Apple Advertisements: Part 2

[Backtothemac]

Patrick Welcome!

It is nice to see you here. I hope that you hang with all of us for a while. It is a unique experience to have you here. At least I feel like it is. If you ever have any questions, just ask. Look forward to talking to you.
C

 

[nadroj]

here's a tip

here's a tip for a newbie: the more, "smilies," you use, the stupider you sound. write that down.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: here's a tip

Originally posted by nadroj
here's a tip for a newbie: the more, "smilies," you use, the stupider you sound. write that down.

I'm sorry but someone new to the boards, such as yourself, making these kind of comments is just plain rude. You need to establish yourself as a member of the community before handing out "advice" such as that.

And by the way, the more grammatical mistakes you make, such as commas, the stupider you sound. Write that down.

 

[Moxiemike]

Re: here's a tip

Originally posted by nadroj
here's a tip for a newbie: the more, "smilies," you use, the stupider you sound. write that down.

 

[bobindashadows]

Re: Re: here's a tip

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


I'm sorry but someone new to the boards, such as yourself, making these kind of comments is just plain rude. You need to establish yourself as a member of the community before handing out "advice" such as that.

And by the way, the more grammatical mistakes you make, such as commas, the stupider you sound. Write that down.

Lol nice smackdown, Rower!

I don't see how smilies make you sound stupid. "What a moron, he uses SMILIES! You know, i hate people who use smilies! They obviously have NO credibility if they use little images to express themselves!" some people can be so illogical...

 

[arn]

Originally posted by TeraRWM

You know AaronAdams (I just read your story on your mac.com site) and I realized how strange and identical your story is to mine. I was about to get the cube, got discontinued...I switched because X was cool...and it was!

So did you not get the cube? I find this funny... it's like that simpons episode - not sure if you all know it, or remember it...

Moe says something like "ah. might as well close the bar - slow sunday night". Outside, as the light goes out, a huge crowd of people are walking up to the bar, one saying "No... I am going to drink you under the table". The light goes out, and they say "aww..." and turn around and go home.

How many people were just about to buy a cube before they discontinued 'em.

arn

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by arn
So did you not get the cube? I find this funny... it's like that simpons episode - not sure if you all know it, or remember it...

Moe says something like "ah. might as well close the bar - slow sunday night". Outside, as the light goes out, a huge crowd of people are walking up to the bar, one saying "No... I am going to drink you under the table". The light goes out, and they say "aww..." and turn around and go home.

How many people were just about to buy a cube before they discontinued 'em.

haha. that's a great scene. reminds me of the scene where some building gets torn down or something and a ton of rats pour into moe's. from outside on the street you just hear moe "ok, everyone tuck your pants into your socks".

ahh. that said, welcome all the pseudo-celebrities. and i can understand disliking seeing yourself on screen. anytime i make a video and i'm the only one around enough to "star" in it... i have to leave the room when people watch it.

just goes to show you guys truly are "real people" rather than paid actors. word

 

[damon]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule


haha. that's a great scene. ...

just goes to show you guys truly are "real people" rather than paid actors. word

Heh... this is too funny. Two things: First, have any of you folks played with MacJournal 2.1? There's a "Taco" button you can add to the toolbar that, when pressed, brings up a random Simpsons quote. "MMMmmmm... Free Goo!" Man, I love that stuff.

Second, on this pseudo-celebrity kick, here's a bit of irony: I got a letter the other day that says I'm now qualified to join the Screen Actors Guild. That's right, I could pay the $1300 and become equity... and then I could STRIKE!

Being a real person is cool. And ironic. And Smilie.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by damon
Second, on this pseudo-celebrity kick, here's a bit of irony: I got a letter the other day that says I'm now qualified to join the Screen Actors Guild. That's right, I could pay the $1300 and become equity... and then I could STRIKE!

Being a real person is cool. And ironic. And Smilie.

hey man, you get all sorts of great benefits... guaranteed salaries and guaranteed breaks and all that garbage.... you're basically set (once you get any jobs. ha!)

$1300/year or just once?

smilies are cool and ironic too. as for being a real person, i wonder why they haven't started using androids yet to act in commercials. wouldn't be much different most of the time.

i think i'll start my own guild and start a strike.

