As can be seen, off in the corner of my office sits a new iMac computer.
It’s the latest thing from Apple as far as desktop computing goes. For our place of work, it’s a big step up. More RAM and processor speed, more harddrive space, newer versions of the software packages we use on a daily basis at the paper. So, why’s it sitting in the corner and not on my desk?
That’s easy. The short answer is because while I have the computer, they forgot to send me a power cord. Kinda hard to run the machine without that.
The long answer, however, takes a little longer to explain.
While the machine has all of the programs we use already installed, there’s still a lot on these machines that we use on a daily basis that is not installed on the new system. Fonts, for instance. You’d be surprised how fonts can factor into the decision making of setting up a new computer. Or maybe you can, if you happen to work in graphic design or the publishing industry. There’s a lot of times we use none standard fonts for many of the ad layouts we construct. Sometimes Arial or Helvetica just doesn’t cover it, so we need Landsdown or Marriage Script to make something standout.
FTP client software. I will admit, and won’t give them flack, that our service desk does not know what ftp clients we use. Those are easy enough to get, with only one needing a full license. The problem comes in when trying to get all of the servers, usernames and passwords back to the new machine. I swear, I have them written down somewhere.
But the biggest complaint about the new machines so far is that any time we want to do something on them, whether that’s make a new folder, save a file, copy a file… we have to input the local administrative username and password.
Now I’ll admit, I am not the be all and end all of tech work regarding computers. As a matter of fact, I know just enough to be dangerous. But I’m not going to go poking around on my work machine trying to disable the admin stuff without some help. Sadly, it’s not as easy as calling our IT desk to help, because they happen to be in Vancouver and we’re, obviously, in the middle of Saskatchewan. And we don’t exactly have an Apple store close by (Saskatoon, one hour drive, hour and a half to the store, I timed it once).
But, we have new machines. Faster machines. I should be happy. With my high tech paperweight.
Turn the Page 