Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

April 18

Ya know, a month ago I made a big to-do about how there are so few Macs around the office - and so many Windows NT boxes. Well marketshare is just one of the fun argurments to dredge up about such a reality - it's also fun to think about the personal economics involved. Here's what I mean. Take the users for instance. I know at least one in the marketing group I'm with that is a complete NOVICE and NEWBIE when it comes to computers. How that's even possible these days almost escapes me since I've been nose to monitor for so damn long. But - amazingly - it still happens. He's a writer and hasn't touched an NT box let alone a Mac. Well shucks and gee - I can hear the Apple users screaming that he's gonna be lost if someone doesn't get him a Mac pronto! Guess what? He's not only using an NT pretty damn decent in his first few months running - but he's got a great handle on e-mail, HTML code editing, and even complex LAN navigation! How is this possible? You'd think that with all the "horror stories" about Windows that this poor sap would be tearing out his receeding hairline and screaming out the door! Well guess what! It's NOT THAT HARD FOLKS! I know this is a vintage lament - but man - people who say something is impossible - probably haven't tried. I mean aside from this concept, the big reality mind-bender from the MacJihad is that it's IMPOSSIBLE that I've EVER used a Mac (let alone one for over 13 years) because I don't fucking worship the damn thing. Or it's impossible to do ANYTHING the Mac can do on Windows. That sounds a bit outragous - because even most level headed Mac users will admit, while the methods of pushing the mouse and pulling the options up is "different" - it's hardly "impossible". Still, I can bet money that as you're reading this now - you can point to at least one MacJihad member who'se convinced that it's not only impossible to use Windows without technical horror stories - but Windows is incapable of doing tasks the Mac is doing in publishing, multimedia - or the internet. What I find it ironic is my simple retort "I used Windows once it began crashing less than the Mac". Meaning that I know can't afford to use a Mac today - because of it's chronic shortcomings against Windows. If you don't believe me - as many die-hard Mac OS users don't - then just keep reading further will you?

April 19
Day one of "why I couldn't afford to go back to the Mac, even if I wanted to". Here's something that I do daily, at work - and it's pretty damn basic. One of my internet tasks is to update the HR files for job postings. These job postings are generated in another city in California (why they aren't done at HQ in Denver is beyond me). Something I thought was cute and helpful is that I can see - in REAL TIME - updates to the directory that spans - COAST TO COAST. Now sure - you can do this on the internet - but this is on the Widest area WAN I've ever seen. Now sure - you CAN plug an NT WAN into a Mac client, but most Mac-centric (hell - EVERY Mac-centric) network I've delt with is broken up into massive "zones", "zones" that seem to be a real bitch to get to talk with one another - particularly if there's a Linux, Unix, or Windows server in the way. Just FINDING something in the middle of the mess - with all the lame ass layers and log-ins, used to drive me nuts. Yet, in 2 minutes, I'm telling a newbie a 2 (counte-em) 2 directory tree on a default server that works nationwide! And if he seaks something in there - I can see the damn update pop the folder's position to highlight that there's more crap for me to do. Not amazing for even the most rookie networker out there - but then I'm probably guessing you weren't faced with crappy cross-platform networks that were put together like a train-wreck, or worse was mostly Mac-oriented. I knew this kind of stuff was out there - but I just didn't actually get to see it up close. I mean jeez - does anyone know how crappy the localtalk protocol is? I mean it's beyond sucks-shit! You know how long I've had to deal with that crap? Why Mac users seem to overlook this glarring truism is beyond me. But then again, it's kind of obvious when you think about it - isn't it? I mean good-god! Apple networking - the power to suck your worst! If I had to go BACK to that horror story of a workflow situation that I did on the Mac side, I'd go fucking nuts trying to do my job!

