Transferring a Mac Expert to a Windows NT

This year, my current employer decided to tear out all of its Macs and go the Windows NT PCs everywhere. No arguments. Some agreement for tax leverage was reached and the date fixed and we had no choice. They ripped my Mac out of my fingersand gifted me with a big, clumsy, pokey 200MHz Pentium.

I hate it.

It was all done for these reasons:

  1. Speed.   Well, if you must compare a 200MHz Pentium to a Mac, don't you think a 200MHz Mac would have the correct choice to compare the Pentium to? Comparing a 200MHz 64MB Pentium to a RAM-limited 132MHz 603 Mac is not exactly fair.... to the company. Rigged data? You better believe it! They couldn't have done a real comparison. After all, the 200MHz Mac beats out a comparably equipped 200MHz Pentium on every benchmark I've looked at. And Macs are not just running at 200MHz - they are now at 350 and up. And I'm not talking about the G3 yet, either!
  2. More computer for less money.   Ha! Ha! And, Ha! The 200MHz NT workstation I'm on, with 64MB RAM, 4G hard drive, 20" monitor, 24 bit color costs MORE than the 7300 200MHz Mac with 21inch monitor and a 4 gig hard drive I am currently drooling over. And more than the G3 system of my dreams.
  3. PC Applications.   You can argue that business people have more number-crunching applications available on PC - because a PC is based on architecture designed to crunch numbers. Does that mean that people who do illustration, publication and web work must suffer with what is a clumsy tool to do graphics when the Mac does it better, faster with more tools for us? Tools are meant to be task-specific. No one computer serves all. Even if you believe in the "network" computer. (Out of the past.... They say that those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.....) Ever hear of Orange PC??? Or Softwindows?
  4. Better management resources.   License control, etc. Interesting. We all had to go out and buy our own copies of the software and there is currently no license-sharing with the NT!
  5. Reduced complexity.   For whom? Does this mean there is a shortage of intelligent network admins. who actually know how to hook up multi-computer environments? So we all must work to the level of the weakest link? This is the thinking that got us to the disastrous situation we have in our public schools. It's the dumbing down of America. Do we really think it makes sense in the workplace?
  6. The Mac crashes too much. Oh, really? And, just what do you call the illegal memory reference that takes out your work daily on the NT? Those sudden freeze-ups that require a hard reboot? A properly set-up Mac works for me. Nobody here seems to know how to properly set-up an NT!

Let's look at such a transfer.

  1. Bringing over the data. They thought they had planned for it.
  2. They planned for the Word-Powerpoint-Excel user to jump to NT with the added files from Eudora and Netscape. They did not plan for a website with extensions like gif and html. They did not plan for Freehand fh files, Illustrator ai, eps, Photoshop photo files and pict. Their converter renamed files at will. We won't discuss gifbuilder, sitemill, and other data.
  3. So,... They transferred my data by hand, file group by file group, twice, and still messed them up Every file affected must be manually renamed before being opened. And some files don't seem to have made it over at all. They open with blank screens. Or the wrong size so their contents are clipped.
  4. They gave me true-type fonts. Me, the postscript kid. Ooops. Opened a few files and found I was even worse off - the program merrily substituted fonts for me - gee golly. Now I get to substitute them right back - line by line.
  5. So,... I bought Adobe Type Basics. It comes with Type Manager lite (3.02) - except it doesn't work overly well with NT. You can install and some programs can see the fonts. Illustrator and Photoshop can't. Turns out you need Type Manager 4.0 for NT -- just released. Seems nobody quite knows how well windows software runs on the NT. Least of all the people who planned the move.
  6. Time lost? 5 months of artwork. A crippled website. 6 man-days with as many as four people trying to sort out the system.

Right. An efficient idea.

And we haven't even started on the extra keystrokes to do a task. Try 30-40% REDUCTION in my productivity after I get back to ground zero. They have spent at least $3,000 trying to match the software I owned for the Mac. Some of it can't be matched - like Adobe Site Mill. And the software that does have NT versions, while familiar, is just a tad off. Like trying to work while drunk.

There are other gottchas. I already know it takes special care to print color masters to the laserjet (or you get all black pages) and you can't queue print jobs automatically - it will ask you if you are serious. And interrupt you to tell you the printer is done. It won't tell you if the printer is hung. That's supposed to be a surprize.

WORD's spell-check works at will. Will it or won't it. Like my car heater.

Netscape fails on the 5th or 6th read - no one knows why - and the system keeps asking me if I want to make Internet Explorer 3 my default browser. Oh. No. I don't think so.

Support has said no to the Internet Explorer 4 - seems to crash the NT really well for no particular reason. I can also do without that "64Megabyte hairball" on my drive. (That's the cutest quote. So descriptive!)

I still don't know how to get files from UNIX to the NT - and they told me I was networked. I can sorta log onto FTP. I just can't get to the right server.

But then, I can't read Mac floppies. I can't even figure out how to format a floppy! (Yes I can, I take the disk home to my trusty Mac!) (Note: It can be done - if your floppy drive is working correctly. Mine wasn't! No Quick Format. No choice of Mac or DOS. Count the keysytrokes.)

I can't print out a directory or window listing like I can with the MAC - I have to screen-save, put it into Photoshop and then print......Ugly. And repeat those steps if you take more than one screen page.

And putting a file from NT, which allows creative-length file names, onto a DOS disk, and take it to the Mac. Really Ugly. All caps, truncated names. Retch. It's why we need those directory listings.

History Lesson

Of course, in keeping with the antiquated idea that network-based computing is efficient, we can revisit why the industry developed front-end platforms in the first place. The network was down this AM and it took 50 minutes to log-on. $$$$ Are the executives making these decisions too young? Or did they sleep through that first computer course where the historical evolution of computers was discussed? The one that discussed how when everyone was "hanging on a network and unable to function without it" was found to be not such a good idea. As I said, those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.

PS. I got a 3400C Notebook for Christmas - Merry Christmas to me. Ho! Ho! Ho! My teenager claimed my old MacIIci for schoolwork - at least until the 7300 gets here. He keeps his PowerMac Performa 6400/180 with the joystick for games. There are now four pewter dragons surrounding his Mac to ward off evil - a result of trauma suffered by being forced to use a Windows system at high school.

Go, Janet! (As in Reno.)

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