MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

As an Apple Reseller it amazing the numbr of people who have ten or fifteen year old information about Apple computers. Maybe that info is perpetuated because there was little compatibility then.

MW= human
as in, to err is human

My first first post!

He fail to mention the iWork suite or AppleWorks, that way you don't need any M$ crap on your fabulous Mac.

people ask their local IT geek at work these questions in passing. The IT geeks are, by default, trained to spew lies about the Mac because if you get a mac, you'll not need them.

And if you don't need them, then NO ONE will need them because what you don't realize is that no one but you talks to them about computer stuff. If that stops, then they will be so lonley, and unemployed, that they will have to kill themselves.

either that, or they are lazy.

Either way, IT people are some of the most dead-weight employees on the planet for any company

I love it. whoever said the platform wars were over, spoke WAY too soon.

It's ON!

"Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep". That say's it all.

MDN links to a blood sucking registration type site again.

GET THIS! WE DON"T WANT TO REGISTER

So stop linking to sites that are designed to troll us with hit counts.

Heck I can write better copy then this story.

My whole company are IT geeks.

We have a 'Desktop-Support' team and a 'Macintosh-Desktop-Support' team.

We also have a mac helpdesk (Only 7 or 8 people out of the 60 on the 'real' helpdesk, but still cool,) and a 'mac engineering' team (of one.)

It's great hearing one of the 'IT geeks' tell the mac engineering guy what's wrong with macintoshes. He trys to talk sense, but often he just ends up shaking his head and walking away.

I regret to inform "the other steve jobs" that not all IT geeks are trained to spew lies and are ignorant about the Mac.

Yes, many are ignorant, but not all of them (I for one am not ignorant of Macs).

Personally, I'd rather see Macs used all over - they'd actually give real IT staff* more time to attend to solving business problems & writing new (internally used) applications (i.e. actually allow us to do the jobs many of us were hired to do), rather than fixing trivial and ridiculous issues which shouldn't really exist in the first place (as happens with Windows). The other half of the equation is the seemingly low level of competence of many (non-technical) staff... but the argument then becomes "Why should they have to know?" Indeed, I don't have to know how a car motor works to drive one, yet this is seemingly what Windows expects my knowledge to be.

* real IT staff = people who actually know what they are doing with real computer science degrees to back them up vs dicks who go do vendor training, or a 3 month training course, or moved into I.T. from another discipline for the money.

"the other steve jobs"

I think your comments are a bit harsh, not all IT people/departments are anti-mac, by far the main reason for a lack mac's in companies are because they are far too expensive to implement, and/or to make the switch, many mainstream packages are not available/supported on mac's. And shelling out for a new office package for each machine (which is most likely to be MS Office) would cost a fortune.

Yes windows is a truly deressing state of affairs, but macs have been, and will continue to be (for a long time to come IMO) a computer for specialist use, and not for everyday mainstream desktop use.

hahaha.. Digital Camera..

if you actually got it to work on the PC, you're gonna go into convulsions with your new iBook..

Step 1: Plug it in.
Step 2: Stop drooling, it just works.

James Hopkins: Reasses the situation in less than a years time. With the dawn of Intel Macs, there will no longer be the need to incur costs associated with software, as the new Macs will run x86 code and there fore all the Windows applications needed. And as for hardware upgrades, I should have thought a Mac mini will do very nicely, especially as it negates the costs of keyboards, mice and screen by allowing you to use all the old equipment (I mean this in the context they don't pointlessly ship with those items; I know many WinTels also allow use of old equipment).

Tim Coughlin
htttp://timcoughlin.typepad.com

I had one person tell me that Mac users aren't technically adept.

I was like, excuse me?!?!?

I use both PC's and Mac's but I know Mac users are just as technically adept as PC users.

I think there are many who still have this hippy image of Apple. Thus thinking we're a bunch of idiots.

I didn't know idiots could invent the iPod and OS X.

Last Post!
(starting a new trend)

You don't need to register, just click the link to say that you're outside the US.

old man shut up.. they got the excerpt there for a reason..

