My work is doing the unimaginable (to me at least). It is transitioning from HP machines and Windows on the desktop to Macs and OS X. What’s more, my particular section is one of the first to get the new machines, and earlier this week I received a shiny new MacBook Pro and accompanying 27″ LED Cinema Display!
Unfortunately, being one of the first areas to receive a Mac means that we also get to be an area that faces any implementation teething problems. And unfortunately for me, I had a few.
I should point out that these teething issues weren’t so much to do with the Mac, but rather with integrating the Mac into a legacy Windows network that hadn’t been designed to accommodate them. They included problems accessing network shares and services that currently appear to be blocked on segments of our network, plus the frustration of being unable to resolve some simple issues myself because the new machines are centrally administered and many settings are consequently locked down (as they should be on a corporate network).
On top of this my particular Mac appears to have some additional issues, with repeated application crashing. I’m hoping this is simply a corrupt system image. Our IT guys were pushing a fresh image out over the network to my Mac yesterday afternoon, so hopefully things will be a bit more stable on Monday morning. Being a bit pessimistic I doubt it will be that easy, and I’m betting dodgy RAM is more likely the culprit (our IT guys kindly upgraded me to 8GB—but Macs are notoriously picky about what brands of RAM they like).
The end result was that what I expected to be a very exciting week ended up being bit of a let down. I’m not too disillusioned though. I’m still excited about the prospect of having a work Mac, and appreciate that teething problems in these circumstances are inevitable. These will no doubt be worked out in time, and in the interim the coinciding move from Lotus Notes/Domino to Microsoft Exchange has meant I can currently do 80% of my work from my personal MacBook Air (and iPhone and iPad!). I just hope the teething issues get sorted before widespread deployment so that new Mac users don’t form a bad impression about the Mac or what will ultimately be an amazing new work network.
Hi, I'm Luke; a thirty-something guy who lives in Hobart, Australia. Welcome to my blog!
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Posted by Tasso on November 13, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hey Luke, great to hear the news of a change to mac in the work environment. It will no doubt be with teething problems, however once sorted will make for a better platform. Look forward to the end story!
Posted by John on December 4, 2010 at 2:15 pm
That is mind blowing, didnt think I would ever see one of our workplaces around the country go Apple way. There is hope for us all.
Posted by lukeintas on December 5, 2010 at 6:30 am
I’m amazed every day. And enjoying it now too with some of the teething problems getting sorted out.
Posted by John on December 10, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Now if I can convince SA to go that way. Might have to wait to you have fixed all the bugs then convince my IT people to come visit.