Microsoft, please carry on…

Courtesy of Rixstep:

Spontaneous Shoplifting @ MSFT Store

Words don’t often fail me, but the sight of a dozen minor-geeks, awkwardly clapping and trying to dance, under the guise of spontaneity… well I don’t know what to say or where to begin.

Microsoft, you’re making a complete fool of yourself. You really don’t know what (hopefully) irreparable damage you are doing to your brand (such that it is) and your public image.

Years from now, when Microsoft are long, long gone, people will look back at the YouTube video and say that this was one of the 10 or so key moments where severe blows were dealt that added to this company’s downfall.

The reason why Microsoft have survived and prospered this far, is because of the army of Windows IT Professionals that have propped up this loose assortment of sloppy hacks and ass-backwards ‘me-too’ and ‘just good enough’ coding.

They have survived because of the mass-ignorance of your average PC-buyer, who needed their hand held whilst buying their computer.

But now things have changed. Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook and dozens of others have caught up whilst Microsoft were sleeping, and Microsoft’s customer has changed – they are armed with geek-knowledge and they know how to use it.

Ballmer, like the captain on the Titanic, tried to ignore it, but now, with market-share and mind-share slipping he has to do something.

He calls on his troops, but more and more of these troops are bringing in laptops with Apple logos on them. They have iPods, and iPhones, they use Google instead of Bing, and Office is the last thing on their mind with free alternatives readily available.

So he does something – Vista. A total failure that would have finished most companies – but Microsoft isn’t ‘most’ companies.

He tries ‘new’ and ‘different’ advertising campaigns. They are met with derision, confusion and worst of all – laughter, the ‘at’ kind, not the ‘with’ kind.

Plan B. If you can’t beat them – join them. Or copy them. Copy them in exactly the same way you’ve copied them before, back when that ‘computer for the rest of us’ was first released.

Copy it backwards and upside down. In such a way that although all the pieces are there, they just don’t quite fit together.

What you are seeing in this poor, poor, sad video above, is Microsoft in the raw. When the support from all the IT professionals has gone.

They have to compete. On their own. This is who they really are.

I’ve often thought Microsoft were indestructible and I would be writing this blog to the end of my days with them always there, always copying, always getting it totally wrong.

You know I’m beginning to see, at last, the end of this once never great company.

Forward delete is an oxymoron…

Mac 101: Forward delete on a Mac laptop

Posted using ShareThis

As part of my job, I come across dozens of Windows users every day. They have used Windows all their life and have little or know knowledge of the Mac.

These are, to coin a few phrases, the other 95%, the drones, the job security for hundred’s and thousands of IT Managers up and down the USofA.

Occasionally this ‘majority’ have to sit down and use a Mac for a period of time and it’s here where their ‘muscle memory’ of using the upside-down and back-to-front version of the Mac (i.e. Windows), comes into the realm of the way it was done first, and done correctly – the Mac.

One way in which this surfaces is the forward-delete key. This was first brought to my attention when a bemused PC user, typing a document, said, “where’s the delete key on this keyboard?’

My first reaction was that they couldn’t be blamed for not knowing. There’s nowhere on a mac keyboard that says ‘delete’. It’s the key with the left facing arrow, as a Mac user, I just know this through years of use.

However the PC-user, upon testing this said, “No, that’s the backspace key.”

“No it isn’t”, I remarked, “the backspace key on a Mac is the left arrow key, along with the up, down and right keys”.

Not understanding what ‘backspace’ meant, I then learned about ‘forward-delete’ from this PC-user. It’s always been on a Mac keyboard, but I’ve never used it, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. And neither does ‘backspace’.

To me, the word ‘backspace’ does not mean a destructive action. Backspace means, ‘to move back a space’, i.e. the left arrow key.

‘Delete’ means to delete something you have just done. i.e. You type a word, it is wrong, and you, going backwards using the delete key, delete that word. Where does the term, ‘forward’ make any sense in this?

You don’t place your insertion point at the beginning of the word and then when you press the delete key, expect it to move forward along the word, deleting it.

That’s counter-intuitive isn’t it?

I suppose this all comes down to what you’re used to, but ‘forward-delete’ to me doesn’t make any sense to me as a concept.

However as the ‘majority’ use it, I must be wrong, right?

Reaction to Microsoft’s answer to ‘GetaMac’

I’ve not published for a while as I have been knee-deep in the negotiations to convert my company’s website from a standard informational website in to a fully-fledged ecommerce site.

So I’ve let pass the current effort by Microsoft to counter the resurgence of the Mac with their own set of advertising, costing $300 million no less.

Being very busy, I don’t have the time to look into the metaphorical reasoning behind the Seinfield ads, but I assure you I will sooner or later.

I’m a marketing guy and I deal with peddling bullshit to consumers on a daily basis, and at first glance these ads seem amateurish at best.

In addition, I’m too late – they’ve been pulled already.