MDN ignore the dead skin flapping..

The only problem we have with Apple at work is the Java handling ability for all the back end stuff of web pages, both from our Java coders who code for PC and all our clients first and then test the same code on a Mac for the studio design team. Some of it may come down to the individual user but a lot of it comes down to Apple's ability to handle Java (not very well)

I got good advice from a mechanic what is the best car for me to buy.

Today, I drive a Hyundai Pony.

And I drive it to my dentist twice a year - just as he advised me to.


MW: I am not 'waiting' for the switchers to come. I don't care. I know what's best for ME. I drown out the naysayers with the voices in my head.

The only credible point you made was that many business applications are only written for Windows. I believe all your other points could be addressed simply by purchasing Macs when a new computer is needed anyway. And with respect to Windows-only applications, in most companies that's only a reason to keep a few Windows machines around for those who need them--it's rare that all/most employees in a company need Windows-only apps. In MOST companies, the average employee is just using Office, a browser and email.
RT
P.S. I have to say, however, as someone who has integrated Macs into a Windows server environment, it's not quite as easy as this article claims--you may well need someone with Mac networking knowledge initially for a couple of hours (we did).

"Right. You'd have to learn something new. Such as where you click the close a window - on the left, not on the right as in Windows," he said.

The report also stresses OS X's built-in capability to run most popular USB printers, and its cutting-edge iPhoto software.

"Mac owners, it's time to open the window and shout out in unison: 'We love iPhoto! We love iPhoto.' Windows users who haven't seen or used iPhoto are due for a shock. Whatever camera you have, it just plain connects."

---

Huh? Mac users should tell people about Macs? Something they haven't been doing for like 20 years??

Give me a break.. apologists/sadists keep PC's not because the Mac users aren't talking.. it's because of Half Life (asking your 12 yr old for advice on PCs)

OldMan > Heck I can write better copy then this story.>

You probably can, but when you do, try to spell properly--it's THAN--not then.

"Either way, IT people are some of the most dead-weight employees on the planet for any company"

I love this line. I work in IT and this couldn't be more true. We are a complete waste of money and resources. It is unbelivable.

But this is for two reasons:
1 - we support Windows based machines, and well, we all understand why IT is needed there.

Secondly 90% of the working force is made up of complete and utter mornons who would need IT to wipe their asses for them if their mothers didn't finally train them to do it themselves the first 5 years of their life.
But past that the mental midgets of the world need IT to help them clear paper jams or choose a new printer. Complete and utter morons.

If people weren't such complete idiots there would be no need for IT, and then they would be forced to get rid of me, which would be great because I hate what I do but I just can't justify walking away from 80,000+ dollars a year helping retards.

Please find a reason for me to go home. Use Macs and stop being such a collection of morons. Thanks!

java for mac is the worst. I really wish they would improve it.

But its a moot point anyways because java is no longer the "it" programming language of cross platform compatibility anyways.

"* real IT staff = people who actually know what they are doing with real computer science degrees to back them up vs dicks who go do vendor training, or a 3 month training course, or moved into I.T. from another discipline for the money."

Computer Science degrees? Your kidding right? Degrees in CS are about as useful as the toilet paper I use to wipe my ass. We have people with CS degrees, we call them interns, because they haven't a clue how to do anything in an actual prodcuction enviorment. They are looking around for the professor to hold their hand and explain the theory behind what they are doing. CS degree holders are some of the most non technical people on the planet and they usually end up in managerial training programs so they can be the asshole who has no clue how anything works but get all the credit for it running smoothly.

The only thing "real" about someone with a CS degree is they made a "real" big mistake in college.

is on ADC

Better, getting there.

My son-in-law got a VERY good deal on a 17" G5 iMac from friends that "switched" but had problems using the Mc after too many years on PCs. They even took classes, but eventually gave up and sold the iMac cheap. While they are in their 60s (so am I) it wasn't their age or intelligence levels (which are high enough), but the fact that they couldn't adjust to the Mac's way of doing things.

