Is there anybody else that really can't stand Mac end users?

I've had the misfortune of having to support Mac users at my last two jobs and it seems that there is a certain sense of arrogance amongst them.

When they have issues they always seem to take them personally, as if the problem exist because people that use Windows or Linux are somehow inferior to them and THEY are the reason they're having issues.

I'm sorry that you weren't intelligent enough how to figure out an OS that doesn't "just work". Windows end users experience issues as well, only when they have a problem they don't take it personally...why must you?

I don't mind Macs in the work place but I really wish they weren't supported. If you want to use an overpriced computer with a shiny exterior that you have to run Parallels on to use your Windows apps, then I shouldn't be forced to deal with your arrogance...period.

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

msteinhilber

subl1m1nal wrote: »

Another thing to consider is the high cost of the iPads. The iPad is not a product aimed at productivity. Even Jobs has said it's primarily a media consumption device. So its a web-browsing, video watching, book reading iPod. How much of it can they honestly think will be used for work?

Depends on the industry. Some of the real estate agents in our company have iPads and use them quite a bit in their trade. They work well for showing potential listings with buyers, especially if you have one with 3G. They are also capable with one of our resources to use it (or any PC for that matter) to draft a contract at the time of a showing. The one added feature the iPad offers with the contract drafting step is the ability for the buyer/seller to sign their name using their finger - and with surprising accuracy. That's just one instance though of an industry where it could work well, of course will vary from place to place.

rwmidl

Devilsbane wrote: »

Youtube is blocked by the proxy. Oddly enough (i just checked) pandora is not.

Is it blocked now?

Devilsbane

rwmidl wrote: »

Is it blocked now?

Not my job, but I might share some words next time I run into the guy whose job it is.

I'm sure that it isn't utilized. It doesn't take a genius to notice when multiple uses are streaming media for several hours each day.

wd40

rwmidl wrote: »

Did they actually say "the Time Machine"?

Yes, He did.

rwmidl

wd40 wrote: »

Yes, He did.

I'm having "Back to the Future" flashbacks now.

cablegod

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Apple users have bought into a fad and its pretty apparent that most of them can't make decisions on their own. They also don't care when they get blatantly lied to....

Well, the decision to buy into this "fad" has been a good one for my company and myself. I could care less how many iOS devices they have sold from a business perspective because the products I decided to use work just fine. No, I am not a fanboi. Just because I use and enjoy the use of their products doesn't make me a fanboi. From a personal perspective though, I've been laughing all the way to the bank since I bought AAPL at $88 a share.

Also:

Link1: Guest Post :: Why We Went Mac, and Have Never Looked Back (Part One) : The Mac Lawyer

Link2: Guest Post :: Why We Went Mac, and Have Never Looked Back (Part Two) : The Mac Lawyer

Hyper-Me

It was good for your company to spend more money on devices that are more difficult and have less ability to be managed effectively? Well....Ok then.

cablegod

Hyper-Me wrote: »

It was good for your company to spend more money on devices that are more difficult and have less ability to be managed effectively? Well....Ok then.

We manage them just fine. Haven't had any issues at all. Maybe it is more difficult to you, but not me or my team. Have you ever managed a Windows/Mac/Linux shop before? I'm curious where are you coming from with that generalized statement.

Edit: As far as the cost of Apple products, I've figured it actually saves us money in the long run compared to Windows. We don't have the developer downtime anymore that we had with Windows. No more "reboot and it'll go away", no more rebooting after installing an application, no more rebooting to "speed up" the system again, no more 2-3 year lease cycles to stay on the latest Windows OS. Don't get me wrong Hyper-Me, I'm not bashing Windows and saying Mac OS is better in all cases. It has it's place to me, just like Windows and Linux. I've been in IT Management for over 12 years and my stress levels after switching half of my users to Mac have dropped tremendously. That alone is a huge plus to me. All of my users/Developers/BA's have been extremely satisfied with the switch and do not want to go back. My C-level execs say the same thing and that's all I worry about. You'd be surprised to see how many large companies have Macs coming in these days. They may not work as well in all shops, but they do in mine.

subl1m1nal

cablegod wrote: »

We manage them just fine. Haven't had any issues at all. Maybe it is more difficult to you, but not me or my team. Have you ever managed a Windows/Mac/Linux shop before? I'm curious where are you coming from with that statement.

