Slashdot Mirror
Should IT Shops Let Users Manage Their Own PCs?
An anonymous reader writes "Is letting users manage their own PCs an IT time-saver or time bomb waiting to happen? 'In this Web 2.0 self-service approach, IT knights employees with the responsibility for their own PC's life cycle. That's right: Workers select, configure, manage, and ultimately support their own systems, choosing the hardware and software they need to best perform their jobs.'" Do any of you do something similar to this in your workplace? Anyone think this is a spectacularly bad idea?
especially if it's not Windows. I use a Mac at work and it's a HUGE productivity killer as a customer service rep for an internet hosting company. I don't just use a single application (so uhm, mac PS'ers and FC users, or whatever that use like WHAT?! 2-3 applications at once maybe? This is not flamebait!). I am required to use numerous applications and rapidly go back and forth between: email, CRM software, terminals, FireFox, iChat, Parallels, and some textedits. Without tabbed browsing... this machine would die a horrible death by way of my foot to it's 'skull'. I am typin this in parallels running Win XP. I hate when I actually have to use Mac. They tout the OS as be simple to use. Yea, cuz it's made for simple people. Just like I prefer Windows 2000 over XP or Vista or whatever. Windows 2000 treats the [primary] user as an administrator, that's what I consider myself. I don't like being treated by the OS as a stupid user who needs excessive bullshit that I either disable... or can't(FUCKERS!)! I don't want to be asked for a password if I install something. I don't want the computer to waste it's cycles on excessive GUI, animatons, shadows, anti-aliasing, cleartype, whatever. I want intelligent functioning of the UI iteraction. And on a LCD screen... aliased text looks way better to me. Very sharp, and very clear. No ambiguity. Compare a bold anti-aliased font with a non-bold one... it can be deceivingly similar (unless I wanna put my head to the screen). And ClearType makes stuff look like crap, waste cycles, and makes stupid rainbows around text that looks awful (with black on white text). Doesn't seem to be a big issue with brigh text on black.... Perhaps it could be adjusted to negate from the BG color to improve the look to a more solid, consistent color.... I used to be a programmer (for 8 years), but got tired of selling my soul for inadequate pay. I'm such a geek.