Microsoft have continued the assault on Apple with the ‘I’m a PC’ ads. Again however, the ads seem poorly thought out and clumsy in their execution.

But I’m not going to go into detail, but one thing I’ve noticed is the reception that any advertising effort by Redmond seems to generate in the media. It seems that the press is resoundingly negative in their judgement.

Why is this? Surely something can be said of these adverts that would give Microsoft some hope? Even myself at my most impartial, could, if pushed, muster some sort of positive morsel.

It seems to me that the tables have been turned.

Back in the 80’s & 90’s, the main motivating factor, the thing, above all that would sway someone’s opinion on whether to choose an IBM PC or a Macintosh, was their friendly (or not so friendly) neighbourhood geek.

The spotty nerd at work, the weirdo that fixed the computers, the clumsy nobby-no-mates that bored you senseless with talk of RAM, memory, DOS & hard disks.

And his recommendation was (you guessed it), the DOS (and Windows) PC. He scoffed at the Mac, calling it a toy, lacking in software, no powerful and something that nobody used.

And his recommendation stuck. For years. And years. We’ve been at the brunt-end of that decision ever since. The entire IT industry is geared towards pushing us to Windows and the PC.

Fast forward to the last few years. After years of crashes, viruses, trojans, malware and ever cheap computers, that seem to last little more than 18 months, the consumer who relied of their geeky friends recommendation just doesn’t believe them anymore.

So who do they believe? Well who’s left?

Their not going to listen to a Mac user either, because we get lumped together with those geeky weirdoes.

The only thing left is the media. They are listening to the media, the ad-men, all those artists who use Macs in all the creative departments up and down the land, all those PR agencies and marketing people who use predominantly the Mac.

The Mac’s time has come – for years the IT geeks recommended the PC to anybody who would listen, well those days are gone. Now that the consumer’s ear is turning towards the media, we will recommend nothing but the Mac.

Poetic justice for all the years of misery they’ve put us all through.

My god, these people still exist..?

Live with it: Mac is not the greatest

Oh dear, I thought we’d already discussed this a million times on every forum in the known universe.

The public has spoken, and they want Mac’s, not PC’s – live with it.

I thought that people like this would just, y’know, go back to their server rooms or something, but it seems that every now and again, between chocolate bars, squeezing spots and the hosing down and reinstallation of Windows, they post flame-bait like this.

They can say anything they like, because they are journalists with a PC-bias, and we are just Mac-users who just want to tell everyone that there’s a better way.

We can’t say anything in retaliation because if we dare to speak up, we’re pigeonholed as blind cult followers.

All those stories you hear about Windows users switching to Mac and then wondering why they didn’t do it years ago, well that’s just lies put about by these ‘weird’ Mac people.

But you can’t win with situations like this, so I suggest to everyone that please, please, please when the next Windows-spod pokes his head from around the server-room door, and tries to convince you that all these Macs are a waste of time and you ought to be on Windows, just ignore him.

Please don’t reply to his article, even if it’s well meaning – he’ll just use it as ammunition against us.

If you want to post a retort, then start your own blog if you have to so you don’t give him the traffic that he most sorely needs.

In another few years these people will quieten down, after the people they work for/with start bringing in iPhones, and telling everyone they’ve just bought a Mac as well, and that they’d wished they’d done it years ago.

Apparently, we’re weird because we like computers to look nice…

 

Apparently, we’re weird because we like computers to look nice…

Link: I’m going to write about people who I completely misunderstand.

This recent posting postulates the question, “Mac users don’t like others touching their stuff.”

The reasoning behind it is that because we pay so much (apparently) for our kit, we don’t like other people using it and supposedly breaking it.

But, as usual PC pundits fail to see the wider issue.

It’s because I don’t want ignorant PC users who see technology as a useless commodity, covered in stickers, touching my pristine Mac’s/iPod’s/iPhone.

It’s got nothing to do with how much I paid for it, it’s to do with the way in which Windows users treat their technology.

If I get another PC user coming up to my flawlessly clean LCD screen and smudge it with his or her greasy finger, I’ll scream.

I walk through our Windows IT department daily and see ugly tin boxes, covered in dust, stickers, pen marks, yesterday’s lunch wrappers and worse.

When the electrician’s come to my company and test all the electrical equipment, they have to put an ugly ‘tested’ sticker on everything. PC users are quite happy to have this sticker anywhere on their PC, I have almost punched said electrician for considering to stick it on the ‘front’ of my G5 Tower.

I had to loan a little iBook to a PC user once, I received it back a month later and it was filthy, and had what looked like jam on the LCD screen. I actually felt sorry for the poor thing and spent over an hour giving it a good clean.

PC users don’t care. PC users pay next to nothing for basement-spec PC’s. PC users think nothing of the hardware.

Am I weird? Probably, but I have to work with these computers all day, and I also have to be creatively active at a moments notice.

I, like most creative people realise that ideas best surface in a clean, ordered environment, where the equipment I use has had time spent on it’s look and feel (both hardware and software).

