Davesbs Blog

As some may know, I do work with Apple Mac stuff. Some may call it the Dark Side of the force, especially as some of their clients will be asking about the shiny new iPhone and linking it to Exchange!

I am not going to get into a Mac vs Windows discussion, each have their place and I try to specialise in having both work nicely together in a network situation. They are just tools really after all.

BUT…when setting up my girlfriends new 24″ iMac the other day, I just had to be reminded of how simple and dare I say it, enjoyable it was. Now this is not integrated into any Active Directory structure yet, it is hanging off a Netgear ADSL Firewall device for Internet access.

30 minutes was really all it took including taking out the Apple installed 2 x 1GB memory sticks and replacing with 2 x 2GB’s. The iMac has two slots and it is cheaper to buy memory yourself, keep the factory installed parts as spares and upgrade to the maximum 4GB, than to get apple to supply the machine with it!

The fun will be connecting it to my SBS 2008 Beta network, though I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Mac Mini for testing. The new iMac is for her indoors work so I better not tinker too much

On that note, if anyone wants to get down and dirty with the Dark Side and who has never touched a Mac ever or not for many years, the Mac Mini is the ideal companion. I reckon there is a model refresh/update about to hit as all the other Mac computers have been done. Newer Intel chips and better graphics (Intel GMA X3100) are the order of the day even in the laptop range, so a new Mini must be coming soon. Watch this space as I think days or weeks rather than months and the tight lipped Cupertino will announce a new Mini. Rumours are abound about it being very small at half the size of the existing model as they will do away with any optical drive.

I have been accused of now liking the Mac by the missus as oppossed to seeing it as a necessary but attractive tool. Time will tell….I have spent most of the last few days in front of the iMac instead of any PC. Haven’t done that since I worked in the printing trade

Whilst I service and integrate Apple Mac’s with PC’s, I am coming to the horrible conclusion that the operating system religious argument has come full circle.

Whilst a few years ago, it was almost amusing to compare XP with Tiger, now it is derigeur to make Vista appear like Leopard!

Why?

Each has their own ‘religious zealots’ but not so many independent commentators. Well now I am one!

Surprise surprise, each to their own, some love/hate/like Vista whilst others do the same with OSX Leopard.

When you look at the facts, the reason people in the Windows world are so up in arms is because of change.

Mac people put up with and/or love, change. Well you might think that but, OSX hasn’t ‘really’ changed for years.

If Windows stayed in the same time-line as OSX, we would all be using XP, and whilst nothing wrong with that, at least Microsoft has tried to move forward and got rid of some old baggage. What do they get for their trouble?

A lot of bollocks that’s what.

All I want to know is:

1. what do you think makes Vista so unusable
2. why is XP better
3. why is the 5% market share Apple Mac better
4. why is XP so much of an attractive proposition, and if it is, why do all these people suddenly want a MAC? (even though they don’t)!

Off my soapbox,

Cheers,

Dave

Apple Macs are Greeeeeat, as Tony the Tiger might say!

Except they aren’t. Not if you need any work done on their internals.

Case in point, a three year old Power Mac G5 dual processor Tower. Perfectly decent with enough ram etc to whip through even huge Photoshop tasks.

Client phones to say his machine came out of sleep, made a loud cracking noise and died.

Fairly obvious to even PC Worlds Colin that the power supply was goosed. I went round just to confirm with multimeter in hand and that’s where the problems started.

Firstly, just an aside to the usual refrain from Mac evangelists; ‘Macs look brilliant and never crash or get a virus unlike those PC things people always want me to buy’. Well, they may look good they may not it depends on your personal opinion. A Subaru whatever may look good to some people where as others love their Alfa’s. Chicken is nice to eat if you like it… see where I am going.

As for they never crash/go wrong etc or get a virus. It is pretty obvious again that as Apple has a much smaller share in the computer market that it will not be targeted as often. Most offices even if they are creative types have PC’s doing the admin stuff, the stuff mostly targeted by crims and basically PC’s are more prevalent so therefore it makes sense to target them with mass spam bots etc.

But, never go wrong or crash…. HA Fu**ing HA. That is the biggest li.. eh, mistruth that I have ever heard.

I have been using/servicing/installing/integrating Apple products as long as I have PC’s and although Apple have a distinct advantage when they make the OS and hardware, things do often go wrong.

back to the story…

Here is the rub. Basically this G5 is on the verge of being PC-ised in that it has standard SATA hard drives and other bits but many parts are still proprietary. This includes the power supply. Made for Apple by various suppliers to fit in the case, to get it out meant disassembling half the machine including the processors.

As I am not an Apple Authorised Service Provider, I cannot just order these parts from apple. I also can’t get apple hardware diagnostic tools. So to a third party provider. Cost of said part £200…for a Power Supply!!!!!!

Two things to be aware of if you are doing this kind of job.

1) If you upgrade or replace any processor, you must get an AASP to thermally calibrate the Mac.

2) If you replace a faulty motherboard, again it is a trip to an AASP (of which there are only 2 in Scotland)

If I were to try to become AASP I would have to jump through so many financial and time consuming hoops that I just will not do it. I therefore do not want to touch any more Apple hardware problems.

As much as people love their Mac’s, please stop the deluded ‘Mac is so much better than PC arguments’ and look at the hard facts.

Thank you PC is all I can say!