Why Cygwin?

I'm a Unix aficionado, so I enjoy working in a Unix shell, having the ability to monitor and control the processes I create, and program the mindless drone work away.

Cygwin provides the best, tightest Windows/Unixlike arrangement I have found. It does it's best to provide the most esoteric Unix tools welded solidly into Windows. When I saw that Expect runs fairly well, I went from happy with Cygwin to ecstatic! I have yet to mine the full depth of tools available, but it has allowed me to use my PC's rather than rely on a Unix host for my base of operations. You have to be somewhat comfortable with Unix, X Windows, and scripting to fully customize the the stuff to your liking, but it is definitely worth the effort. It even has a cron that you can turn on and an "email" command to use smtp to send via any accessible smtp server. I have it sending me text messages that I schedule for reminders.