OS used in the business/corporate environment in NZ and the world

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#1750093 29-Mar-2017 13:05

^My wife teaches at a private school. There's no such thing as rich kids. They're just kids, kids who constantly deal with the parents (Who should know better) of other school kids giving them a hard time at public events - I've seen it many times first hand. Why people think it's OK to give kids a hard time is beyond me. Most of them have families with parents that work two jobs each to put their kids through school. A portion have parents who are financially comfortable, but even they're mostly down to earth and real people from my interactions. What they do get is less behaviour management issues and smaller classes. What they don't get is much/any government funding and access to the same free/low-cost initiatives that states schools get. I'm comfortable saying this having seen the other schools she's worked at in her career (not private) and having gone to a state school myself. The anti-private school mentality is stupid.

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#1750103 29-Mar-2017 13:12

blackjack17:

Your comment about porn is strange....

there was porn in school well before the days of laptops & tablets
I remember porn being bought into school when I was at school, the old fashioned paper based porn :-)

sir1963

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#1750117 29-Mar-2017 13:21

blackjack17:

sir1963:

blackjack17:
alienwithin:

schools should not be dictating to parents what their students should be using in class. Schools need to either accomadate all options or the cheapest option because parents shouldn't have to spend money they have not got because some teachers want the latest and greatest.

We are a private school. Laptops are expected

LOL rich people thinking expensive toys = improved education.

Einstein, Tesla, Galileo, Edison, Maxwell, Newton, etc etc etc , no computers and look what they achieved.

Kids are so glued to one screen or another they loose out on the social interactions they need to learn at their age.

What the do learn is how to browse porn and get a very distorted view of male/female interactions.

What devices do is expand the range of things you can do in class, in science we can have students hook sensors and data loggers up to computers and carry out a range of experiments. In technology students can do 3d modelling and produce stuff in our 3d printers, in music mix and record music and so on.

If class time is nothing but memorising a bunch of facts then no they don't need computers.

Students don't use their computer every lesson in every class and we make sure students still use paper and pen. Students still have a very active social life and interact with each other extensively. Your comment about porn is strange, I'm not sure how school devices can be blamed for that, not only do we have pretty good filters (yes the students can get around it but each new method tends to get caught pretty quickly), but wouldn't students just use their phones, home computers... Plus as a girls school online shopping, uber eats, netflix tends to be bigger issues than watching porn.

Having taught at schools that are 1 to 1 and schools that have computer labs, I much prefer the 1 to 1, there are just so many more options, I can make use of computers for part of a lesson and then flick back to a practical or pen and paper.

Think about what Einstein, Tesla, Galileo, Edison, Maxwell, Newton, etc etc etc could have achieved if they did have access to some of the technology we have now.

Yeah I have seen the results of this, they are able to click on buttons and get instant results.

For example most students can't tell you why they used a log/log graph except it gave them a straight line.

They have a poor understanding of scale, for example we had a data logger that had an offset on one of the ranges then deliberately got the students to do an experiment that deliberately found the error, they all assumed the computer was always right.

And when it came to a calculator you could look at their work and see the WTF where they had missed a decimal point (for a crude example 9.9x1.1 they have put in 9.9x11) and completely miss the error.

Making children do it manually so they understand the mechanics of the problem is important.

and the porn was on the BYOD devices, and trust me the kids very quickly learn how to get around a lot of the security and in general they are more computer literate than their parents.

You should have added Facebook as a time waster too.

Computers are a great tool, so long as you understand what they are doing for you (e.g. array multiplication), but if you assume the computer "knows what it is doing" and believe the results you can end up seriously wrong very quickly. People also become very "recipe" driven, they learn you hit button a then b then c without understanding what those steps actually involve. For example kids can use a calculator to do multiplication without ever understanding what they are actually doing (repeated addition).

Oh another favourite of mine is that on a computer, you need to back up your data. I have recovered PhD's that the student thought having 2 copies on the 1 hard drive was a backup, they had ZERO idea of the mechanics of what the computer was doing and made an assumption that fitted in with what was most expedient for them.

sir1963

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#1750120 29-Mar-2017 13:28

gehenna:

^My wife teaches at a private school. There's no such thing as rich kids. They're just kids, kids who constantly deal with the parents (Who should know better) of other school kids giving them a hard time at public events - I've seen it many times first hand. Why people think it's OK to give kids a hard time is beyond me. Most of them have families with parents that work two jobs each to put their kids through school. A portion have parents who are financially comfortable, but even they're mostly down to earth and real people from my interactions. What they do get is less behaviour management issues and smaller classes. What they don't get is much/any government funding and access to the same free/low-cost initiatives that states schools get. I'm comfortable saying this having seen the other schools she's worked at in her career (not private) and having gone to a state school myself. The anti-private school mentality is stupid.