 

[AaronAdams]

I got mail from SAG also. You have to pay the $1300 fee to join, and then I think you have to make so much money every year doing SAG work to maintain your membership. I figured I probably wouldn't qualify

Aaron

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by AaronAdams
I got mail from SAG also. You have to pay the $1300 fee to join, and then I think you have to make so much money every year doing SAG work to maintain your membership. I figured I probably wouldn't qualify

why not? does porn acting count towards sag? haha

that's interesting that they contacted you. i would have thought you'd have to hunt them down.

so as of now i think i've seen 4 of the switch ads. are there more, have they all been televised? etc..

 

[damon]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule


why not? does porn acting count towards sag? haha

that's interesting that they contacted you. i would have thought you'd have to hunt them down.

so as of now i think i've seen 4 of the switch ads. are there more, have they all been televised? etc..

There are only the 8 total that are on the Apple site. Yes, they've all been televised. Apparently, they just handed the networks the tapes and said "Showcase 'em all." So, while they've told us which shows they'll be in, we don't know who's going to be in which. Heads up for Dateline NBS, Alias, and the Practice, as well as Wimbleton as the biggies.

damon

 

[Hemingray]

Holy cow, what have I been missing!

Three of the Apple switchers, right here in MacRumors... now THAT's cool! I feel so humbled... hehehe. Now if the other 5 joined in...!

Man, I read that article over at The Register... talk about angst! Now I remember why I don't visit there often.

Good to hear from you, Aaron, Patrick and Damon. Welcome to the MacRumors community! I certainly can't speak for the Register, but I personally thought you guys were great.

 

[Koolaid]

Interesting

From the time I saw the new advertisements I thought "sham" "fake" and I still do.

I particularly enjoyed the comment from The Register about these ads demonstrating how the worlds computer idiots are moving to the mac because windows is too difficult to administer or a "horrid little machine".

I have alot of mac friends. We have discussions of PC/MAC alot. By alot I mean 2 different discussions a week possibly. Most of it is friendly jabs and other times its legit discussions about pros and cons.

The reason why I'm posting.... Aaron Adams.

What turnip truck did you fall from? I read your article on the switch site and watched your video. You are a Lan Administrator and you have to "struggle" to keep your systems running? I use the word "struggle" without exaggeration of course. As you did. What does your boss think about you "struggling"?

I mentioned your story to my boss. His facial expression was the same as mine. You too can make this face. Squint your left eye, stretch the left side of your mouth towards your left ear and then say "huh?". Then throw a giggle in at the end.

It bothers me that you post this information. 1. Because I know for a fact and with experience that its not hard to manage that many computers. 2. Because you doing this is making a Network Administrators job look difficult. Well, its not difficult for the experienced of course. Its tiresome at times, but not to the extent that you use it. As an excuse to move to a different platform.

I manage 150 clients all running 95, 98, NT and 2000. 5 Servers all running NT (2 of which I will update to 2000 this year) and about 27 networked printers. The funny thing about this is that the forum that I frequent has the friends I mentioned above, starting a poll that asked if I actually do any work because they see me on the forum constantly. I have my network just about managing itself. All of my installations are fully automated using the tools provided by Microsoft and Symantec. I don't "struggle".

I'm a living and breathing example of why a Network Administrator doesn't have to "struggle" with a Windows based network and goto a different platform because I can't handle it. Windows isn't difficult ya know. The scary part is that you ARE a network admin. How did you even land that job let alone keep it?

So, why do I think this whole advertisement is a fake and a sham? Because of my actual REAL experience with Windows which taught me that there is no struggle and your story has to be completely made up. I don't see how any qualified Network Admin would feel so much struggle managing their network that they have to move to a different platform to escape lifes tragic moments.

Please see my second sentence.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Let me start this reply off with a preface: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

That out of the way, I really think you're barking up the wrong tree Koolaid.

Instead of asking yourself, "What would cause a Windows LAN administrator to switch platforms?" you're attacking his abilities in his profession.

What is your actual experience with OS X? Have you used it? I don't see how anyone manageing a network with 95/98 and NT boxes can say it's "easy" to administer, or even maintain, especially in comparison to OS X.

I'll take MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP) over IIS anyday. You can keep the viruses.

I'm open to discussion here, I just think your motives are a little suspect.

We might be able to shed some light on the subject that your "mac friends" may have left out.