I had no problems switching, even at my old age. In the last 3+ years I have bought 2 15" PBs (my son has the original 667 and I have a 1.5 that is attached to a 23" display at the office), a 12" iBook for the wife and a 20" G5 iMac at home. While it's easy for us to think that everyone would be better off with a Mac things don't always work that way. At least my son-in-law got an iMac for half price.

Macs do not go well with idiots. Will a Mac work with an idiot Windows user at the keyboard?

AH, I got you this time for sure.

Now I'm really curious (and not ironic, only ignorant). What then is the "it" language for cross platform apps?

Python and CLisp come to mind. Very powerful and on the rise, especially CLisp. By the way, this last is what NASA uses.

AppleReseller,

Congratulations on your first first post!

Dreams do come true!

"[...] the main reason for a lack mac's in companies are because they are far too expensive to implement, and/or to make the switch, many mainstream packages are not available/supported on mac's. And shelling out for a new office package for each machine (which is most likely to be MS Office) would cost a fortune."

Okay, let's start at the top.

"[...] they are far too expensive to implement, and/or to make the switch [...]"

First, TCO is lower--about 36% lower according to Gartner Group 2002 study. So you pay for it by laying off a batch of your no longer necessary IT workers.

"[...] many mainstream packages are not available/supported on mac's [...]

Please let me know which of these you are talking about. First, you might be surprised what is and isn't available for Macintosh. My personal favorite was the IT guy who insisted they couldn't switch to Macs because of Lotus Notes. When I showed him this [PDF}, he hemmed and hawwed and muttered and walked away.

Second, define "mainstream." If you mean applications that everybody in your office will use, there are plenty of applications available to do anything your office might do. If you mean the "lemming" approach--other people use this software, so we will, too--you're probably right.

Finally, even if there is something that some employees need to do which is not available for Macintosh, fine. Get them a PC. But is your theory is that because the shipping department uses software from FedEx to print shipping labels which only runs on PCs, everybody in the company should be using PCs? Sounds like a stretch to me.

"And shelling out for a new office package for each machine (which is most likely to be MS Office) would cost a fortune."

Hello? McFly? It's called a site license. You really think a big company goes out and buys 500 copies of Word?! The last large company I worked for had a site license for pretty much the entire Microsoft software library--and that included the Mac versions! And, yes, you can get site licenses for Office or just Word or Excel.

So how do you get these copies of Office that you use? Do you just buy them when you buy the PC?

Finally, there's this (out-of-order):

"[...] not all IT people/departments are anti-mac [...]"

Sorry, but when I hear these same three arguments over and over and over and over again, it gets annoying.

The software one is particularly galling. For example, one IT guy told me that there was no project-management software for the Mac. When I pointed out this, he said, "Well, yeah. But we need Microsoft Project." Why? "Well, what if we need to share data?" You mean, with other people in the office? "Yeah." So they'd all be using the same software.

"Well, yeah, but..."

So, personally, I tend to get grouchy with "IT people" because they don't seem to do their job.

I'll admit, I'm an old-timer. I remember when our spreadsheets came from Lotus, our word-processors came from WordPerfect, and our databases came from Ashton-Tate.

Nowadays, the IT Departments opens up the big book of Microsoft products and buy what's in it. They never seem to actually try to research what products are out there, evaluate them, etc. etc.

fact is, mac don't support business like Windows do. I'm a mac fan myself but they don't hold hands like Windows and Microsoft does and companies are leery of that.

For whatever ignorant reason, they know they will get supported through their problems. Of course if they have macs, they wouldn't need 85% of the support that MS provides...

but I digress

Peter, good points. Especially on the software side. The issue of "We can't adopt Macs because we use <whatever>" invariably that whatever is a sw title that runs exclusively on Windows when perfectly valid cross-platform alternatives abounds.

buyer, the only thing MS sells you is pre-paid update and patches.

LOL, how much have costed customers the pre-paid licenses for updates that did not come in years and are not coming in years?

I see you've read "How to Win Friends and Influence People". hehe.