Just curious. If you're running a Mac shop, why do you have the Microsoft Certifications?

Kudos for jumping on the apple stock. But it isn't Mac OS that's keeping apple afloat. It iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iOS.

cablegod

subl1m1nal wrote: »

Just curious. If you're running a Mac shop, why do you have the Microsoft Certifications?

Kudos for jumping on the apple stock. But it isn't Mac OS that's keeping apple afloat. It iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iOS.

Good question. My certs are because my core network runs Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory with Exchange 2010. Application servers are a mix of Windows & Linux, database servers are all Linux. I never said we were all Apple. 50% of my end-users/developers are. You're right on the reason Apple stock is where it is. No way around that.

Claymoore

Bring on the shiny tablets and expensive white boxes! I'll bill you a fortune implementing VDI, application virtualization, RDS and products like Citrix Receiver (very cool, BTW) so you can continue to use your key line of business apps that aren't supported on your pricey new platforms.

I found it funny when we had a client that wanted to move to Google Chrome devices and the cloud, yet they won't pay to upgrade their core ERP software to a newer version that doesn't require IE6.

it_consultant

cablegod wrote: »

We manage them just fine. Haven't had any issues at all. Maybe it is more difficult to you, but not me or my team. Have you ever managed a Windows/Mac/Linux shop before? I'm curious where are you coming from with that generalized statement.

Edit: As far as the cost of Apple products, I've figured it actually saves us money in the long run compared to Windows. We don't have the developer downtime anymore that we had with Windows. No more "reboot and it'll go away", no more rebooting after installing an application, no more rebooting to "speed up" the system again, no more 2-3 year lease cycles to stay on the latest Windows OS. Don't get me wrong Hyper-Me, I'm not bashing Windows and saying Mac OS is better in all cases. It has it's place to me, just like Windows and Linux. I've been in IT Management for over 12 years and my stress levels after switching half of my users to Mac have dropped tremendously. That alone is a huge plus to me. All of my users/Developers/BA's have been extremely satisfied with the switch and do not want to go back. My C-level execs say the same thing and that's all I worry about. You'd be surprised to see how many large companies have Macs coming in these days. They may not work as well in all shops, but they do in mine.

If Mac Server and Macs had the market penetration that Windows does then we would have the opposite problem, people would be tired of their macs. Some people, like graphic designers, should just get what they want, it makes our lives easier as admins to shut them up.

I've actually noticed that as I have moved people to Windows 7 support calls based on the desktop OS have dropped to a trickle.

As far as everything else goes - you have to consider what is an actual fault with Windows and what is the fault with the admin or the application / developer. You can't blame Windows for Adobe's (or whoever) resource chugging crap product.

You can't blame MS when the admin puts in a system doesn't work right - which is often the case.

cablegod

it_consultant wrote: »

If Mac Server and Macs had the market penetration that Windows does then we would have the opposite problem, people would be tired of their macs. Some people, like graphic designers, should just get what they want, it makes our lives easier as admins to shut them up.

I've actually noticed that as I have moved people to Windows 7 support calls based on the desktop OS have dropped to a trickle.

As far as everything else goes - you have to consider what is an actual fault with Windows and what is the fault with the admin or the application / developer. You can't blame Windows for Adobe's (or whoever) resource chugging crap product.

You can't blame MS when the admin puts in a system doesn't work right - which is often the case.

You're right. I actually am a fan of Windows 7 and 2008 Server. I use them both and I can say that they are definitely a pleasure to use. I give Microsoft huge kudos on them both. Again, my shop isn't all Mac. I never said it was. I don't use any X-Serve servers and don't plan to. The Mac movement started like you said, to keep the developers happy and shut them up. It's worked, and as a side benefit, we hardly hear any issues from them.

eMeS

I never understand these threads demonizing one set of users over any other.