This is why we don’t like PC users, ‘using’ our equipment – they just don’t think that this is important.

 

More Windows problems…

 

Currently I have a PC in my studio that is connected to a USB printer, and this printer in Windows is being shared to the network.

I also have a couple of Mac’s that access this shared printer, and occasionally use it if the main workhorse A3 laser printer is busy.

This has worked fine on the Mac side, but occasionally, about once a month, the Mac’s connection to the printer doesn’t work.

The standard way to fix this is:

Test the PC to see if it still prints, 100% of the time it doesn’t, so we call in our in-house Windows IT spods to recreate the printer and share it again.

The Mac’s then work normally again, with no reconfiguration at all, they simply pick up the new printer and they’re good to go.

The mantra is, “If the PC prints, then the Mac will print also. Automatically.” This is why I use the Mac, it just works.

 

However, last week this wasn’t the case. The Mantra didn’t work.

As usual the Mac stopped printing to the shared USB printer. However this time, the PC printed fine.

So I asked the Windows IT spods to recreate the printer anyway. They did, it still didn’t work.

So I recreated the shared printer on the Mac and this is where we got to the bottom of the problem.

When you connect to a shared Windos printer on the Mac, it asks you for the login information for the PC. We knew this info, and we put this info in correctly, however the PC wasn’t accepting it, giving a ‘NT ACCESS DENIED” error, whatever that is.

So we thought the problem was with the Mac, and after half an hour trying different things, I gave up, telling the Mac-user to print to the A3 printer instead in the meantime.

I thought that was that, except next day the Windows PC wouldn’t log in to it’s desktop at all. The same log in info now wasn’t working on the PC either.

The spods came in, took it away, seemingly recreating the user with a new account & login.

Guess what, when I tried recreating the shared PC printer on the Mac – it worked fine.

So the problem was the PC simply deciding that it had had enough with that account and the only solution was to create a new one, which in turn solved our printer problem.

One day, Windows simply decides it’s not going to work anymore and needs massaging back to workability, and a whole career has been created around this concept.

I can see now why WIndows IT people are needed – and why they are scared sh*tless of the Mac.

 

Microsoft PlaysforSure, doesn’t play for sure anymore (for sure)…

Here’s the bad news.

It’s amazing that this has not been reported more widely in the press. After countless arguements that Microsoft’s DRM was the future, and you’d be mad to go with iTunes, now comes the news that puts Microsoft’s take on the user/provider firmly into sharp relief.

Put simply; you know all that music that you spent your hard earned cash on from any one of a number of ‘PlaysForSure’ partner of Microsoft’s?

Well, they want it back please and no, you don’t get your money back.

Can someone please explain to me again, why Apple isn’t at 95% market share and companies like Microsoft at 5%?

Why do Windows users put up with being slapped in the face constantly – do you think they actually like it?

Can anyone really trust Microsoft again?

I’m glad that all my online music purchases are from iTunes, because at least I know that Apple will still be around in 10 years time.

It’s strange that back in the 90’s the ’still being around in 10 years time’ was the reason given by a lot of IT Managers when giving a reason for choosing Windows over the Mac.

How times have changed, it’s a pity a lot of IT managers haven’t.

We’ve reached 21% (10% worldwide) – so it’s plan B…

 

 

Think before you click.

 

I’ve spoken in previous article’s how Apple’s plan to completely dominate the computing landscape is well underway.

 

Various initiatives such as the move to Intel, the fleshing out of Apple’s software, the iPod and iPhone halo effect, are all part of their plan, and that plan is going very well.

 

21% consumer market share and 10% worldwide is nothing to sniff at – we’re winning the war against the great unwashed PC masses.

 

They, for various reasons, continue to stick with the outdated model of proprietary OS on open hardware, but constantly complain about the shortcomings of that model – it’s reliability.

 

Although we’re making great strides, this dinosaur will be difficult to kill, too many people’s jobs, lives and whole personalities are propped up by the Windows monopoly.

 

They have tried in the past to discourage the ignorant masses from choosing the Mac, but those reasons are becoming more difficult to justify.

 

The Windows OS, is not getting any better with each release – indeed quite the opposite, and they couldn’t care less about Vista.

 

The Windows OS, is still prone to viruses and malware and they’re fed up of constantly having to call their geeky friend or pay through the nose for an expert to fix their PC.

 

They have however noticed that the Mac OS, just gets better and better.

 

More of their (non-geeky) friends are recommending it.

 

They’ve been to an Apple store and been very impressed.

 

And guess what? They are ignoring their geeky friends advice and actually buying a Mac.

 

In the eyes of those whose very existence depend on the Windows monopoly continuing ad infinitum, this cannot continue, but the old tricks aren’t working anymore.

 

And so we come to plan B.

 

Call in all the favours, gather in all the shills, and start planting stories of companies switching away from the Mac – astroturfing, something that Microsoft are very good at.