April 20

Sure, there's lots of geek-chatter about how the Mac is defecient in memory management, and there's lots of Mac defenders that say - "it's not that bad" or "system 8.X" fixes this. Well there's heresay - and there's a wide, GRAND CANYON sized gap in this little problem. Lets talk memory leaks. Oh THAT was a joy! Quark put out this sucky little product that was supposed to re-invent the internet for boobs that couldn't fathom HTML or even training wheel authorware. No no no - they didn't want to actually muck with the web - they wanted to foist a new "viewer" on people so outragously convoluted "media-pages" built in QuarkXPress with a software bundle costing more than 2 frigging grand would slow the whole internet expereince to a crawl for the graphic newbies who only knew how to push paper and film output around. BAD IDEA. What was worse was this "multiplatform" company never really figured out how Wintel's work - which probably explain why they're laying off another 10 percent of their sucky work-force. Even my old boss couldn't stay around a whole 6 months after I left - and he stayed on at least 2 years longer than I did - it's that bad folks! Anyway, while they were trying to figure out what the hell a Wintel toolset even looked like, they put out their first generation of players about 6 months apart from each other for Mac and Wintel. Now get this - the authorware - the product called QuarkImmedia - was Mac only. Dull-surprise! And of course, by the time the Windows "viewer" was released there were at least 4 revisions to the Mac version. Guess which one ran better on it's respective platform. If you said Mac - you'd be guessing WRONG! Believe it or not - the company that is synomonous with Apple bootlicking, couldn't override the basic flaw in the damn architecture. High-prone memory leeks! The upshot was when we designed demo "QuarkImmedia websites" for the "QuarkImmedia viewer" we prayed the poor sap on the other end of the internet wasn't going to actually browse for more than 15 minutes. Because that guy was going to have to reboot his computer which would seize up, and reset his memory prefs for 8, then 16, then 32, then 64 megs (if they had that much) to view any deeper into the site. The reason? The damn thing didn't have a clue how to manage the data given the ass-backwards Apple scheme for partitioning memory. The upshot? The product has bombed like a bad memory (to coin a phrase), and not a whole lot of "QuarkImmedia sites" have been produced. Funny thing is, even though the Wintel version was bug-rich, and was produced by utter newbies to Wintel development - It didn't have HALF the problems that the Mac users had! Kind of interresting no?

April 21

Here's another great scenario that puts me squarely into the Wintel camp - with no sign of remission to go back to the "superior MacOS experience". Crashes. I've mentioned it before - and I've alluded to them when they're memory related- but whether it's a miserable excuse for an I/O scheme, a faulty hybrid of multi-tasking, a funky game of hide-and-go seek with extension conflicts - the damn things have so many great and wonderful ways to grind to a halt. Now I WILL concede that Apple's made killing a seizure app better - and it's vastly superior to the old "pray and interrupt" gamble - but there's still that feeling, and general consencious that if you've had a program go nuts - you'd probably better reboot pretty damn soon because the system is now pretty damn unstable. Oh sure - you can take the chance that killing the task hasn't made the session unusable - but certainly "I" wouldn't take the chance that some other mission critical data was about to go "bye-bye" - or that the whole damn session was going to just sezie up regarless of what 3 fingered salute was given. The bottem line was - even with Mac OS 8x, I heard a LOT more reset chimes that I even gave my 95/98 and NT box. Sure I had some measly excuse for demoware/freeware client go apeshit - but when I brought it down, I could safely restart the task and not even THINK about cold-starting. NT is even better because it REALLY keeps that task to itself. NT is just a TANK. Now again - like the memory management argument, most will just either deny that this is the case, that I've never worked in an office of properly configured Macs, or I'm just flat-out lying. I think the best argument that was presented was that the hear-say was spurious at best. Well - I've "heard" that banging rocks into one's forehead is painful and can contribute to injury - so I wouldn't recommend it for everyone to try. After restarting Photoshop sessions like a maniac between 1994 and 1997, I wouldn't recommend a Macintosh for anyone either. But you're certainly welcome to the pain if that's what floats you boat. Personally, I welcome anyone to try Photoshop on a 450 pentium II with Windows NT and see how they like it. If you're a Mac user - you might be surprised at the end of the day at how often you're saving files and pushing out work, rather than pushing the reset button near that Apple logo.

