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Macs Ostracized on Capitol Hill
jonerik writes "Wired News has an article today on the last Apple holdout on Capitol Hill, Ngozi Pole. Pole, the office and systems administrator at Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-MA) Boston and Washington D.C. offices, argues that the Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms (SAA), which makes technology recommendations to senators, wants to make its job as easy as possible by pushing Windows-based applications as much as they can. According to the article, 'The SAA allocates $250,000 per six-year term to each senator. The department had hoped Pole would use the budget to replace aging Macs in Kennedy's offices. Instead, Pole will spend the remainder of his budget through 2003 filling Senator Kennedy's Washington office with new flat-panel iMacs.' Unsurprisingly, the SAA declined to comment."
Jack booted thugs coming to steal my free artistic ways and replace them with the tools of cheerless beancounters!
At least in my corporate environment they limit "unification activities" to "encouragement" to migrate to the One Borg Platform. But anyone who wants to keep their Mac is welcome to do so and to receive corporate support as long as they keep their suite of installed applications reasonably close to the corporate standard.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I have no patience for lousy admins that are so stupid, that they can only figgure out one operating system.
Hell, my fist Mac experience was setting up Dave (a SMB clinet for Mac) and TCP/IP networking on an OS 9 box. Took all of fifteen minuits, and I spent most of that time looking and the inerds of the translucent mouse. Most Important Tip: Hold mouse button down to make menus stay. That's it. It's easy.
If these idiots can't figgure it out for $75,000 a year then recycle their carbon.
He'll the *hardest* computers to figgure out are MS Windows boxes - between all the rebooting and the buggy operating system, it's suprising that they don't migrate *away* from MS Windows.
I'd rather study 'man ifconfig' and be on my way, than play "where did Microsoft hide the network settings on this version of Windows?"
Like puting the SMB/Cifs,Domain and Workgroup name in the "My Computer." Hint for idiots at MS: Networking settings belong in the "My Network Places" or whatever you call it now days.
Jesus, this has turned into My Rant, against My Favorite Criminal Company.
My New Sig: Winodws-only admins suck.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
It's nice to know that Senator Kennedy has someone like Ngozi Pole working for him. Rather than succumb to the wishes of the SAA he realizes that there are quality alternatives to Microsoft Windows.
When you are the Federal Government there are a LOT of factors that you have to consider including security, stability, visibility, and cost-effectiveness. I am a MAJOR Mac fan and own several Macs. But Apple could be argued to have lost on all of these counts:
1. Security: MacOS X has only been around a short time and has no proven track record yet. Give it two more years and the beaurocrats might accept it. (Yes, I know. BSD has a HUGE track record, but try explaining BSD and OS X to your typical mouth-breather.)
2. Stability: While MacOS X is VERY stable, again it has no proven track record here.
3. Visibility: Macs (modern macs) always announce their presence. They are stylish devices which do not want to be hidden. This may not be good depending on who is stopping in to criticize you today.
4. Cost-effectiveness: Try explaining to a CBO accountant why you want to buy a $1200 iBook instead of a $500 bottom-barrel Wintel machine. Or better yet, try explaining it to a political columnist looking for an ax to grind.
Now, I am talking about MacOS X as that is what is shipping on all new Macs that the Feds might buy. OS 9 has similar issues.
My point is, these are all issues that Apple will need to convincingly overcome before the Feds will be knocking down their doors for units
The only moral use of funds is to populate politicians' offices with Linux boxen. Linux has shown time and again that it has the firepower to deal with the wear and tear of political life. Programs like gpoll and qtvote are light years ahead of analogous products on the archaic MAC and Windows 95 platforms.
In conclusion, Linux in this case has possession of both the moral and technological high grounds.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I am the head of the custom applications department at a 100-person company. I am also the department's sole employee, so I can call myself anything I want :-).
When I was first employed, we had a Windows-based system that did contact management, a clunky order entry system used only by clerks, and a half-done cold fusion application that was supposed to be used for online ordering, but in practice simply did not work. (It took 4 seconds to search for a part).
I was hired to shepherd the online ordering application to completion, but I quickly realized that you could use one for internal ordering as well. So I rewrote it in Linux, made it efficient, and added design features so both salespeople and customers could easily enter orders. But the contact management system was still not working well, and it integrated poorly with the new ordering system.
So I eventally convinced the company to bite the bullet; I wrote a contact management system for the salespeople that was browser-based and (of course) integrated perfectly with the online ordering system. So now salespeople have their contact management and ordering done with one integrated system that works very well.
Unfortunately our IT person (who handles the Windows machines) can't be convinced to switch away. But all they do is run a browser anyway, so his administrative load is significantly reduced. They also use Outlook for email, but that was his choice, not mine.
So now we have mainly happy employees running a system that's based on Linux and can be updated and improved continuously without strain. Believe me, I couldn't have single-handedly developed the same thing under Windows. It could have been done, but it would have taken a lot more time and a lot of help. (Can you imagine installing the silly thing on 70-odd PCs?)
In short, a browser-based application is faster to develop, more efficient to deploy, and just plain works better than what Microsoft is pushing. And I'm proud to say I haven't used one piece of Microsoft software to develop the system - it's strictly gcc, perl, mySQL and a little PHP.
I may be prejudiced - heck, I am, of course - but browser-based software using a Linux back end just plain works. There's no reason in the world not to use it, and it has the nice bonus of being compatible with any platform on the planet - I've used it with Linux, MacOS 9, MacOS X, and even an SGI.
And oh yes -- Windows, too.