 

So, please don’t click on this link, your life will not be any the richer because of it. Just see it for what it is.

 

The dinosaur to getting scared and is finally starting to contemplate a future that doesn’t include it’s influence.

 

Expect lots more articles such as this to follow…

In response to this pile of drivel…

  

Think before you click please 

Every reason over the years that stood in the way of a Windows user to switch has been shot down.

Can’t find anywhere to buy Mac’s? – Sorted with the new Apple Stores.

Mac’s use non-standard chips – sorted with Intel.

Mac’s haven’t got the exact software I need – sorted with dual booting or full-speed emulation.

No games – PC’s are on the way out for gaming, buy an XBox/PS3/Wii.

No, there’s only one thing left to shoot down, and that’s the army (and I mean ARMY), of Windows IT support people who still, to this day, recommend Windows over the Mac. We’re making some inroads with these morons and some are seeing the light, but we’ve only scratched the surface and there’s a long way to go.

I feel that we’ll have to wait until the die-hards retire or drop dead through over prolonged exposure to Stockholme Syndrone until we see the tipping point and Apple’s 1/2 point increases in market share start to accelerate.

Macworld 2008…

So it’s been and gone. This year’s Macworld was amazing and slightly-less-than-amazing in equal amounts.

The problem that Steve Jobs faces now is that Apple announcements seriously affect the share price. This is partly Apple’s fault, but at one point in the past it was worse, because Apple attended various trade shows, the date of which was out of their control, and they had to have a ‘whizz-bang’ product at every one.

Now, at least, Apple has 2 main shows, the WWDC, which announces (generally) software and pro-hardware related items, and Macworld which (again generally) announce consumer hardware and software.

Notice that Apple announced the Mac Pro update, before Macworld because it doesn’t fit at Macworld. Notice also the ‘one-more-thing’ was just a musician, not a product.Steve has to back off from the hype that ‘one-more-thing’ has become famous for.

Product expectation at Apple from its users has now reached ridiculous levels and cannot be sustained in the long term, and believe me, Apple is in this for the long term. 

As I said, all this hype is Apple’s fault, but they can now be seen to be in the midst of managing these expectations.

On the one hand we have loyal users and bloggers in the media who whip everyone into a pre-event frenzy, but post-event are reasonable in their critique of the products announced.

However, on the other hand we have a group of rabid anti-Apple bloggers and journalists, who also whip everyone into a frenzy, but for different and more sinister ends.Witness the drivel that the likes of Enderle, Dvorak (who seems to have calmed down a bit), and the lesser known (globally at least, but well known in the UK), Jack Schofield who blogs for the guardian (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/).

They either bless us with faint praise (pretend to actually like Apple, but…), or (in Jack’s case) are still stuck in 1997 and are seemingly quiet when Apple has good news (no mention of their last stellar quarter), but all over us like a fly on sh*t when they can extract something negative out of say, the MacBookAir.

Which brings us to Macworld 2008.

Out of all the announcements the MacBookAir seems to be a ‘good’ product (not great). I think Apple purposely produce products like this that stir up differences in opinions.

Any publicity is good publicity Jack, so blog all you want please.

My stand-out product at Macworld however was the ‘Time Capsule’.

Of course, the likes of Jack Schofield remark that this product isn’t revolutionary, you can create it yourself with the right hardware and know-how.

Much as in the same way you can create anything that Apple produces, if you’re a narrow-minded Windows user with 10 years+ experience in how Windows and technology works.

But as we all know, that misses the point completely. Windows users like this cannot be reached with the ‘just plug it in and it works’ mind set.

The point here is that Time Machine ONLY works with Time Capsule. You can’t use Time Machine wirelessly with just any hardware.

This facility was present in builds of Leopard but was pulled at the last minute. Reasons for this are that Apple wants to sell a lot of Time Capsule’s, or that using third party hard drives just cannot be made to work reliably.

I think it’s a bit of both personally, but it comes back to the  ’just plug it in and it works’ angle.It goes beyond ‘plug-and-play’, because ‘plug-and-play’ actually means, ‘Install Drivers, Restart, Configure, Plug It In, Hope It Plays, If Not Try Again‘, at least on Windows, I know, I work next a Windows based IT department that do this daily.

I think I’ve just discovered a new buzz word for Windows –  INDRCPIIHIPINTA!

Don’t think it will catch on though, do you?

The Windows maze… where do I begin?

I’ve long thought that the complexities of the Windows world were, in part, exaggerated by Apple users and their media (I’ve even been guilty of it myself), but I’m here to tell you now, it’s worse than everyone’s ever thought. 

I’m now in charge of the company’s website. I relaunched it in the middle of last year and when faced with the complete rewrite that was needed, I decided that the best approach was a Content Management System (CMS) for the website so that anyone with a basic grasp of computers could update it. I certainly don’t have time to administer the website using Dreamweaver, so the plan was to buy in a CMS so that the less web-ware members of my staff could update the site in my absence. 