 

[Koolaid]

It's a matter of angle

I am not so much attacking his profession but defending my own.

As any of my mac friends will attest, I hate IIS. It's the biggest peice of crap MS has ever made. It's plagued with holes and bugs. Its unstable.

Which is why I made a switch recently to Apache. I'm a newbie with it but I'm willing to give it a shot and learn more about it. See, I can still manage a network and not like many of the things that MS does or has. But its not a "struggle" by any sense of the meaning.

I attack because his profession is the same as mine. I feel that I have an inherent right to critique those in the same field of work as myself. And I reserve the right to call that person a fake or a sham when I see evidence of mistatements and exaggerations that benefit a 3rd party.

His statements, whether he realizes it or not, influence outside perception of a PC network administrator. What do you think those people's thoughts are? "This guy is a PC Lan Administrator and even he struggles to keep his sytems running". That doesnt give a very good impression and I think that was the intended goal of Apple.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Good points.

Advertising is propaganda, no matter what they're selling. If people buy it, good for Apple.

As a computer technician (PC and Mac) I see the problems that Windows has everyday, and I much prefer not to deal with them on my personal computer. I feel that this is the vein of the ads.

I can't speak for Aaron's experience, but as someone who is very technically literate I do know that Windows can be a struggle even when you know what you're doing. Part of the problems arise because of the plethora of hardware they have to try to support…the rest are ease-of-use and quality of code issues. Apple solves the hardware issue by manageing both, and their UI design is without question above and beyond anything out there. How else do you explain that a Unix and Apache newbie like myself is able to manage a robust QuickTime Streaming Server with little technical training besides what I've done on my own?

Do you think it's possible for Apple to cover all of this in a commercial less than 30 seconds long? I don't. They have to abbreviate and use impactful anecdotes to make their point effectively...and these "real people" are entitled to say whatever they want about Windows. The more experience they have using Windows adds credibility to their statements.

Don't forget that Damon Wright also worked/works in IT.

 

[AaronAdams]

Re: Interesting

First off, let me assure you that I'm entirely qualified for the position I hold and, without ever meeting me or working in the same environment, you have no basis on which to critisize any of my abilities, nor do you have any right to question my employer's assesment of my work. My employer is very happy with me and has stated a number of times that I'm considered a valuable asset to the company, in as many words.

That being said, let me tell you about what I've faced at work this week alone:

- One user gets a dialog box that says "Unable to load utillg32.dll" every time his machine boots up. None of the fixes in the Novell knowledgebase solved the problem, and neither did a reinstall of the client.

- One user's e-mail client instantly crashes every time he drags attachments to the desktop.

- One user keeps getting bounced e-mail from a klez-infected friend.

- One user opened up her Microsoft Access to a dialog box that said she wasn't properly licensed. The fix involved replacing a corrupted font.

- A user cannot open Word attachments from her e-mail. The problem was that Office 2000 did not remove the Word Viewer 97 when it was installed. Why does Office 2000 not remove all pieces of Office 97?

- Randomly, a selection box in a certain program will be solid black with no choices displayed. The only fix is to reboot the machine.

- Upon power-on, a computer shows nothing but junk characters on the monitor but the disk behaves as if booting normally. Possibly a bad video card.

- A machine boots to a blank desktop and hangs. There is no response from the keyboard or mouse. Booting into safe mode reveals nothing obviously wrong.

- Windows 2000 machine has blue screened at random for a while with no apparent pattern.

- Several PC's with ATX power supplies refuse to turn off during shutdown.

- Upon login, Windows displays a dialog saying Norton Autoprotect will but shut down, yet the icons remains in the system tray and seems to function normally.

These are just a few of the things from the top of my head for this week only. Some of these problems are show stoppers, some are annoyances, some are easily solved... but they all require my attention and they prevent users from working. That's where the struggle comes in. The phone rings almost constantly with the latest BS problem I have to deal with. I've got other things to do besides babysit tempemental computers, but unfortunately break-fix is part of the reality of things. Network administration itself is not hard, but dealing with workstation problems is.

And good for you managing 150 clients. I've managed several computer labs at a high school with more than 300 machines total, each triple booting into some combination of NT, 2000, 98SE, and 95. I know what it means to manage a large number of machines with destructive, careless users.

