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Author Topic:   Forced downgrade to PC at work
crazyarlo
Neat Newbie

Posts: 12
From: Belpre, Ohio, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted April 04, 2002 09:35     Click Here to See the Profile for crazyarlo   Click Here to Email crazyarlo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Has anyone been forcibly downgraded to a PC from a Mac at work? My experience was horrifying...this happened two and a half years ago, and I am still pissed!! I deal with it, but man, they still piss me off. I was not prepared for the nastiness that occured. I was naive enough to believe that if I presented our case rationally, tactfully and logically, we could win. Lord was I stupid! The stuff they did to us behind our backs was amazing!! They call us MAC GUYS zealots, but you aint met a zealot till you met a Windows Shop IT guy!!!

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supaboy
SuperBlabberMouth!

Posts: 1250
From: Columbia, SC, USA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted April 04, 2002 10:54     Click Here to See the Profile for supaboy   Click Here to Email supaboy     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Logic and rationalization? That's not the way things work in business.

Back in 1995, I was working as a contractor doing workstation support in a large corporation. It was obvious that Windows 3.11 was not up to the tasks being asked of it. The system and network administrators suggested migrating to Windows NT. For reasons never clear to me, the decision came down from on high to move to Windows 95. I tend to think it was a case of throwing money at a problem, but not enough to save yourself anything in the future.

At any rate, fast forward a couple years when 95 hasn't been cutting the mustard same as 3.11 didn't. The decision finally gets made to move the workstations to Windows NT. Guess what? You can go from 3.11 to Windows 95 or Windows NT, but not from 95 to NT. So everyone had to get new machines as well (not that it was a problem convincing people to give up the 486es for P200s).

If they'd just done what the sysadmins recommended in the first place, they wouldn't have had to front the cost of a couple thousand new machines at one time. They could have done a more gradual upgrade cycle and taken advantage of the declining price of machines by getting the same machines as earlier but cheaper or pay the same price and get faster machines. They would have had to shell out for NT licenses instead of 95 licenses, but that would've been recouped in the ongoing support costs no problem.

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balanco
unregistered
posted April 04, 2002 13:41           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ok, this ia a bit off topic, but a couple days ago Geocities had
stopped allowing free users to use standard ftp to upload web pages beginning and now I am stuck using their web-based
file manager for uploading to my (shamefuly crappy web-site.
Yes, I do realise that times are tough, and that Yahoo/Geocities
need their free users to view/click the ads but I often use
comamnd line ftp when uploading to my web site. I used a script
to upload open source programs I have been working for backup
purposes, and all I had to do was type a single
command to get everything uploaded. Now I feel that I have
been downgraded from a Caddilac to a Gremlin. Geocities'
file manager really isn't all that bad, but it just isn't as
good as what I had set up.

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Super Flippy
Super Geek

Posts: 104
From: South Carolina
Registered: Jan 2002

posted April 04, 2002 19:51     Click Here to See the Profile for Super Flippy     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by crazyarlo:
you aint met a zealot till you met a Windows Shop IT guy!!!

I'll second that! Our sysadmin is a total anti-Mac guy, and I've heard the same from friends who work elsewhere. The reason is, they don't know how to use Macs, have probably never even touched a Mac since 1992, and they don't want the filthy things mucking up their beautiful networks. Tell you what, sometimes I think Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field is nothing compared to whatever they're pumping out of Redmond.

Although you can't blame them (the IT folks, that is), since if too many people used Macs they'd be out of a job. ("But, DeVry promised I'd be set for life if I got my MCSE!")

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GameMaster
Geek

Posts: 95
From: State of insanity
Registered: Mar 2002

posted April 05, 2002 00:02     Click Here to See the Profile for GameMaster   Click Here to Email GameMaster     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Zealots exist for every OS, and it's horrible how certian industries are completly full of certian zealots. For instance, the graphics and Music industries are FULL of Mac zealots... they are the industry standards, up untill recently medical computer were all Linux, but have recently, and regretably, replaced with NT for universiality with other countries (My question: why give up the up time when lives are at risk???)...