April 22

Internet development. That argument kind of died quick after Steve Jobs went nuts with it on stage in 1996 didn't it? Oh ya! most of the internet is viewed and built on Macs. Sure Steve - and specs aren't as important as colors - keep telling Best Buy that one too Mr. Jobs. But still a ton of MacJihadders took their songbooks and began singing the praises of internet development on the Mac to the rest of the online world - that wasn't going to believe a word of it. Given the fact that the internet protocol is mostly unix based - and has been since the old Arpanet days, I had a hard time imagining all the people pushing data down the pipes to be sitting behind their Power Macs giggling how they've got the lock on the internet marketplace. Puulleeze. Quite frankly if you're going to seriously pursue a job involving the internet - you best keep your Mac experience off the damn resume. Because most offices don't use them - and most of the tools they use aren't doing dick on the Mac. I think the only futile exception is GifBuilder for the Mac. Leave it to the French to make a nice software app and keep it on a dying platform. No matter. The whole one year "gifanimation gap" has been blasted into oblivion. Sort of like that embassy from China that we "oops" hit. Whoever in China thought it was a good idea to build an embassy a mere 50 yards across the street from a major target had their thinking caps on. Perhaps it was revenge for us missing and hitting the French Embassy in 1986 during the raids on Lybia.

April 23

Taking the internet argument further - into another day at least, aside from most "front-end" development tools being Wintel-centric, you're entire damn "back-end" is totally Apple exlcusionary. At least those outside of Apple HQ - although most of their servers aren't exactly G3's either from what I've noticed. You can make some pretty good bucks grunting code for page udpates and GFX for site-updates and all. But the real party time is getting all the crap to work and growing. I'm still kicking myself for not taking my demo expereinces for DBbuilding and turning it into a full blown career move back in 1993. Well, I've seen the light - and I know the joker behind me is pulling down a few points more than me. That's fine, because at least the company I'm with will pay me to become a full-time IT geek rather than this hybrid Marketing, Art, production and front-end code junkie stuff. Hell they'll give me a better raise for even showing an interrest in it! Think the Mac users will be schepping Visual Basic and NT admin studies anytime soon? Don't count on it - that's Microsoft - ya know - "the dark side"! Well if that's the "dark-side" then call me Lord fucking Vader and give me a higher bonus check. I don't know if it's just the time of day or what, but sometimes I wonder if most Mac-die-hards just love being poor? I mean I'd be crass to guess they like just staying "stupid", but last time I checked it was actually a good thing for most careers to actually bulk up some training and go for the higher pay check. Perhaps they've got a fear of change? Call me bewildered but if they can't smell a dead-end career path - perhaps that explains why they're so in love with the Macintosh to begin with. I mean after all - I know a computer is only a box. I also know that if I want to make more money, there's a real correlation between putting one set of tools down for another set. I also know that this is standard proceedure when industry trends translate into actual hard-core greenbacks. Then again - most starving artists seem to be ardent Mac supporters these days. I think that's all the correlation you need.

April 24

Probably the last observence I can crowd into this week about the battle of the tech perspectives is that I've just basically had more doors open to me when I've discarded tech fanboyism for actual employment opportunities. I've already pointed out that the ADC's favorite buddy and pal DKE, has forsaken every computer on the planet for his beloved Mac. He's not alone in his thinking - but unless memory serves different - he's certainly currently alone in his workforce scenario. At the moment he's outside looking in - and we already know what effect that can have on a guy. Particularly in the life-perspective department. It's kind of sad when a person trades his own misery index for those of a legitamate plight of horror. All for the sake of a tech-argument no less. It's even sadder because this particular specimen of humanity has already "admitted" (in glowing sardonic defensive terms) that he's multi-platform savvy. If that's the case, what's he waiting for? Don't try to tell me that he's taking a page from some of the more "able" homeless and is electing impovershment as a full-time career path - just because of the logo on the front of his computer! I mean if that's the case, then we've seen probably the first of a long parade of martyrs that will forsake a warm meal and a dry bed just because they were "thinking different". I'll be thinking MONEY as I go into work tomorrow and start up another session of Windows NT because - after all - someone's gotta pay the bills around here.