You're quite funny, and cynically more or less correct on many things, but your experience with CS grads and I.T. in general is disturbing.

My experience with CS grads is that they're generally pretty good at what they do (software development that is). Sure, you get some dummies there too, but on the whole, they know what they're doing. Yes, they're "green" to start with, but isn't everyone? (this said, I've not met too many CS grads in the past say 5 years,... perhaps more recent grads are spoon fed too much and/or don't know how to think???)

I.T. can suck, and I've worked with some total ignoramuses (mostly Cobol programmers on a different team to me who only know Cobol and Mainframes, not anything else), but I've also worked with some top notch people too, CS grads and all. Thing is, I.T. needs a decent manager at the top, someone with full business support, coz all too often companies see I.T. as a money pit with little in the way of tangible returns. Never mind that one query on the data warehouse enabled the guys upstairs in finance to figure out a way to save the company a million dollars in taxes, no, it's COSTING us $0.5M a year to have the data warehouse! (that "costing" reason is also why Mac's don't get bought in many cases - coz they "cost" too much up front, but that's already been mentioned above.)

Perhaps your company just hires bad people, including those at the top? Or perhaps it won't pay the money for good people? Or puts the CS grads into roles unsuitable for them? But you're bitter and hate what you do, and are clearly biased, so it's hard for you to find joy in anything in that situation.

By the way, I studied CS in the late '80s, and was increasingly annoyed at being given more and more sys admin and helpdesk type work over the past 10 years, rather than actual software development. Whilst I believe I was still very good at it, it's not why I got into computing. In fact, that side of I.T. bores the hell out of me. I felt like a glorified button pusher at times. Yuk.

You are pretty funny tho. I really hope you find somewhere more suitable for you to work, where the people (CS grads and all) are good at what they do, coz I suspect where you are isn't doing you any favors, except paying you a bucket load for mind numbing work.

One problem I have at the moment is that online business banking (for the bank I've been with since 1993) doesn't work. It worked briefly with Panther, but no longer. Trying to find a bank (in the UK) that supports Macs is a nightmare. Just recently started paying some tax online rather than with a cheque, now I can't do that.

Now I know it's not the Mac's fault. It's the bank's fault for not writing standards compliant software, but that's not helping me right now. What I do know is that there's no way I'd trust these transactions to a windows keylogger infested POS.

"One problem I have at the moment is that online business banking (for the bank I've been with since 1993) doesn't work. It worked briefly with Panther, but no longer. Trying to find a bank that supports Macs is a nightmare. Just recently started paying some tax online rather than with a cheque, now I can't do that."

Fair enough. Solution: Switch banks. Make a point of it when you come in. Let them know this is a deal-breaker.

Fun story: Years ago, I was hired by a company to develop a Mac version of their forms software. Why? Because they were selling to Motorola which--at the time--had more than a few Macs and pretty much said that if they didn't do a Mac version, there's no way they would get more business out of Motorola.

It may not help--I'm sure you're not a big enough customer (no offense intended)--but if enough people come in and let them know there's a demand, they will certainly supply it.

Hywel, too bad with your bank. With Wells Fargo and Bank of America I have no problems.

Change bank or tell them you are looking for another bank because of their lack of support for online banking on OS X.

Did the guy that wrote this look at his paper's site on a Mac? Fugly.

"The only problem we have with Apple at work is the Java handling ability for all the back end stuff of web pages, both from our Java coders who code for PC..."
Mr. Winmacguy, heads up on the Java issue. If your Java coders are coding for the M$ Virtual Machine, that is the problem. Mac OS X uses the "real?" Java SDK from Sun (probably modified for OS X in some fashion), not M$ bastardized version. If Java coders would stick to the standard Sun or GJC, then there probably wouldn't be a problem if OS providers would follow form, too. It would certainly help wean all those firmly attached to M$'s teat from IE and get them on Firefox.
Now, I am not saying that Java on any platform is easy, but is the problem Java on the Mac or Java itself?