Personally, I don't veiw any move of OS a downgrade.... I just realize that you need to tweak certian systems to get it to X like Y, if that means emulation, so be it. I favor linux or unix, but unix is too exspensive and linux is typically a step behind. I also would miss the universiality of WinDOZzzzzzzzz..... If only there were a TRUE multi-tasking DOS and a decent port of XWin for it... I do pretty well with CYGWIN and a few linux ports. I need a MAC emulator and a cheap copy of Cakewalk, Finaly, Photoshop and PageMaker (granted there are windows verssion of those titles, but the MAC versions are still ahead by a long shot with those titles (hence the above statement about MAC Zealot industries)).

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crazyarlo
Neat Newbie

Posts: 12
From: Belpre, Ohio, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted April 05, 2002 09:29     Click Here to See the Profile for crazyarlo   Click Here to Email crazyarlo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I think SuperFlippy hit it the nail on the head...IT people seem obsessed with self preservation...as if their skills are not enough to keep them employed. Kind of strange to think that Windoze IT folks don't want to learn something new like Unix or Mac OS, but many of them have questionable skills...took em forever to learn what they DO know, and are not willing to switch gears...it's too hard!! And, it's very expensive to get an MCSE!! Our IT people have actually SAID that they don't want their network "contaminated" by Macs!! What does that mean, I wonder? Do Macs use "contaminated" electrons? LOL! I was helping a local school with their Macs, getting one online on their network....it was a piece of cake! The "Technology Director" was there with me, so I asked him why he couldn't do this...one phone call and 5 minutes were all it took. He said "I have done mainframes, RPG, Cobol, DOS, and three versions of Windows, and I am too old to learn something new." Wow.

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balanco
unregistered
posted April 06, 2002 10:33           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

South Carolina sayeth:

quote:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by crazyarlo:
you aint met a zealot till you met a Windows Shop IT guy!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>I'll second that! Our sysadmin is a total anti-Mac guy,
>and I've heard the same from friends who work elsewhere.
>The reason is, they don't know how to use Macs, have probably
>never even touched a Mac since 1992, and they don't want the
>filthy things mucking up their beautiful networks.


I have to confess that I was somewhat anti-Mac for a time,
back when we had an old macintosh Performa 460
and a 286 running DOS with no Windows. Part of the reason
was because I thought at the time that Macintosh software support
was weak, and I was a complete DOS freak. The way I felt about Macs
was a bit ironic scince I loved Hypercard, and enjoyed many hours
playing the demo of Marathon 1 (great game BTW. It felt much
creepier than Doom Now, I am no longer
anti-mac, but I am still a command line zealot who puts down GUIs in
general. We gave the Performa away a few years ago, and now I
really miss our old Macintosh. I am considering getting a new Mac
sometime in the future, with hardware based PC emulation if i can
afford it. Even if I don't get a brand new Mac, and stay with PCs,
I'll try to get an older Macintosh.

I've been long disenchanted with Windows, and my next OS for whatever
computer I am using at the time will probaly be a Unix/Linux variant.
Ironicly, MS seems to be migrating away from the command line at the
same time Apple had based their OS on BSD, complete with a powerful Unix-style console. If I do
get a new Macintosh, the first thing I will probaly do is head straight
to the command line, but for now I am using Executor (not perfect
scince it uses roms written from scratch by the development team
instead of Apple's ROMS, but still works well for many older Macintosh
apps) and a Unix-like CLI shell to tide me over Unfortunately, being low on
funds, I am still on a Pentium 166, so any major upgrade/replacements are
still well into the future.

quote:

>Tell you what,
>sometimes I think Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field is nothing
>compared to whatever they're pumping out of Redmond.



Atleast Apple had made some good decisions regarding their latest
operating system

quote:

>Although you can't blame them (the IT folks, that is), since if
>too many people used Macs they'd be out of a job. ("But, DeVry
>promised I'd be set for life if I got my MCSE!")

Stupid question time: Does MCSE require the user to know
scripting and how to use the command line?

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