Mad as hell, switching to Mac

Networkworld ^ | 05/23/05 | Winn Schwartau

[Panerai]

This is my first column written on a Mac - ever. Maybe I should have done it a long time ago, but I never said I was smart, just obstinate. I was a PC bigot.

But now, I've had it. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

In the coming weeks I'm going to keep a diary of an experiment my company began at 6 p.m. April 29, 2005 - an experiment predicated on the hypothesis that the WinTel platform represents the greatest violation of the basic tenets of information security and has become a national economic security risk. I do not say this lightly, and I have never been a Microsoft basher, either. I never criticize a company without a fair bit of explanation, justification and supportive evidence.

I have come to the belief that there is a much easier, more secure way to use computers. After having spent several years focusing my security work on Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless, I also have come to the conclusion that if I'm having such security problems, heaven help the 98% of humanity who merely want a computer for e-mail and multimedia.

Even though I'm a security guy going on 22 years now, my day-to-day work is pretty much like everyone else's. I live on laptops and use my desktops at home and the office for geeking and experimenting. My two day-to-day laptops (two, for 24/7 backup) are my business machines. I don't need them to do a whole lot - except work reliably, which is why I am fed up with WinTel.

[cmsgop]

LOL! What Mac are you using?

[kezekiel]

He refers to Dell technical support as "New Delli." Now that's funny.

[Mobile Vulgus]

(he says typing on a MAC as we read on...)

I love Macs. I am NOT a fan of system 10, though. I hate the look and feel off it. It is windows clumsy, ugly and bluky. If I wanted windows I would go to a PC.

However, that being said, I think Windows XP isn't too bad compared to the older Windows systems.

In my home I have two PCs and two Macs (a G3 and a G4 dual) hooked up to my home network. I find the Macs link to each other as easy as pie. I STILL can't figure out how to make the netword for the damn PCs and to have them link with the Macs.

So, Macs with system 9 are my fav.

[John Valentine]

".... they are the most network unfriendly computers I've ever worked with."

Like this unfriendly - so gol-durn unfriendly that an 11 year old girl can set up a network?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1410181/posts

"Like its sibling Mac OS X desktop version, Mac OS X Server provides a UNIX desktop environment that is trivially easy to install and configure. To measure Tiger Server’s ease of use, I tested my eleven-year old daughter’s (Tess) ability to install and configure the OS on bare-metal. Granted, she’s a bright eleven-year-old with daily experience on a Mac OS X desktop machine, but she has had no prior experience using the server software. I gave her the installation DVD and provided network and power to a computer with an erased hard drive. The only instruction she was given was 'Whenever in doubt, accept the defaults.'"

"She clicked the installer icon that rebooted the machine from the DVD, and after following the simple on-screen prompts, with a few button clicks the OS was installed on the local disk in 16 minutes. The machine rebooted from the freshly installed local disk, and after responding to a few more simple prompts, in 11 minutes she had configured the machine as a gateway with DHCP, DNS, a shared file system, shared directory services, and a load management system (Xgrid) served to the internal private network, as well as Apache web services and IMAP, POP and SMTP mail services to the external network, with Network Address Translation and a Firewall configured to permit all internal network traffic out, but only Secure Shell network traffic in.

"Following this she created a user account and home directory for me. Did she know what she was doing? Very likely no, but the point is that she didn’t have to. I suspect the biologists out there tasked with the new UNIX Systems Administration responsibilities will appreciate this too."

[kendu]

it was a powerbook, i used to fix them, thank God I got out of that part of IT

[Deagle]

I have to disagree...

Due to amazing increases in graphic hardware alone, I have to upgrade every 4 to 6 months just to stay up with it (runs FS9 without flutter) - Not to mention hard disk, network, and display technology advances.

I can't imagine keeping a system over a year (PC or MAC) without upgrading to take advantage of the hardware/software advances.

If you do not use advanced programs (with constant updates that take advantage of new technology) and tend to use yesterdays programs, you will be fine...

[Tribune7]

I'm not talking bookkeeping, I'm talking about running the business.

Several years ago we had to get a biz computer & ended up going with a PC due to software.

[HAL9000]

I am able to work from home because my home PC can communicate with the PC at the office. If I had a Mac, I would not be able to do this, and I'd have to waste my time driving to work every day.

I can use my Mac at home to access the office through a VPN connection and communicate to PCs running Linux, no problem.

I could communicate with Window PCs that way too - but we've banned Windows from the office.

[John Valentine]

Don't bother trying reason with Hank. He's here for just one purpose, to insult Mac owners. Along the way he will try to defend to himself some computer decisions he must be unconciously uncomfortable with.