D
Far too many admins focus on the process of being an admin, rather than on serving customers. On platforms and products rather than solutions.
Far too many Windows-only admins have been trained as MCSEs, and that training emphasizes a one-world homogenous platform. Products and platforms. "Here's Windows - and the things you can do with it," rather than, "What do you need to do, and how can Windows help you do that?" The thought processes of these admins (and I've seen this time and time again in 14 years of being a sysadmin) takes the cant of "how can I convince my customers to work this way?" The way that the MS tools provide.
It's the wrong question. The wrong approach.
The user is the customer, not the enemy. They pay you to solve their problems, so give them solutions. It shouldn't matter what platform - Mac, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD - what should be at issue is what provides the best solution for the customers needs.
-- Niherlas
...could you tell it to my boss? =)
Computers are tools to help us do life. They are not life itself. Go play frisbee, dammit. =)
What, Rush Limbaugh being a big mac head doesn't sway you the other way?
The last time a government body tried to choose a single computer as a standard, it caused a big stink. The body: NASA. Here's a letter from Dan Goldin, then-NASA administrator, who replied to a congressman on this issue. (http://www.reston.com/nasa/a/07.02.97.goldin.lamp son.html)
Goldin didn't institute this policy, I feel, but some other clown at a NASA agency. Today, since NASA's mandate needs more than a bunch of Windows workstations (with fault tolerances that would give a man-rated program like the Shuttle cause for abandoning spaceflight altogether since destruction of the spacecraft or launch failures would be a virtual certainty) to handle scientific programs and the like. For NASA, moving to Windows just made no sense. For Capital Hill, there is some sense for this until you realize that, in these days, standardizing on a single platform locks a company into the faults (many dangerous) which can result in data destruction or security compromises.
Someone on the Hill needs to be reminded of their own laws. Problem is that the Hill MAKES the laws, and it wouldn't be the first time where Congress does its "do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" routine.
Government is normally not allowed to pick one competitor over another for anti-competitive reasons. Bidding is normally done for things where multiple standards are impractical (like fighter jets).
Standardizing on Windows for Congress puts up a big "HACK ME" sign to terrorists and other people with time to waste. UNIX isn't a panacea, but it has a hell of a better resistance to attacks and doesn't suffer from Microsoft's code insecurity and bloat.
Most importantly, Mac OS X is the only UNIX family that runs Microsoft Office, but without the virus compromising technologies like ActiveX and VBScript.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
But there is another factor that's kept Macs out of federal life to a big extent: the law on universal access, formerly known as handicapped access in less enlightened times.
Specifically, mandates in Section 508 (29 USC 794d) of the Federal code, require computers purchased by fed agencies (not to mention their websites and more) to be fully accessible to people with vision problems, etc.
With Jaguar, Jobs claimed at WWDC that its "universal access features go well beyond fedarally mandated standards."
Translation: "We screwed ourselves, but now we're fixing that."
In other words, with this upgrade, the OS includes Quartz for magnification so the magnified screen is relatively resolution-independent. Zooming in on text would show you a fully anti-aliased font at whatever font size you needed, not just pixelated magnified clunkiness. Apple is apparently also shipping screen-reading software with Jaguar, and it works for interface parts (menus, windows), for documents or any text under the mouse. Keyboard navigation (remember "Sticky Keys" and Easy Access Software way back when?) is back, this time for Classic apps, not just Cocoa ones.
Altogether, these changes make it legal now for Apple to compete for federal purchasing contracts. This flaw in Apple's operating systems before now, maybe more than the SAA, was to blame for the relatively poor marketshare in government offices. At least now that has a chance of being changed.
That being said, I still don't like Congress all that much, just on general principles. I hope they get hammered, too. But Apple's not completely pure, either. Is anyone?
I have a slightly used Titanium G4 550 available. Up to dat with all releases and patches, has Fink, XDarwin, MS Office X, Mozilla 1.00 RC1, python, etc. Works beautifully, slightly tarnished reputation do to unfortunate political association.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
To be fair, there is no proof he snorkeled (sp?) out of that car. Actually, there's no proof he didn't have the car pushed into Chappaquidick's icy waters....
In the specific case described in the article, there are many options that would provide the same capabilities to the end user ("e-mail, the Internet, a word processor and the ability to create output") without making support more difficult, so going Microsoft-only provides no real benefit while increasing the risk of abuse (from a convicted abuser) or deficiencies resulting from a situation similar to a lack of genetic diversity. Nature and society are full of examples of why this is a very bad idea, but I guess reality isn't in the Senate's technology plan either...
In other news, a man down the street named Dave who I said hi too once has recently bought a new iMac system. Dave explains "I like the color". His wife is declining comment at this time.
You mean you'd have to give all that business to one distro-creating company?
What, you'd just grab it for three bucks at lsl? But doesn't that still violate your point (re "No Specific Producer") ?
>deal with the wear and tear of political life. Programs like gpoll and qtvote
Erm, politicians have regular offices like anyone else. They don't run voting apps all day, they run regular productivity apps like anyone else. I don't see how gpoll and qtvote factor in.
This is just a continuation of the general IT-manger hostility to Mac and other non-Windows solutions. It's the *culture* that's been built around IT professionals: As has been said many times before, nobody every got fired for recommending Windows. This will be a very difficult culture bias to overcome everywhere, and in the hyper-critical world of politics where everything is under scrutiny (and perhaps rightly so) would you use an often-criticised platform when you've constantly got lots of other attacks to parry?
Even so, I would have at least expected some California reps to use a few more Macs, supporting their home state industries and all.