Forgive me if this has been covered already, but I am curious about the use of computers in Science

I have to add a quick sentence here just to prevent the questions overlaying the initial graphic

I'll pose this as a Questionnaire, and would appreciate numbered answers if you respond, thanks






  1. Do you use a computer for your work?








  2. What Operating System does it use?








  3. Windows, MacOSX,  a version of Linux or BSD, or something specifically written for your work?








  4. a) Do you know of or use Open Source Software, invariably free, or Proprietary, bought and paid for? b) I'm particularly interested in what document formats you publish your work in?








  5. Do you have computer breakdowns at critical times in what you are doing, and do you fix them yourself, or call for maintenance?








  6. Do you have training courses on your computer systems?








  7. What would you suggest could be done to improve your computer use?








  8. Any other comments?






















What prompted this, you may wonder?
Well, aside from an interest in Linux, and a few hiccups using this SciBlog editor.....


If you're going to do good science, release the computer code too

Programs do more and  more scientific work - but you need to be able to check them as well as the original data, as the recent row over climate change documentation shows

Darrel Ince guardian.co.uk,
  Friday 5 February 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/05/science-climate-emails-code-release

For an explanation of OSes, for those who don't know,  see

http://tunes.org/Review/OSes.html
http://www.theosfiles.com/
http://distrowatch.com/

Aitch