As many of you know, I am a Mac fan. Some would call me a rabid one, but I try to keep my slavering to a minimum. But the fact remains that I am, and always will be, a big proponent of the Mac arena. It’s not that I’m against PCs. On the contrary, I use them regularly, and have no problems supporting them. In my heart of hearts, I think more people would be happier with their computers if they were Macs. I know that a lot of it depends on which you learn first, and that it is difficult for the average person to make the transition; much the same way it is difficult for someone to learn to drive a standard after having used an automatic for years.
And particularly in the recent past Apple has made some major progress. Not only have they made prices on hardware competitive (a full featured laptop, with everything built in, for $1000, and less than 5 pounds.), but they’ve also come out with OS X. OS X is the dream of a robust, pleasant, and usable UI on top of a robust, mature, and stable OS. It’s FreeBSD heritage gives it a strength and stability only matched in the heart of the *nix world, and the UI is a direct birthing of the company that invented most of what we now consider to be a UI. So what? Most of you know all this, or have heard me say all this. Why rant now?
Because I am starting to be convinced that the goal of ITS here at Brandeis is to wipe away all traces of Macintosh computers. First, a little backstory. When I started here at Brandeis in 1995 (whoo), the network was a localtalk network. It only worked with Macs. About 85% of the student body was Macintosh, and about 70% of the faculty and staff. It was kind of understandable that the staff would need to be a little more PC oriented to handle the fact that they were in a business environment, and the usual old lines about Microsoft dominance held true then as they do now. Then in 1997 they finished wiring all of the dorms with the new high speed Ethernet (good) and most of the other buildings on campus as well (also good). While this was a good thing, it also made it easier for people to turn away from Macs and switch to PCs. Currently approximately 3-5% of the student body uses Macs, and about 15-20% of the faculty and staff, who are a more stable population.
So what? What’s the problem there? Well, I’ve noticed an increasing trend in ITS to turn a blind eye to Macintosh computers. Here in the direct support department we keep the torch burning. Not only am I an avid proponent, but I’ve got one of the other guys using his Mac as his primary machine, and two others today admitted that their next home machine might be a Mac. But the rest of ITS, particularly in the Network and Systems groups, pretend they don’t exist. For many years this wasn’t a problem, as Macs played in their own little world. Now, with OS X, and the level of integration that OS X offers and in some ways needs, they’re having a harder time doing so. OS X is a multiuser system. This means there is a need for a central authentication authority, similar to the Domain structure for the NT based Windows machines. OS X can play with Active Directory, but the guys upstairs aren’t listening. OS X needs some new tools to replace old OS 9 tools, particularly the old Assimilator. They exist, but they are still maturing. All this came out today when my manager let me know that they are getting rid of the last Mac cluster on campus and replacing it with PCs, because it would take too much work to integrate with Active Directory, to be able to automatically refresh and repair, and to link to the print systems.
I say that it is all crap. I say we’re still going to have to address these issues when summer comes around and we have to give out new Macs to some of the staff and faculty. I say that Macs integrate, play nice, and work well. They say there aren’t enough applications, like Microsoft Project, and that Access doesn’t exist for Mac, so we’re forced to use FileMaker Pro (again, that Microsoft dominance). I say that FMPro is better than Access (actually it’s perspective, depending on which you learn first, like PC vs. Mac) and that there are project management applications for the Mac. they say that Peoplesoft and our ticketing system don’t run on Macs, and I say they have web interfaces.
Ah, but I don’t do anything important. I don’t run central servers, or make management decisions, or support the clusters and classrooms, or approve software or purchasing. I just sit here and help those poor saps on the fringe, when their computers break. I have no ability to fight against the office politics and blind discrimination of the system administrators. I sit and I weep for the passing of an age here at Brandeis. I hold my cube close and wonder if I’ll be able to get another mac this summer when I’m scheduled for a new computer. I don’t want to be squshed into the PC mold like sheet metal on an assembly line. I sit and cry.