The journey through this has been a difficult one with various problems too numerous to mention, except one. One that has shown me that the complexities of the Windows world are not exaggerated. 

At the heart of the website is a registration system that allows a web-user to fill in a standard html form, upload a couple of graphics and then submit this to a choice of a dozen or so destinations. In the background this submission is then uploaded to a centrally stored database, and then automatically emailed to 1 of 10 users of the system. Once received, these users then contact the web-user and process their registration. 

Except it doesn’t work. In fact in the 10 months or so since the website launched, it’s never worked.Of course, actually finding this out was an arduous task in itself.

Suffice to say after tracking the problem it appears it boils down to this: The web-users form is received centrally, perfectly. It’s when this form is emailed through my company’s webserver, we have a problem. It just never gets there. Doesn’t even register as spam, it just doesn’t arrive. 

Changing the destination to a ‘@googlemail.com’ domain – it works fine.

It’s something to do with the website’s backend software communicating to our email server, they just don’t get along. Of course the one set of Windows users (who run the back-end website software for us), blame the other set of Windows users (who run our email server). I have the envious task of arranging a meeting between these 2 groups to hammer out a solution. 

In the meantime, I, a lowly Mac-user, not versed in the intricate voodoo of email systems, has come up with a solution. All submissions from the website go to a ‘@googlemail.com’ email address, I set up for this purpose. They then come through to Apple Mail, where a Apple Mail set of rules, then examines the email, determines which destination it’s meant for and then forwards it on. This works fine. 

But why doesn’t it one Windows based email system, work with another? It seems to me that these ‘experts’ haven’t a clue, at a low-level, how Windows actually works, and that is a scary thought, and it has taken a single G5 Mac and Apple Mail, to sort out the problem (at least in the short term).

How to kill a Mac design studio…

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post, but as well as going through one of the most busiest periods of the year, I’ve also had to move the entire studio to new premises whilst this busy period was in full swing. 

It was one of the hardest move’s I’ve ever had to accomplish. The studio, since moving to the previous premises has expanded considerably, adding 2 large format printers and 2 new members of staff and consequentially, the move took about a week to complete, (and it’s still not really finished) the studio’s at about 80% capacity now. 

It’s not been without it’s problems though. I’ve wrote long into the night about  Windows IT Managers and their constant battle to make the life of the Mac-based, in-house design studios difficult, if not impossible and their overall goal being to get rid of them completely. However the biggest problem I’ve had with the studio move, has not been the IT guys (they seem to have, at least for the moment, given up on the anti-Mac crusade), but something else entirely – dust. 

The studio was at it’s old premises for about 3 years, and it was always  going to be a temporary thing, because the premises were totally unsuitable. Noisy (vibrations from heavy equipment outside), dusty (were attached to a full-service centralised warehouse) and cramped (making planning for large scale projects difficult). But, things seemed to tick along fine until about 3 months before the move.

One of the large format printers broke down with various error messages. After 3 vists from a technician, it was deemed that the problem was dust. It was cleaned up and now works fine.

It wasn’t until the move that the dust in the Macs became apparent. It seemed by moving them it unsettled the dust inside them and caused even more problems. After moving all the equipment over and trying to set the studio up, I was faced with the following problems:

1) One of the work drives in the G5 was DOA (just a clicking noise and no mounting), thank goodness I have good backup.

2) The superdrive in my G5 was unoperational

3) One of the 160gb backup drives was DOA.

4) The CD drive in one of the G4’s was unoperational.After cleaning up I’ve managed to get one of the optical drives partially working (now burns CD’s but not DVD’s), but the rest need replacing.

It’s made me realise that part of my maintenance routine needs to be more hardware related than software, and I’ve ordered several cans of spray air.

Email bankruptcy..?

The Washington Post reports that some PC users have declared their email bankrupt, announcing to everyone on their contacts lists that they are giving up on responding to the glut of e-mail in their inboxes. Some are even giving up on email entirely and returning to the communication technology that started it all – the telephone.

I look at news like this and roll my eyes and sigh. The world has been given short shrift on a fantastic communication technology, one that should have revolutionised our lives for the better. What went wrong? I can sum it up in one word – Microsoft, and the minions that serve them.

I run a small art department inside the belly of a larger PC-based organisation. Having set up this studio myself from the ground up, I had complete say in exactly what I wanted – the Windows based IT department is full of clueless PC drones who’s last experience of the Mac was sarcastic Mac-bashing articles from copies of PC magazines back in 1996.

So I was left well alone – and thank god. Mac OS X 10.2 was my choice when I got the studio running and I made sure that certain things were in place:

1) We had our own network – all Mac network & printer ethernet cables go through a single switch, positioned in the studio, and we have a single ethernet cable which connects us to the PC network, therefore any problems caused by the PC network can be disconnected straight away.

