use your favorite operating system, which of the other two would you prefer to use and why? I welcome your comments and invite you to share your opinions.

It was only after I did the research when I realized that a lot of hard work really went into the development of Google Chrome for Mac OS X. In fact, it literally took over one year to release into beta. In September of 2008, software engineer, Mike Pinkerton, was assigned to help with the Chromium Project and Google Chrome.

Prior, he had accepted a position at Google back in September of 2005 to do work for their Firefox team, and four months later moved to Google’s Mac Client Team. Pinkerton has many years of experience in the web browser industry starting in 1997 with Netscape Communications. But interestingly enough, it was during that time when Mike Pinkerton and his partner began working on the Camino web browser.

Camino is a Mozilla based browser developed specifically for Mac computers. Camino is a very fine tuned web browser. In fact, just last month, Camino 2.0 was officially released. Now the ironic part to all this is the fact that while Mike Pinkerton was developing Camino, he also was developing Google Chrome at the same time. Active users have been eagerly waiting over a year for the release of Google Chrome for Mac and the update on Camino, and interestingly enough, both came within a month from each other.

The great news is that Google Chrome is finally here for Mac and also a great alternative to FireFox is available as well. I’ll provide a review on Camino in the near future. In the mean time, I’d like to dig into Chrome for Mac and explain some of the features.

To begin with, Pinkerton explained that it was important to make sure that the Mac version of Chrome was fast, stable, and secure, just like the Windows version. He stated that they completely rebuilt Chrome for Mac from the bottom up and made many fo the useful Mac OS X features apart of the Google Chrome experience.

Some of these native features include integrating the Mac OS Spell Checker. Another is Keychain. They wanted to make it so that passwords created by users could be stored and accessed centrally even when created by other web browsers. Additional features unique to Mac include sandboxing support which helps make Chrome even more secure.

To learn more about the key features of Google Chrome and more details about Google Chrome for Mac, I recommend tuning into Mike Pinkerton’s presentation video below:

One of the key features that I personally enjoy the most is the Omnibox. Becuase of that, I want to also include a second video that explains more about it and how it can benefit you:

All in all, I am very glad to see Google Chrome finally available for Mac. Keep in mind, this is a beta release and there’s going to be a lot more work done before it’s final. Also, beta for Mac is different than beta for PC. For instance, Google Chrome for Mac doesn’t support extensions yet which make it difficult to customize, although as of writing this, TechCrunch has some updates about that. You can check out the post on Google Mac Blog and the post on Google Chrome Blog to learn more. If you want to learn more about Mike Pinkerton, you should check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.  Over the next few weeks I am going to use both Chrome and Camino and write a future article depicting their differences.