He's hard to figure. As with his response to your comment avout BYOB, which in my opinion isn't as good as Quickbooks (also available in a Mac version), but Hank just comes back with a "Not bookkeeping - running my business" with no real information as to just what the hay he is talking about. You'll never get anywhere with him.

Don't bother, is my advice.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Note that Hank isn't talking about "stability," he's talking about utility. Why should he, as a user, have to find work-arounds in order to use the software, features, etc. that he likes? This is the one thing that Mac-promoters actually lose the argument with. Mac OS has some features that are much better than equivalent Microsoft features... that is an argument that Macheads will win. But as soon as you start to tell PC users how they need to change the way they do things (or that they shouldn't consider some functions as important as they do), that's when you lose. Windows dominates the PC market because (and this is also a product of the domination, as well) people can generally do things easily and the way they want to (or expect to). Pop in a DVD, and the features menu comes up. Buy a game, and it works.

When you say "Most of the good games have been ported to the mac," what you are actually saying is that "The games you want to play, but can't, on a Mac really aren't important." That's hardly a winning attitude in business. And your statement is not even true, in that (as a flight sim fan) almost all of the games I do play haven't been ported.

If Apple wants to raise its market share, its going to have to realize that sometimes leaders have to be followers to. Apple has so bought into its own "image" as a pioneer and visionary company that it occasionally forgets that leading is only successful in business if you end up leading the consumer somewhere they actually want to go...

[PetroniusMaximus]

***Like this unfriendly - so gol-durn unfriendly that an 11 year old girl can set up a network? ***


"He, this is UNIX! I know this!"

- snotty nose girl from Jurassic Park

[HKMk23]

The author's name is "Winn". BWAAAAHAAHAAHAAAAHAAHAAHAAA!
ROTFLMFWBO!

[AntiBurr]

There is one over-riding reason that I'll not buy a Mac.
AL GORE is on the board of directors.

According to "Unlimited Access" by Gary Aldrich, the Clinton Administration junked all of the PC's that Bush had left behind and we taxpayers paid several millions to buy new Mac's for the Clintons. Might this be a reason Mr Gore landed a spot on the Apple Board of Directors?---NAH! Impossible.

[SlowBoat407]

they are the most network unfriendly computers I've ever worked with.

I must disagree with you most strenuously. I have never had a problem making my G4 Powerbook work with the all-PC network at my office, nor have I had any problems with my all-Mac network at home. I have, however, had problems getting a PC to work with my Macs. For that matter, I've had difficulty getting a PC to work with other PCs in a network. Job security for the IT guys, I guess.

[KoRn]

Like I said my experience with them was very...very limited. Perhaps I used a poor choice of words. Rather than network unfriendly, I should have said Mac n00b unfriendly.

As for the reference to the 11 year old girl setting up the network. So far this week I have implemented Voice Over IP into our 800 user network for voice comms, configured VLANs to support them on my Cisco 3750 switches, and configured the routers for the inter-VLAN communications because some of the PCs and phones were on a different IP subnets, and I was too busy to worry with changing our internal network addresses.

In the next couple of days I have to setup our 11 remote sites for LAN2LAN VPN access to our corporate network so a new billing system we are going live with next week will function. Due to the nature of the work we do; security will be of the highest priority, but we need 100% functionality. Combined the remote sites will bring an additional 200 users to our corporate network, so it will be so much more fun.....and more subnets...and more routes! w00t

Do you think the 11 year old girl would come and help me because I'm going to have some long hours. ;^) PS: VOIP Rocks!

[HAL9000]

I haven't had much experience with Macs, but from what experience I have had with them, they are the most network unfriendly computers I've ever worked with.

I strongly disagree. For the vast majority of computer users, Mac OS X is more network friendly. Apple's XServe is probably the easiest network server to configure and operate on the market.

The only thing Windows is more "friendly" about is spreading network worms, viruses and spyware. For the authors of that crap, Windows is their friend.

[KoRn]

I'm sure they are out of the box. The issue I had was with a Mac PC that was set up and working until it had a connectivity problem. When I was called and had to work on it I had no idea where anything was, and the OS itself didn't have any self explanatory way to find anything related to the network, or even a shell.

I'll concede this was a few years ago, and things may have improved since then. I'm by no means ant-Mac. Any alternative to Windows is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I was just posting my personal experience.

[KoRn]

"Mac PC "

My bad ;^)

[Quix]

Pretty understandable!

[ThinkDifferent]

When I was called and had to work on it I had no idea where anything was, and the OS itself didn't have any self explanatory way to find anything related to the network, or even a shell.

Must have been Mac OS 9 or earlier. Mac OS X is a full Unix and extremely compatible across different types of networks.