2) Although we use the PC network’s email, we do not use software that they recommend. I used the crap OS8 port of Outlook for years – very painful. No, we use Apple Mail.

3) All Mac IT related problems are our problems – we sort them out, and in turn, we end up sorting them out with minimal fuss. No putting a support call through to IT and then waiting 3 days before it’s answered in this department. Not that this happens very often, I’ve had 1 days down time in 6 years, and that was to upgrade to Tiger.

So there I’ve set the scene. The company email used to run through Outlook. Lucky for us, it allowed POP or IMAP access, so Apple Mail worked quite happily, as long as we knew the IP addresses.

However I began to notice that when sending email back to PC’s I would sometimes get no reply. Upon investigating I found that it was not a technical problem, it was a social one – the recipients simply had too much email spam to get through and would either resort to deleting it en masse, in the hope that any really important messages would be re-sent, or simply ignoring their email completely.

Something has to change. The IT department decided to ‘upgrade’ the email, by moving over to a web mail service provider (not one I’ve ever heard of), with (apparently), 1st class spam filtering.

This move didn’t affect us; I didn’t expect Safari (or Firefox for that matter) to work, and it didn’t. However being web based we could access it via POP or IMAP in Apple Mail, so that is what we do, and it works fine.

However the spam problem still remains. The ‘1st-class spam filtering’ seems to mean that any email that isn’t our company domain is labelled as [SPAM], it still gets through,it still clogs up people’s email, and ‘real’ email still gets missed.

The main problem (and its solution) here is the difference between the way in which Apple Mail handles spam, and the PC server handles spam.

Faced with the spam problem, PC-based IT departments choose to handle the spam centrally – all email is fed through the filter and one size fits all. I get important communications for instance from newpapers, telling me about last minute availability of ad space. Guess what? It’s labelled as spam, and I can’t tell the server that this shouldn’t be labelled as spam, it doesn’t work like that, it sometimes goes into my junk folder, sometimes doesn’t.

Now somebody else getting that message, may agree that it IS spam, in my department it ISN’T spam. Get it?

The solution to the whole spam problem, is to handle spam at the client level. The spam filter in Apple mail is absolutely the best piece of software engineering I’ve ever seen. I roughly get 300 emails a day, about 25 of these are legitimate and Apple Mail 99.9% of the time gets it spot on, I’ve been training it for about 3 months, but it got it pretty right first time.

One person’s spam, is another person’s great offer, so why don’t we just let it all through and let the user decide? Because again, this shows the fundamental problem with computer infrastructure’s: you dear user are hated and loathed by those people who should serve YOUR best interests, instead they choose to serve THEIR best interests.

An unknown writer once said, “”Personal computing can be seen as serving the needs of those who have CREATED the system, instead of serving those who USE the system.”

Jonah and The Whale…

Or to give its longer title:- Advice on setting up, running and maintaining a Mac-based design studio in a PC-based company.

The rather irrelevant title to this article relates to its metaphor of existing and thriving inside a huge organism without being part of its lunch, i.e. how can a Mac-based design studio co-exist with a rabid, Microsoft-loving, multi-headed Windows IT department who eat Big Mac’s for breakfast? (Or is it Mars bars? which would explain their complexion).

In order to illustrate my rather over-zealous stance here, you need to understand some of my experiences over the last 15 years. These have been illustrated in some of my other posts.

Believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Windows IT managers have a hard-wired hatred for Macintoshes. I’m not going to get in to the reasons for this, as any decent psychoanalyst could write several papers on the motivations, and layered, contradictory and self-served reasoning with these people.

My experiences have been so consistent from company to company, I have often wondered if all IT managers have some website somewhere where they swap techniques on how to get Mac’s out of their company – I’ve yet to find it (and I have looked).

Note I say ‘their’ company, because as we all know, most IT managers either do run the companies they work for (because the MD hasn’t a clue how computers work), or because of a Napoleon complex the IT Manager’s think they actually do.

All in all, I’ve worked for about 5 separate companies over the years and each job has entailed starting up an in-house design studio from scratch within the larger PC-based organisation.

Right from the start I’ve assumed that the reception from the Windows-based IT department would be hostile. Some are better than others, but all have shown signs of Mac-hatred, (or maybe it’s envy?).

This hatred usually starts even before you’ve started your new job. In one job, I learned of a 10 page document that was delivered to the MD on why not only the Mac was a bad choice, but why a design studio and the designers therein were a bad idea. Luckily it was ignored. Why was this? Well because the MD was heavily involved in print management at his company, and he spent a long time with Mac-based design houses, so he new how good the Mac was and the benefits that it could bring.

In another job, on my first day I was presented with a document outlining the things that I could not do, in terms of IT within the company. Most were irrelevant because of my setup (more of which later), but one item outlined the fact that they would not allow the Mac-version of Office on the network. Their workaround was to have a PC in the department that solely ran Office. This basically sums up Windows IT people. It doesn’t matter how inefficient the solution to a task is, the solution will be the one that serves their interests, not the users. In the end, I bought Mac Office myself personally, and didn’t tell them. Safe to say they didn’t notice, because as we all know, the documents are platform independent.