And I have seen schools from wealthy areas of town use the rules at T-ball to exclude a gifted sports person from a poor school from playing because he did not have shoes.

I have seen schools exclude high needs students (intellectually handicapped) by using a "limited enrolment" clause to keep these kids out, they could then spend the money

they got as part of the funding for special needs kids on sports uniforms and the like

I have seen wealthy parent telling their kids not to play with "that kind of child" because of their disability/race

etc etc etc

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#1750139 29-Mar-2017 13:59

^Doesn't make the mentality any less stupid.

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#1750773 30-Mar-2017 16:41

Macs are not an enterprise product. Sure Apple make nice phones and laptops. But they are not enterprise, they have said this themselves many many times.

Enterprise is not about it being Windows PC vs Apple etc, it's about the infrastructure and management tools Active Directory can provide to Windows. With AD you can manage your systems, push updates/configurations/policies out to the users. Most system admins don't give a crap about what is your favourite, they only care about what they can manage and support properly.

Macs are also a PITA when it comes to 'it just works' - because whether it's a new printer or 4G stick they do not 'just work'. And apple have a habit of doing things because they think it's right despite it not necessarily being so AND doing it without telling anyone.

Case in point sitting at the airport one day listen to some lady go off at her support people because she could not remote into a citrix system. Going by the conversation I could tell they support Windows but Mac was a kind of 'well that was your choice' situation. I could hear she was having certificate issues - the issue because Apple decided to untrust Symantec as a cert issue in their last update.

Not to mention Apple is a complete security nightmare.

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#1751030 31-Mar-2017 09:42

^Disagree with most of that. I've been using Mac's in corporate and enterprise for over a decade. They're in AD. There's 3rd party tools needed for some of the nicer stuff (like GPO and WSUS equivalents) but aside from that everything I've ever done has worked fine. And for things that are specifically Windows only I have a VM that runs super fast on my hardware. I get where you're coming from, but if you're capable enough to manage things for yourself there's no issue. We have many Mac's in our organisation and a lot of capability in the IT team to manage them. If you don't invest in capability it doesn't matter what the technology is, the experience for the end user will be poor.

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sir1963

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#1751037 31-Mar-2017 10:11

vulcannz:

Macs are not an enterprise product. Sure Apple make nice phones and laptops. But they are not enterprise, they have said this themselves many many times.

Enterprise is not about it being Windows PC vs Apple etc, it's about the infrastructure and management tools Active Directory can provide to Windows. With AD you can manage your systems, push updates/configurations/policies out to the users. Most system admins don't give a crap about what is your favourite, they only care about what they can manage and support properly.

Macs are also a PITA when it comes to 'it just works' - because whether it's a new printer or 4G stick they do not 'just work'. And apple have a habit of doing things because they think it's right despite it not necessarily being so AND doing it without telling anyone.

Case in point sitting at the airport one day listen to some lady go off at her support people because she could not remote into a citrix system. Going by the conversation I could tell they support Windows but Mac was a kind of 'well that was your choice' situation. I could hear she was having certificate issues - the issue because Apple decided to untrust Symantec as a cert issue in their last update.

Not to mention Apple is a complete security nightmare.

IBM (how more corporate can you get) is buying about 1000 Macs a week.

We too have AD at work and I have had all of our Macs login into the Domain for years, and there are plenty of management options for the Mac, e.g. JAMF, and corporate customers can register their devices with Apple and have a configuration file associated with that ID, so straight from the box it will install a corporate profile and software. Apple remote desktop, Apple configuration tools, Deploy Studio are other tools.

Yes, there are some products that do not work with a Mac, there are also some that do not work with Windows or Linux.

I too can choose software and hardware that does not work well with any platform you care to name , that is NOT proof that that platform is inferior, it only proves that the specifications for requirement were badly set out, most likely by some moron who was more interested in making his life easy by using something he understood rather than considering the needs of ALL end users and having to learn something new. If you employ one of these, fire them, they are an impediment to your business.

Case in point is bollocks, that person at the airport may not have known they needed to VPN into their workplace to be able to use Citrix, that same mistake works just as well for windows. And I have certainly had it where the "Windows" admin has for gotten to pin hole the firewall on the VPN link, but hey it "worked" on their PC on they desk at work so it was a "mac issue"....idiot, did not bother with VPN as he was local so "did not need it".