Aren't all users dicks?

subl1m1nal wrote: »

But it isn't Mac OS that's keeping apple afloat. It iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iOS.

This statement strikes me as funny, because there's so many ways to go with it. It could be said that the existence of Windows was somewhat inspired by the creation and initial success of Mac OS (not that Mac OS didn't have its predecessors). It could also be said that for a time in the 90's, Microsoft kept Apple "afloat", and they did. However, "afloat" strikes me as really funny when used to describe Apple's current financial situation in comparison to Microsoft's today, given that Apple's market cap is about $25 Billion greater than Microsoft's at the moment.

And then consider what that foretells...where is Microsoft's iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iOS?

MS

Mojo_666

eMeS wrote: »

Apple's market cap is about $25 Billion greater than Microsoft's at the moment.

The last I saw Apple were valued at $222bn and Microsoft were valued at $219bn. However, Microsoft proffits were $14.6bn compared with $5.7bn for Apple.

This is the first time since 1989 apple have been worth more, but that isnt expected to last as were seeing the 2003 product era all over again for Mirosofts 2008/2010 products.

eMeS

mojo_666 wrote: »

the last i saw apple were valued at $222bn and microsoft were valued at $219bn. However, microsoft proffits were $14.6bn compared with $5.7bn for apple.

aapl 236

msft 210

Actually I'd say they're both decent buys right now....

I just don't really see the future for Microsoft if the desktop truly does go away....I'm still not convinced that it will though...

MS

DevilWAH

I find both MAC and Linux users simmer to deal with in our place. The main reason is to be honest both normally know what they want.

Windows users often need it explained to them, and 90% don't even know the difference between a hard drive and a computer.

I have found don't treat either as a novice and you will get along fine. Even if they don't know Computers well, most staff use a MAC for a reason, Graphic designers or some such. No one who is highly trained in any field likes to be talked to as though they know nothing. What upsets them even more is when they know they don't understand what you are saying but will not admit it.

You find the same with scientists. some one with a PHD is a lot harder to deal with about IT issues than the cleaner.

Cleaver people do not like to feel stupid and this often ccomes across as agression.

pml1

I've never had to support Mac users, but I do have several friends who own them. I absolutely cannot stand to talk about anything related to computers with them. They think that just because they purchased a Mac they know more about computers than I'll ever know. Their Macs are perfect. They never freeze, need to reboot, or install patches, and they have zero security vulnerabilities.

It's certainly not fair to lump all Mac users together, but the ones that I know personally, definitely look down on other computers and those who use them...or perhaps I should just choose my friends more carefully.

Bl8ckr0uter

eMeS wrote: »

Apple's current financial situation in comparison to Microsoft's today, given that Apple's market cap is about $25 Billion greater than Microsoft's at the moment.

I looked them both up:

MSFT Key Statistics | Microsoft Corporation Stock - Yahoo! Finance

AAPL Key Statistics | Apple Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance

Other reading:

Apple Passes Microsoft as 'Most Valuable Tech Company' - Mobile and Wireless from eWeek

I guess maybe I need to do some research on what a Market Cap is. Does this mean that as a company Apple is worth 20 billion dollars more than Microsoft? I find this incredible because the besides the Iphone/Pad/Pod , what else does the company really do that is bringing in so much money. I guess they don't really have to since I know they made a killing off of the aforementioned devices. I guess I am just wondering because OSX's market share isn't improving by that much. But I guess there is more to that company than software.

Also does anyone think that Microsofts days are numbered?

EDIT:

To answer the question, I would say that 85-90 percent of apple users I have encountered are totally douchebags. But I don't think is because they have apple products though. No these asses were already douches and they were looking for yet another outlet for their douchery. You know the one like these guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zT9p1vnBjo Ed hardy/tap out shirts and gelled out here wasn't enough.

subl1m1nal

eMeS wrote: »

I never understand these threads demonizing one set of users over any other.