Once Windows IT Managers grudgingly accept that a Mac is coming to their company, their next steps vary. Some, outwardly don’t even acknowledge that it’s happening. Inwardly however they certainly do, and they’ll put a few barriers in motion that will make your life difficult. It’s important to realise that they will do anything, ANYTHING, to get Mac’s out of their company, and you need to be ready for all eventualities.

THE IT CHARTER DOCUMENT:

Most companies have an IT charter which outlines what you, as a user are allowed to do on their network.

These are usually over-draconian, but understandable, given Windows’ swiss-cheese record. They will try to update this document to include the Macintosh. So, you will not be allowed to install programs, surf the net, install fonts, add hard drives etc without their say so. They can’t do it either, as they don’t know the Mac, but that’s not the point. The point here is that they are trying to put you in your place.

It’s impossible to run a reprographics department under these circumstances, so the way around this is to strike before they do. Get a document together which outlines a few key things, and have this ready even before you start the new job:

• Their lack of knowledge regards Mac’s, and your greater understanding of reprographics, and the IT that’s involved.

• The fact that as part of your work, you install fonts, programs, change hard drives etc all the time, they won’t have time to do it for you and may do it wrong.

• Make a definite distinction between Office IT, and Reprographics IT, they are 2 different things. You’d be surprised how ill-trained most IT people are. Their Windows IT department does not understand the IT that’s required for Reprographics.

• If needed, get to know the company that recommended to the MD to choose Mac’s in the first place. Chances are he will respect them more than his own IT department, so get them to back you up and maintain that good relationship with them, they could get you out of a sticky situation.

• Make everyone understand that a design studio is a deadline-driven department. If a computer has problems, you cannot afford ANY downtime. With you doing your own IT you can make sure that their is none (if you follow my guidelines), with them doing the IT, it could be days before you’re up and running again. Play on the bad experiences the MD will have had with his own IT department.

• Play the Mac’s trump card – no viruses. It’s important now more than ever, that you keep on top of the latest developments in this area, regarding Mac OS X and viruses, because you can bet the Windows IT department is as well. Be ready to counter any arguement FUD, with the facts. Mac’s are getting more attention from Windows zealots and a Mac virus is coming – you need to be ready.

• If their is any disagreement, ask for a 6 months trial. If there are any significant problems in this time then you’ll give in, (but there won’t be, if you follow my guidelines).
If you do this, then anything that the IT department says has no effect on you.

THE HARDWARE SETUP:

This part is the most important part of the set up and guarantees that the Windows IT department won’t even know you exist – and therefore will have no ammunition to kill your department.

I’ll keep it simple, just the basic set-up, but in it I’ll sow the seeds to allow your department to grow.

The workstation – a mid to top range tower, with as much memory as you can get away with.

Monitor – needs to be colour managed, so a CRT is best, although LCD are getting better in this area. Aim for the biggest screen you can get, and get 2 if possible.

Storage – aim to handle your own backup – this is VITAL as it could be one area where the Windows IT department gets a foot in your door. If they handle your backup they can complain that your files are too big to backup, you slow the network down etc. so do it yourself. Backup software – there’s only one (substandard) choice – Retrospect.

Scanner – most scanners are pretty good now, the technology is so mature that the only thing to differentiate them is software. However I still don’t rate the bundled software in any package so just go for a scanner that’s compatible with Vuescan – a shareware application that’s as good as it gets.

Printers – You’ll need an A3 laser for quick proofs, and a colour calibrated A3 inkjet proofer. Most models from Xerox and HP are good choices here. Password protect them if you can, and don’t connect to any PC printers that show up on your network.

Network hardware – here’s the crux to your setup. It’s vital that you separate your network from the PC network. Never, NEVER have your network running through their servers. Never just plug your ethernet into the ethernet wall socket. It’s always best to have your own internal gigabit ethernet switch, where you plug all your Mac’s, printers etc. Then have one ethernet cable running from this switch to the connection to the wall socket which is routed into the PC server network. This way you can disconnect it at any time – for reasons I’ll get to shortly.

Network software – Do NOT, NOT, NOT connect to any kind of VPN, or Active Directory network. They’re just too flaky to be reliable and will give the IT department more ammunition. Keep your network totally separate from their’s. Set up all your Mac’s with fixed IP addresses, do not rely on the Windows server giving out IP addresses with DCHP. Get a range of IP addresses (10-20) from your Windows IT department and setup all your Mac’s & printers with these addresses with a few spare.

Email – this is one area where you may face problems and it depends on their setup. In my experience, never connect to an Outlook Express Server, it just doesn’t work reliably. If you have no other choice, then I pity you. From a stability standpoint you’re probably better off running Outlook through an emulator or separate PC. You need to put aside your prejudices in running Windows and remember what we’re after here is stability and not to give the Windows IT department ammunition in closing down your Mac’s.