What security nightmare ?In the last 20+ years I have seen zero Macs with viruses but regularly see PCs (even though they run anti-virus software).

The fact that YOUR knowledge about Mac is poor and its too much work for you to learn is your problem. You had to learn all your Windows knowledge at some stage too.

The one I loved at work was that Macs made up only 10% of the computers but 90% of the help desk calls.

Yet when you DID call the help desk they could not answer even basic Mac questions, HOW do you NOT KNOW about the 90% of your work load ?????

I have also been told that "macs are too hard to support", by an IT guy who was just too lazy to learn. He did not last long in the job.

(Mod Edit - play nice...)

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#1751109 31-Mar-2017 12:37

sir1963:

ROTFLMAO, ever consider that Mac users also feel put out getting files in "Windows format".

And everyone personally prefers the system they are most familiar with...duh !

Anyway, I mange the Macs we have in my department at University , they are used by Chemists, Statisticians , Mathematicians, Microbiologists, Engineers, Vets, Physicists, etc etc etc. Documents are done in LaTex, Word, Acrobat, information is gathered/manipulated in Mathematica, Matlab, R, Filemaker,as well as a lot of custom software. We use Windows, OSX, Linux.

I use my Mac for designing PCBs (DipTrace), Arduino programming. I use the Mac to run Diagnostics on Centrifuges via a terminal emulator (ZTerm).

IBM is now Apples largest customer , they are buying something like 1000 new Macs a week, and based on their very large install base have said the total cost of ownership is much lower than for Windows boxes.

of course that makes for a good headline, but there is always more to the story.

The Mac TCO quoted is much lower than Windows because they compared bananas with oranges - they literally setup a brand new modern IT infrastructure to onboard the Macs using modern management technologies, lightweight management, MDM etc, self service.

Meanwhile their comparable Windows infrastructure is "legacy" its decades old, they use custom imaging, on-premises domain join etc

The long story short is that IBMs internal Mac savings started with embracing new processes. They re-envisioned the PC and deployment and support processes for its Macs but has not yet made similar changes to its Windows environment.

Smart IT managers would review the process changes made by IBM and consider how these changes could improve and lower Windows costs too.

Microsoft will have more too announce about this when IBM approves us talking about it.

vulcannz

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#1751462 1-Apr-2017 08:38

sir1963:

IBM (how more corporate can you get) is buying about 1000 Macs a week.

We too have AD at work and I have had all of our Macs login into the Domain for years, and there are plenty of management options for the Mac, e.g. JAMF, and corporate customers can register their devices with Apple and have a configuration file associated with that ID, so straight from the box it will install a corporate profile and software. Apple remote desktop, Apple configuration tools, Deploy Studio are other tools.

Yes, there are some products that do not work with a Mac, there are also some that do not work with Windows or Linux.

I too can choose software and hardware that does not work well with any platform you care to name , that is NOT proof that that platform is inferior, it only proves that the specifications for requirement were badly set out, most likely by some moron who was more interested in making his life easy by using something he understood rather than considering the needs of ALL end users and having to learn something new. If you employ one of these, fire them, they are an impediment to your business.

Case in point is bollocks, that person at the airport may not have known they needed to VPN into their workplace to be able to use Citrix, that same mistake works just as well for windows. And I have certainly had it where the "Windows" admin has for gotten to pin hole the firewall on the VPN link, but hey it "worked" on their PC on they desk at work so it was a "mac issue"....idiot, did not bother with VPN as he was local so "did not need it".

What security nightmare ?In the last 20+ years I have seen zero Macs with viruses but regularly see PCs (even though they run anti-virus software).

The fact that YOUR knowledge about Mac is poor and its too much work for you to learn is your problem. You had to learn all your Windows knowledge at some stage too.

The one I loved at work was that Macs made up only 10% of the computers but 90% of the help desk calls.

Yet when you DID call the help desk they could not answer even basic Mac questions, HOW do you NOT KNOW about the 90% of your work load ?????

I have also been told that "macs are too hard to support", by an IT guy who was just too lazy to learn. He did not last long in the job.

(Mod Edit - play nice...)

First off I never said nor claimed Mac OS is a better desktop than Windows. I made a particular point of avoiding that.

Secondly you still need to go and grab a whole bunch of 3rd party stuff to get your Mac working in a managed environment. Even then it is just glorified MDM software, still not the same as AD.