I didn't switch to Macintosh because I couldn't handle it. I still handle it full time, much to the happiness of my employer. I switched at home because I was sick of dealing with it. Some of the same problems at work inevitably made their way home. I bought my Mac as an experiment, not as a surrender, and it turns out I was very happy with it.

And frankly, it's rude and presumptuous of you to question how I keep my job, especially when you know almost nothing about me nor what I do.

There's nothing fake about my ad. I agreed to do an ad for Apple because I've had great experiences with their products and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

Aaron

 

[sparkleytone]

presumptuous is the very definition of 90% of all hardcore PC users. be they linuxgeeks, m$dorks, or just machaters, they share this same trait. i was one of them myself. but now i have an iBook and a rotting winXP machine. you wanna buy my rig Koolaid??

 

[Koolaid]

Thank you for replying Aaron. However harsh or attacking my words may sound, they are my feelings and my opinion. I respect your choice to go with a mac if it makes you feel more relaxed. You can buy 10 of em for that matter.

Your definition of "struggle" in your reply to me, is not the way it is portrayed in the commercial or in your email. It was taken completly out of context. I do hope you see this. Its one thing to struggle with repetative annoyances and its another thing to struggle with your job because what you support is crap and unmanageable no matter what you do. Your message sent out the latter. Which most certainly is not the case.

I say your problems at work are a lack of infrastructure, updated OS's and software, and a lack of training. I say lack of training in a good way. Maybe for yourself and most importantly for your users. It took me a while to get into the swing of things. I came into my job 2.5 yrs ago with almost 7 years of support experience. It looked like a grenade went off here. It was everything from drastically different types of PC's and hardware to outdated old software and client software with static IP's still installed on machines. It took me about 18 months to undo alot of this. Replace old systems. Update them to a more stable recent version of windows and impliment a disaster recovery/automated setup of 90% of the computers and the software they run. It wasn't a fun trip but it payed off big time in the end. Everything is pretty much on a level playing field and my job is a joy to wake up and come to. Sure I have my moments of dealing with BS and mysterious "glitches" that noone has any clue of the reason. But its a good job, I work with great people (ignorant at times but good people). Its not difficult nor are the wierd things that happen. I just fix em and move on.

Anyways, I apologize for any attacks towards your personality, but I still totally disagree with the message you're sending. You were used for a cheap marketting scam and it makes you look worse than you would ever want to know.

I watched it and thought instantly... "a pc lan admin who struggles at work and struggles at home using the very thing he says he's supporting.....yeah ok we got a genius here". I perceived you as a complete idiot when I saw it as did a few others that I spoke to. They too are Lan Admins. Sure I understand NOW, what you meant by "struggle" but many other people out there who feel the same that I do won't have this oportunity to hear it from the horses mouth what was meant.

Its unfortunate. GL to you

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by Koolaid
…
I say your problems at work are a lack of infrastructure, updated OS's and software, and a lack of training. I say lack of training in a good way. Maybe for yourself and most importantly for your users. It took me a while to get into the swing of things. I came into my job 2.5 yrs ago with almost 7 years of support experience. It looked like a grenade went off here. It was everything from drastically different types of PC's and hardware to outdated old software and client software with static IP's still installed on machines. It took me about 18 months to undo alot of this. Replace old systems. Update them to a more stable recent version of windows and impliment a disaster recovery/automated setup of 90% of the computers and the software they run. It wasn't a fun trip but it payed off big time in the end. Everything is pretty much on a level playing field and my job is a joy to wake up and come to. Sure I have my moments of dealing with BS and mysterious "glitches" that noone has any clue of the reason. But its a good job, I work with great people (ignorant at times but good people). Its not difficult nor are the wierd things that happen. I just fix em and move on.
…

User error is a big part of technical support, this is true.

But 18 months fixing stuff up?!?!?! And you're defending that platform?!?!?!

You're either more patient or more insane than most people I know. It doesn't take a "genius" to see that that amount of work to "fix" a network is ridiculous.

 

[AaronAdams]

Originally posted by Koolaid
Your definition of "struggle" in your reply to me, is not the way it is portrayed in the commercial or in your email. It was taken completly out of context. I do hope you see this. Its one thing to struggle with repetative annoyances and its another thing to struggle with your job because what you support is crap and unmanageable no matter what you do. Your message sent out the latter. Which most certainly is not the case.