Just some comments about IT people and CS degrees. I am in that boat in Australia. I have a 15" Powerbook and I LOVE it to death. Professionally I am a web designer & developer, and recently was lead designer AND developer for a company, now I am self employed as I am still young and wanna try it on my own.

I use my Powerbook for pretty much everything, EXCEPT programming. Microsoft's ASP.Net technology is bloody awesome, kicks php and even jsp's ass. Microsoft's SQL Server is good too, SQL Server 2005 and ASP.Net 2 will be HUGE improvements. Those 2 technologies slaughter php and jsp.

I ALWAYS recommend macs to everyone I come across, and my use of Microsoft technologies only affect me as the developer to use a windows computer, NOT anyone else.

My windows computer is getting pretty slow now, BUT I am holding off upgrading my PC for an intel based PowerMac. So the pendulum can swing both ways. Some might think people will stop buying macs currently and go for a windows pc, but there are some in the market who instead of buying a windows pc within a few months will wait for the new intel macs.

hey buyer...

"fact is, mac don't support business like Windows do. I'm a mac fan myself but they don't hold hands like Windows and Microsoft does and companies are leery of that."

you are kidding right? I worked for a fortune 200 company - one dumb enough to install Windows servers all over the place. When these wouldn't stay up for 48 consecutive hours MS sent in their "hand holding" support team to help. Their solution? Configure the servers to automatically reboot every night. Wow! I was impressed with that level of expertise. How can anyone possibly live without such support? bwaaahahaha

MW lack: as in lack of competence from MS "support"

A lot of it comes down to people using what they are familiar with. Most people, once they have made the transition from their office PC to a Mac are normally fairly happy. It then just becomes a matter of getting familiar with the little differences between the two systems. It is also a matter of getting people to make the initial "switch"

MS Help: that is the reason why in serious work, where servers has to stay up 24/7 because there is no night time - worldwide collaboration - Windows has _literally_ no place.

winmacguy: totally.

As one of my coworkers - who switched recently - simply put it: "little distinguo aside, it's like Windows. Main difference is that the Mac tends to work all the time, whatever I do! " and a big smile on his face: "it changed my life, buddy. Thanks"

Hi iPodder, yes I posted that comment while at work today as I semi watched/overheard one of the girls at work who is a PC user -read- Word and Powerpoint asking how to get onto the internet on "one of those machines " We mostly run 10.3 at work with our Windows machines running NT till they are upgraded to XP. I tend to find that the bulk of our PC only users at work are just that, PC ONLY but our production (myself included) and studio staff are Mac PC compatible although generally only able to do set job asigned tasks on a Mac as per our respective job descriptions and any other "PC originating Task" is sometimes a case of "oh, you cant do that on a Mac" (apparently). About the only time I would believe that statement is when it refers to some issue with the back end of our Java built website on a Mac based browser as I am aware that Apple doesnt work too smoothly with Java.

The BOTTOM line is that Microsoft will continue to dominate the business market for many many years to come, despite the intel-macs.

you are right on Seahawk...

after the crack MS "support" team direct from the bowels of Redmond blamed the problem on whatever applications were running on those servers and advised us to "automatically reboot all the servers every night" as the "solution" we moved 24/7 required services to Unix boxes. Then just for grins and giggles a couple of our IT support team installed a new box with nothing but a fresh copy of Windows on it (no apps at all) and when *it* wouldn't stay up 48 hours asked the "crack MS support team" which app they thought was crashing it. The MS monkeys didn't see the humor in that but I sure did.

MS clearly - as in clearly the problem was with windows

maybe on behalf of the bmc remedy community i should tumble onto remedy's payroll & devise a neat mac client for their remedy ITSM suite. bitch is the only thing keeping me on windoze.

A reader commented that the link given for my article brought him to a site that required registration. He might be interested in knowing that MY site, which carries all my articles, requires no such thing. My articles have been online since 1983 -- a record, as far as I have been able to tell, for continuously available newspaper articles online.

Go to my site for that article and the thousands of others that are online:

http://aroundcny.com/technofile/

Al Fasoldt