Then you did not understand the 'case in point', you are wrong. It is not bollocks, and you probably show your hand in misunderstanding the issue. If you're technically not capable of understanding what I wrote you should probably not be throwing stones. (tldr; the did NOT need to VPN into their workplace)

Lastly Macs do have virus's, but they are not that common simply because they have such a low market share. Even the Mac OS has baked in antivirus, although its pretty rubbish and it was only last year that they separated signature updates from the OS updates. Apple historically have had the highest numbers of vulnerabilities on the CVE databases from year to year (which is why you see so much news about Macs/Apple being hacked as opposed to virus malware. That said I remember seeing some Macs infected with flashback a few years ago.

Oops wait do I know more than you about Macs? So if my knowledge of macs is poor where does that put you ;)

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#1751530 1-Apr-2017 10:04

vulcannz:

sir1963:

IBM (how more corporate can you get) is buying about 1000 Macs a week.

We too have AD at work and I have had all of our Macs login into the Domain for years, and there are plenty of management options for the Mac, e.g. JAMF, and corporate customers can register their devices with Apple and have a configuration file associated with that ID, so straight from the box it will install a corporate profile and software. Apple remote desktop, Apple configuration tools, Deploy Studio are other tools.

Yes, there are some products that do not work with a Mac, there are also some that do not work with Windows or Linux.

I too can choose software and hardware that does not work well with any platform you care to name , that is NOT proof that that platform is inferior, it only proves that the specifications for requirement were badly set out, most likely by some moron who was more interested in making his life easy by using something he understood rather than considering the needs of ALL end users and having to learn something new. If you employ one of these, fire them, they are an impediment to your business.

Case in point is bollocks, that person at the airport may not have known they needed to VPN into their workplace to be able to use Citrix, that same mistake works just as well for windows. And I have certainly had it where the "Windows" admin has for gotten to pin hole the firewall on the VPN link, but hey it "worked" on their PC on they desk at work so it was a "mac issue"....idiot, did not bother with VPN as he was local so "did not need it".

What security nightmare ?In the last 20+ years I have seen zero Macs with viruses but regularly see PCs (even though they run anti-virus software).

The fact that YOUR knowledge about Mac is poor and its too much work for you to learn is your problem. You had to learn all your Windows knowledge at some stage too.

The one I loved at work was that Macs made up only 10% of the computers but 90% of the help desk calls.

Yet when you DID call the help desk they could not answer even basic Mac questions, HOW do you NOT KNOW about the 90% of your work load ?????

I have also been told that "macs are too hard to support", by an IT guy who was just too lazy to learn. He did not last long in the job.

(Mod Edit - play nice...)

First off I never said nor claimed Mac OS is a better desktop than Windows. I made a particular point of avoiding that.

Secondly you still need to go and grab a whole bunch of 3rd party stuff to get your Mac working in a managed environment. Even then it is just glorified MDM software, still not the same as AD.

Then you did not understand the 'case in point', you are wrong. It is not bollocks, and you probably show your hand in misunderstanding the issue. If you're technically not capable of understanding what I wrote you should probably not be throwing stones. (tldr; the did NOT need to VPN into their workplace)

Lastly Macs do have virus's, but they are not that common simply because they have such a low market share. Even the Mac OS has baked in antivirus, although its pretty rubbish and it was only last year that they separated signature updates from the OS updates. Apple historically have had the highest numbers of vulnerabilities on the CVE databases from year to year (which is why you see so much news about Macs/Apple being hacked as opposed to virus malware. That said I remember seeing some Macs infected with flashback a few years ago.

Oops wait do I know more than you about Macs? So if my knowledge of macs is poor where does that put you ;)

I never claimed anything was better or worse.

Oh woe is me, a computer does not come with all the possible software you need...duh. Thats the really great thing about computers, you can add software to add functionality.

For example, your windows box from Harvey Normans is not a server, you have to BUY Windows server if you want that functionality. The tools to add functionality are realitively cheap for most things. We have tons of 3rd party software for such things as print spool/management, IP phones, SCCM for user installable software (macs use Casper), FlexNet license management, etc etc etc. The fact that Microsoft does not do OSX management tools inside their AD servers is NOT OSX fault, that is a choice Microsoft makes, however that is easily fixed by adding a couple of tools. Its not hard, nor is it Apple or Microsofts fault, they BOTH make design choice.