If you can, see if your company has a webmail version of their email server, you can connect Apple Mail to the address this is at. I have this setup at the moment and it works fine. You’re also good from a stability standpoint because you’re not connecting to their server, your connecting to their webmail as if you were using a browser.

Internet – Windows IT managers have a weird attitude to internet access. They see it as a privilege that they give out. You need to take this away from them. Try and get your own router installed that connects directly to the internet. This way you can control what’s seen, and change the password so you control it. If the IT department complain that you don’t need access, make the excuse that as IT admin for the Mac’s you need to update them over the internet, you also need to buy stock photos over the internet, you gain design ideas from here, you transfer artwork this way etc.

Viruses – you’d think that this wouldn’t be a problem. However I’ve seen IT managers feign ignorance concerning the lack of viruses for the Mac in the hope that they would fool the MD, so this is why you’ve already pointed this out in your charter document that this isn’t the case. However you must play the good citizen, so install ClamXAV, an open source anti-virus that doesn’t have much overhead and run it once a week.

The last piece of advice is for your future. Once a company realises that they have a design department, your workload will quickly grow beyond its initial remit, so expand as quickly as you can, and take on more people. Try and get jurisdiction of the website, and get it away from IT, which is where it usually resides. A new member of staff who specialises in the web would be a good bet here. Once this person is under you, then you have the website and all that entails, such as web access, FTP access to the web server (which you can use to transfer large artwork files to remote agencies), and even the company intranet. A lot of power can be got here in terms of your standing in the company – and this all runs on Mac’s. Get as many workstations as you can into the company, but keep them under your control, don’t let the IT department have any say in who administers them.

Why all this paranoia? Well it’s because over the years I’ve seen what these people are capable of, and what lengths they will go to as part of their sad little lives.

What if I told you that one IT manager tried to hack OS 9 Mac’s on the network, using a utility that’s passed amongst IT people, trying to crash them? I found this out by noting the times of the crashing, and they stopped when we disconnected from the network, unplugged the PC connection from our switch, and when the Windows IT manager went on holiday. The software had a legitimate purpose, but had a side effect of crashing a Mac if you wanted (nicely convenient). He was told to stop using the software, after my intervention.

Another IT manager purposefully ran ‘tests’ on the Virtual PC clients on the PC network that purposefully caused them to belly-up and needing to be completely reinstalled? His excuse? When he saw the name ‘Virtual PC’ on the network he thought they were virtual PC’s that didn’t really exist and you could run tests on them.

Remember the problems that Safari had a while back, when if you configured a JPEG in such as way, it would crash Safari whenever you viewed a webpage that contained said JPEG? I wonder how such a jpeg ended up on the front page of a companies intranet that I was working for? It took over a month to get the IT department to update the page.

What about rules on a companies email server that purposefully missed in filtering out spam to email addresses that were on Mac’s (so we got inundated with spam), and filters that gave Mac emails a low priority? I found this out after a Windows IT Manager left the company.

Or another time when a Windows IT support staffer kept on sending 50mb jpeg files to our colour proofer over the network (by mistake of course) to jam it up. This happened so often we had to password protect it?

The only time, in 15+ years of using a Mac have I ever got a virus was when I accepted a floppy disk (which had been infected with the MDEF OS 7 virus), from the Windows IT Manager. How it got on there is anybody’s guess, I have a good idea though.

And the deliberate unplugging of connections to the iSDN line in one company I worked for, which happened so often, I stopped complaining and simply walked into the IT server room and plugged them back in? Apparently it was a in-joke with the IT department.

So you can see why I keep the Mac department isolated from the PC network as much as possible. The key here is to almost run the Mac department as a business with a business. Keep it all separate as far as you can – even run your own email server if that’s possible, which is something I’m looking into.

Your ultimate, long-term goal is to have your own full-service, Mac-based studio, that is totally independant, with its own network, in the belly of the beast. If your department gets really big (10+ people), you need to start thinking about becoming your own Mac-based IT manager. Then maybe, just maybe, when the MD walks around your department, seeing a productive, virus & hassle free department that works 24-7 that’s based on Mac’s, he’ll start to ask important questions as to why the Windows side of the company is plagued with problems all the time and needs an army of IT staff to keep it running, when it seems your department runs itself.

Your overall, more short-term goal, is to become as independent and as invisible as you can. If you cause no problems on the network, they have no ammunition, and without this, they cannot launch an attack on your department.

A lot of Windows users and potential switchers, go on about Mac-zealotry and the reasons for it. I fully understand where the zealots are coming from. We are angry. Angry that we have to put up with this every day.

When someone posts lies about the Mac, and they then get flamed by angry Mac users, there’s a good reason for it – THEY STARTED IT.

Get the Windows IT manager out of your department, and keep him out – he’s no business there (pun intended). Good luck.