Aren't all users dicks?

MS

Yes.

eMeS wrote: »

This statement strikes me as funny, because there's so many ways to go with it. It could be said that the existence of Windows was somewhat inspired by the creation and initial success of Mac OS (not that Mac OS didn't have its predecessors). It could also be said that for a time in the 90's, Microsoft kept Apple "afloat", and they did. However, "afloat" strikes me as really funny when used to describe Apple's current financial situation in comparison to Microsoft's today, given that Apple's market cap is about $25 Billion greater than Microsoft's at the moment.

And then consider what that foretells...where is Microsoft's iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iOS?

Consider Apple without iOS. Apple as a Mac only company would be where it was 10 or so years ago. iOS is keeping them afloat, and doing well at it.

I remember Bill Gates buying Apple stock. I'm not sure if he still owns it or not.

Microsoft has WinMo and Zune...which sucks. Android FTW!

subl1m1nal

knwminus wrote: »

I find this incredible because the besides the Iphone/Pad/Pod , what else does the company really do that is bringing in so much money. I guess they don't really have to since I know they made a killing off of the aforementioned devices. I guess I am just wondering because OSX's market share isn't improving by that much. But I guess there is more to that company than software.

Also does anyone think that Microsofts days are numbered?

iTunes and the App Store are also making a killing for them.

Microsoft will be around until Apple makes OSX more business friendly and less expensive....or Google's Chrome OS or some other Linux distro take over. As long as it has Windows, it'll be around.

eMeS

knwminus wrote: »

I looked them both up:

MSFT Key Statistics | Microsoft Corporation Stock - Yahoo! Finance

AAPL Key Statistics | Apple Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance

Other reading:

Apple Passes Microsoft as 'Most Valuable Tech Company' - Mobile and Wireless from eWeek

I guess maybe I need to do some research on what a Market Cap is. Does this mean that as a company Apple is worth 20 billion dollars more than Microsoft?

Market cap is Share Price x Number of Shares Outstanding, expressed in monetary units. More esoterically, it is a measure of the perception of value that the general market places in a company and its products.

Yes, at the moment, the perceived worth of AAPL is about $25 billion more than MSFT.

What's even more interesting is that both AAPL and MSFT have a higher market cap than IBM, and are both about double the market cap of Cisco and Intel.

knwminus wrote: »

I find this incredible because the besides the Iphone/Pad/Pod , what else does the company really do that is bringing in so much money. I guess they don't really have to since I know they made a killing off of the aforementioned devices. I guess I am just wondering because OSX's market share isn't improving by that much. But I guess there is more to that company than software.

AAPL has many streams of revenue, as does MSFT. What I would say is the likely small, but key differentiation at the moment is the AAPL has overall more profitable streams of revenue, whereas Microsoft probably has several streams that are either marginal or altogether unprofitable. MSFT has always seemed to be in many lines of business, where AAPL has always seemed to be a bit more focused.

knwminus wrote: »

IAlso does anyone think that Microsofts days are numbered?

I doubt it. I don't feel like they will become the next DEC or anything, but, this has happened before to many companies.

MS

Zartanasaurus

rwmidl wrote: »

Where I use to work we had a small group of Macs. Mostly the users were pretty cool but we had 1-2 who thought they were "above" everyone else. We would always find "unauthorized software" every time we did our quarterly security scans.

You get this with Windows users too. People who know just enough to get themselves in trouble.

Bl8ckr0uter

eMeS wrote: »

Market cap is Share Price x Number of Shares Outstanding, expressed in monetary units. More esoterically, it is a measure of the perception of value that the general market places in a company and its products.

That's for the education lol.

Hyper-Me

cablegod wrote: »

We manage them just fine. Haven't had any issues at all. Maybe it is more difficult to you, but not me or my team. Have you ever managed a Windows/Mac/Linux shop before? I'm curious where are you coming from with that generalized statement.