IF for example we had a site running OSX servers, tools would need to be bought to allow fuller Windows functionality, that is NOT Microsofts fault, it isa limitation that Apple have chosen, i.e. we do not fully support the opposition.

Hell even with Microsoft products, e.g. Word there are differences between Windows and OSX that can impact pagination, functionality, etc, and in both cases the end user has had to buy that software package as it was not part of the OS (although OSX does come with Pages,Numbers,Keynote). Even then we buy 3rd party add ons such as Endnote, Mathtype. Outlook on the Mac is a steaming pile of dog sh!t compared to the Windows version, so much so for some Mac users we bought Parallels and set up a Windows VM with Outlook in it ( multiple user calendar management...ugh), THAT is 100% Microsofts choice.

Well we use Citrix for a number of administrative systems , and you either need to be on the local network, or you need to VPN in. And Yes, I deal with people who don't get this. We are however shifting some services over to Remote Desktop sessions, but again for security, you are either on the local network or you have to VPN in. That is a management choice, the end users have zero control over this. As for the certificate, yep had problems on ALL platforms at one stage or another, some have ben bugs in the OS, some have been because of invalid certificates, some have been because the IT staff failed to update certain certificates, some have been because a CA became dodgy or had their Cert stolen. The attitude of "on a Mac your problem" by the IT people sucks. And my experience with working with IT people like that is 90% of the issues were theirs, they failed to pinhole a firewall, they failed to make re-enable a function on a server (e.g. afp:// on a file server), why did this happen, easy they were too lazy to document stuff, Things like settings for network switches, undocumented, so when a switch dies they rely on end user complaints to figure out the edge cases (odd ball port required for some software/service). Again, Not Apple, Not Microsoft , Not Google, No HP, Not Cisco, but poorly documented systems by lazy IT.

The CVE for OSX that I am looking at bundles every version of OSX together for 79, however Windows 7 had 59, Windows 8.1 had 33, Windows Vista had 58, Windows XP had 7 and each version of Windows server had their own listing, OSX server just the one.

https://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-products.php

The most expensive part of the computer is the idiot on the keyboard, if I can improve their productivity by 1% (20 hours a year), over the 4 years we own the machine thats 80 hours, at a cost rate of between $100-$1000 per hour (office space, lab space, wages, ACC, holidays, etc etc etc etc) the computer and installed software becomes irrelevant, so give staff what tools they need, be it Windows, Linux, OSX, throw in a VM if needed, buy software, do what is needed to assist end users , but make sure that any faults are real faults rather than the attitude of the support personnel.

Macs can and do work well in a corporate environment, they work well in education (primary though to University)

Yes Linux works better for servers, most of the time

Yes AD is a good solution, most of the time

Yes Embedded Widows XP is still used for CNC mills/lathes

Yes some instruments require a Windows controller, some require OSX, Some require Linux, Some have their own controllers.

And YES, you will sometime have to buy software to extend capability (e.g. reading HFS, NTFS, EXT3/4 formatted disks), but that is life.

vulcannz

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#1752604 1-Apr-2017 12:25

Supporting Macs appears to make you quite angry.

sir1963

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#1752668 1-Apr-2017 13:55

vulcannz: Supporting Macs appears to make you quite angry.

Nope, dealing with IT "professionals" who feel that their personal dislike for any particular platform = facts is what annoys me.

Facts are "Solidworks does not run on OSX", thats undisputed, but "Macs are no good in a corporate environment" is bullish!t

Same for the lame excuse "You have to bus special software for Macs", well you do for Windows as well, they don't come with Office for example preinstalled and registered to go, you have to buy a Word processor, spreadsheet, decent email program, etc etc etc.

And the same IT people tell the same bulls!t time and time again even after they have been shown they are wrong, in this they are no better than Trump

and the Alternative Truth he chooses to believe.

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#1752679 1-Apr-2017 14:35

I'll leave you guys to argue about which platform is easier to support as you know a lot more about that than I ever will, but my appeal to you as IT support people is not to forget that you exist to serve your customers.

What type of users do you have in your organisation? Are they mostly computer enthusiasts like you, or are they novices? What do they use their desktops and laptops for? What feedback have you been getting from them?

In terms of outcomes, this is what really matters. Everything else is just zeroes and ones.

vulcannz

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#1753162 2-Apr-2017 11:54

sir1963:

And the same IT people tell the same bulls!t time and time again even after they have been shown they are wrong, in this they are no better than Trump

and the Alternative Truth he chooses to believe.

Says the guy that cannot tell the difference between a VPN connection and a untrusted CA.

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