First, "struggle" is not mentioned anywhere in my commercial. It's used in one place on the switchers site, and I think the context it's used in is perfectly clear. Hundreds of people took more than a month to create these ads, and i think if there was any doubt about anything I said, someone from TBWA\Chiat\Day or Apple would have said something.

I say your problems at work are a lack of infrastructure, updated OS's and software, and a lack of training.

Again, you know nothing about my situation at work, so any comment about what's going on is speculation.

Anyways, I apologize for any attacks towards your personality, but I still totally disagree with the message you're sending. You were used for a cheap marketting scam and it makes you look worse than you would ever want to know.

I certainly have not been used for a cheap scam. Apple has sought my approval every step of they way and what I think of Macintoshes is being accurately protrayed. Apple is happy with what I've said, and the e-mails filling my box are all positive. I couldn't be happier with everything involved.

Aaron

 

[AlphaTech]

As some of you know, I am in tech support as well. Currently we have about 250 Mac's and between 30 and 40 pc's at the site I work at (the company is global). Besides myself, there is only one other tech, and he is not allowed to touch the pc's (he still needs to get closer to my knowledge level on the Mac before we let him near the pc's).

Last year we had our network infrastructure updated to all 100 baseT auto sensing. You know how long it took?? A weekend. Sure, I had to call down to corporate, and have the infrastructure people set some of the switch ports to different settings, since Mac's can automatically deal with Auto sense, unlike older pc's. I had told them to make all the ports full auto sense, but they didn't, hence the need for the phone calls.

I have seen pictures of what the network closet looked like 11+ years ago when my boss started at the company. Back then, it WAS a nightmare, but she got it all fixed up (as fast as they could give her the budget to do so).

As for supporting the different platforms, a healthy percentage of our users here (on the Mac side) are savvy enough to NOT go and f*ck up their systems. Even if they do, most of the time they tell us what they did last, and we are able to get them back up and running in short order. In the 2-1/2+ years I have been working where I am, I have only come across one Mac that has died (motherboard went on a beige G3 233MHz system after many long, hard years of service). On the pc side, several have given up the ghost, sh*t the bed, [insert death saying here]. In general, the Mac's get more use, and are run harder then the pc's. The pc's are for the business, financial, and HR departments. Where the designers, page production and all the writers/editors use Mac's (of one flavor or another).

We are in the middle of a RAM upgrade for just about everyone on G3 systems (iMac's and blue and white systems) so that we can migrate to OS X. It is going to be a hell of a lot easier then switching someone from win98/nt4 to 2k.

In my [professional] experience, the people that bash the Mac the hardest, are the same ones that would never consider using one. Hell, even my cousin, who is also in IT, is talking about getting an iMac so that he can learn about them. He knows windblows and linux, but wants to learn about the Mac and OS X.

BTW, I have a game pc here that I built (there was no way I was going to buy an intel powered system *cough*crap*cough*) and it is not the first pc I have constructed. I also provide tech support for people on the side, and the only reasons I don't get a ton of repeats are that just about all of them (except for one person) are on Mac's AND I know what the hell I am doing. I had a repeat a short time ago, after not working on the system for over a year. The woman's daughter put a smudged cd into the drive, and then it acted up. The drive had heavy fragmentation, and some damaged directories. I was finished with the blue and white G3 after only a short time, and even ran several updates on it (software update control panel is many times better then the windows update item). In under two hours, the woman had the computer back, fully functional. As always, she was very happy with the service. I also periodically check on my customers to see if their systems are running good for them, as a courtesy.

 

[Koolaid]

Ok buddy. GL to ya !



Oh, btw....
You won't see Office 2000 uninstall Word Viewer 97 because its not a qualified application thats recognized by the Off2000 setup. Infact, its not even part of Office 97. You know that part during setup that says "looking for previous versions"? It wont find it. So it wont uninstall it.

Just something to help ya from struggling next week

 

[k00tgrrl]

i realize the little sign under my name says newbie.....FYI, I am sparkleytone's gf and went from watching him read this site to reading it myself.

I hadn't planned on posting, but after reading what Koolaid said I felt the need to throw in my two cents.

I find it interesting how one who is so adamantly against the ads and macs in general would come to a macrumors site to waive their wintel banner. I am not afraid to sound presumptuous in saying that I think koolaid is truly a mac lover at heart he just got lost on the information highway