At my last job I was part of a two man team that designed and implemented a nearly 100 site, 60,000 user, 12000 computer (half Mac, half Windows) AD domain. We evaluated all the big players in the Mac AD integration products and also looked heavily at Open Directory and Active Directory in the "Golden Triangle" (which should be called the poop brown triangle). In the end we chose Quest Authentication Services and AFAIK thats still the largest deployment for that product to date. We even spent many long nights working with their development team for that product because it wasn't totally working right with out RODC's at remote sites, so several updates that came out last year were directly due to R&D done at our site. So, in the end....it cost us nearly a $250,000 to gain an acceptable level of management over the Mac OS machines.

So yeah, I have some experience in that area. Suffice it to say, there is no easy way to manage Macs in a workplace environment. Their own imaging product sucks, their Directory service sucks, their update servers suck. But you can write a massive check to Quest and end up getting around half of the functionality that AD provides.

eMeS

subl1m1nal wrote: »

I remember Bill Gates buying Apple stock. I'm not sure if he still owns it or not.

No.

AAPL Major Holders | Apple Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance

But he did save their ass, primarily because selling software for the Mac was a significant revenue stream for Microsoft.

I would pay attention to who holds one vs. the other, specifically in terms of institutional holders; i.e, the top institutional holder of AAPL hold about 1/3 as much MSFT.

MS

subl1m1nal

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

You get this with Windows users too. People who know just enough to get themselves in trouble.

Not on my network. The only person with local admin rights is me! People are nice to me here. I'm not crazy psycho douchebag admin. If they want to piss around on google earth, I'll install it for them. As long as management is okay with it.

it_consultant

Hyper-Me wrote: »

At my last job I was part of a two man team that designed and implemented a nearly 100 site, 60,000 user, 12000 computer (half Mac, half Windows) AD domain. We evaluated all the big players in the Mac AD integration products and also looked heavily at Open Directory and Active Directory in the "Golden Triangle" (which should be called the poop brown triangle). In the end we chose Quest Authentication Services and AFAIK thats still the largest deployment for that product to date. We even spent many long nights working with their development team for that product because it wasn't totally working right with out RODC's at remote sites, so several updates that came out last year were directly due to R&D done at our site. So, in the end....it cost us nearly a $250,000 to gain an acceptable level of management over the Mac OS machines.

So yeah, I have some experience in that area. Suffice it to say, there is no easy way to manage Macs in a workplace environment. Their own imaging product sucks, their Directory service sucks, their update servers suck. But you can write a massive check to Quest and end up getting around half of the functionality that AD provides.

I remember reading about a car manufacturer who was implementing Macs and besides the hardware and software costs they had to pay apple consultants to put all the stuff in. They were generally happy with it but they did mention that any money they thought they were going to save in support over the long run was eaten up by the HUGE implementation cost.

Seriously, I don't know why no one uses SuSE desktops with terminal servers for their Windows stuff. SuSE is almost just like a Mac except you can run it on Dells. There must be a Linux compatible TS client out there...maybe through citrix or something.

Actually, I think the german government went to SuSE for all their government stuff, I wonder how that is working out for them?

tpatt100

The military has been and is continuing to move to more open source software. Much of our Signal equipment runs on BSD,Linux,or HPUX. Lately deals for Mac OSX platforms are popping up. The big thing was the ability to run headless in appliances due to heat/space requirements. Server 2008 has made some good advances in this direction I just think people think of anything but Microsoft when it comes to adaptability to wartime environments.

But part of me thinks the military sees benefit from the smaller attack target the Unix platforms have (this is debatable).

Devilsbane

DevilWAH wrote: »

Windows users often need it explained to them, and 90% don't even know the difference between a hard drive and a computer.

I know plenty of Mac users that don't know jack about comptuers either. Linux users usually have a clude. Your normal user won't even attempt to use one of them unless it is one of the original netbook things that came out.