Mac OS X intimidating...

[christm]

well they could have made those instructions simpler. they could advise people on the general operations of the mac instead of scanning and network drives.

its schools that put pupils off the use of macs.

 

[cwa107]

I'm one of those IT guys who want to get rid of his Macs, and it's not b/c of fear of losing my job. It's b/c Macs make up 15% of my machines and 50% of my service calls. It's b/c I've had to replace a row of memory on a year old Xserve twice while two racks of HP and Dell servers chug along, "just working". It's b/c I spend so much time at forums like these learning and applying all the tips you mentioned to my G5's and I still have $800 HP's that run Photoshop and Illustrator just as well as they do. Not to mention how whenever we plan a project/upgrade, we have to spend a lot of extra time getting the Macs to work with whatever we are doing. I just tested out a great Internet monitoring device. The techs who came in were both big Mac guys with their Macbooks. The device was incredible, except that the Macs wouldn't work with it. They never could get the Macs to work so we had to scrap it, but that didn't stop the two them from constantly making "baseless, idiotic compalints" about my pc's and Vista, even though all of those machines worked perfectly. So, scared I'm going to lose my job b/c of Macs, no. Want to quit my job b/c of Macs, yes.

My friend, if you are intent in working in IT for the remainder of your career, it would behoove you to broaden your skill set. Being single focused on Windows support and Microsoft Network administration makes you less valuable. Believe me, there's a lot of MCSEs out there these days, so much so that the market is saturated in many areas. As more companies start moving over to Linux servers, a solid foundation in Linux/UNIX is highly desirable. And of course, that knowledge translates pretty easily to OS X.

BTW, my company is on the hunt for someone in Albany. I don't know how far away that is from NYC, but I figured it's worth a mention if you really hate your job that much. It's all Windows (desktop) support, so if you're interested, PM me.

 

[fleurya]

well they could have made those instructions simpler. they could advise people on the general operations of the mac instead of scanning and network drives.

its schools that put pupils off the use of macs.

I don't think the school is putting the students off the use of Macs. If they really didn't like Macs, why bother spending money to put them in?? The fact that they made up those instructions to begin with is a testament to the noticing they don't get used and are taking steps to get students to use them. More likely, someone who works in IT there or in the library who uses Macs made them independently to try to boost Mac use. You can't put too many instructions or people would feel overwhelmed.

At my school's libraries we have tons of Macs and they also barely get touched compared to the PC's. But I think the school likes them because, much to my surprise and happiness, only a month or two after the new iMacs were announced we had an entire section of 20" aluminum iMacs! And their always there, open and waiting, when I need them to print something (can't network into the printers on campus with my MBP) or just for the joy of using them and their iMac goodness.

I may pass this idea of posting instructions to the folks at the library here. Getting people to use them will only help us all in the long run. And like I've said before, Microsoft has it right the way they offer practically free software to students so they get hooked on Windows early. IF Apple would initiate something like that, it would only help them too.

 

[stevenyc]

you don't want to learn about them or how to set them up properly, you just find them to be a nuisance and you do everything you can to make them malfunction so your boss, as you once posted, will get rid of them.

I think Brown Study's first post in this thread said it all. In fact, when I read that post of his, I was wondering when you'd put in your two cents.

You really think I would sabotage my own machines? That's insane and insulting. You're right that the last thing I want to do is deal with Macs, but getting them to work is the answer, not making them break. So the only way a Mac will have problems is b/c someone like me deliberately breaks it? Do you guys really think there are IT guys out there crippling their Macs when no one is looking?

 

[MacHeadCase]

Yeah it does sound like that, to be honest. You've had an endless list of problems for just one person.

You can have a Mac lemon, it happens, sure, but have 25 lemons? All at once? Sorry, to me the reason lies somewhere else.

You do think Macs are inferior machines. Example of a closed mind. Can you really say you have a positive attitude in wanting to learn something new and being the best you can be at your job?

For an IT person I would expect you to be better armed against basic problems like this, this, and this, or again this. I'm thinking that if the Xserve and Mac OS X server was this bad, we'd get an avalanche of this type of posts. So maybe you don't have the proper training. If I were a Mac user in your workplace I'd be miserable and would fix the problems on my machine myself.

I feel you need training or maybe you just don't have any interest for it.

 

[milessthomas]

Its kinda funny, I had just started working for a housing appraisal firm. I was sitting at my desk tapping away at my laptop and I forgot to close out my email account on one of the computers in Appraisers lab. So instead of going upstairs I pulled up the network list and found the machine I was at, typed in the vnc address and password and closed it all out from cotVNC on my mac.

The IT guy for the place came in and looked at my screen and saw what I was doing and was like "You can control other computers screens from your own?" I said, "Well...yea, don't you all use VNC from the server room?" ...a few seconds pause and then... "...what's vnc?"

I went to my supervisor the next day and asked if they needed a new IT guy. I was hired the next day, as the old IT guys supervisor...I was 17, he was 36. I worked there for a year and a half. Ended up converting them to mac...totally unrelated, but it was quite an experience.

 

[dtravis7]

But seriously, the labs were maintained by students. I'm sure they weren't optimized, but I remember staring at the screen and watching the "puzzle pieces" fitting together as they booted. I think those were called "extensions" back in the day - and there were a ton of them.

All those extensions loading reminds me of Windows users who have to have every possible thing load at startup. The very friend who got me interested in messing with a Mac said "That REAL MAC POWER USERS have to have at least 3-4 rows of extensions at startup or they are not real Mac users!". I soon found out he was wrong. Take out the extensions you do not need to be there at startup and the boot time to desktop went way down.

Just like the Windows users I spoke of above. Systems like that with a 30-50 icons loading by the clock slow the windows startup down just like the extensions did with the older Macs. Some friends were amazed how much faster their machine booted when I got rid of some of that junk!

 

[milessthomas]

You really think I would sabotage my own machines? That's insane and insulting. You're right that the last thing I want to do is deal with Macs, but getting them to work is the answer, not making them break. So the only way a Mac will have problems is b/c someone like me deliberately breaks it? Do you guys really think there are IT guys out there crippling their Macs when no one is looking?

Sorry but Steven looking at your previous posts, there has got to be someone sabotaging your macs. I've never seen this great an expanse of issues in one business at the same time.

 

[PinkLemonade]

Yeah, OS 8 was probably the worst Mac OS ever made.

Too bad I don't have the RAM for OS 9 on my iMac G3