Saturday, March 08, 2008

why the next computer i buy will be an apple

In the olden days, apple computer made a big mistake. They didn't embrace open standards--standards like ISA. They didn't open their hardware to communicate with many different devices from many manufacturers, all of which required an installation which was basically this: crack the case, seat the card into an available slot, configure the IRQ, memory address, and port for each device, and install special drivers. All us techies prided ourselves in figuring out how to come up with different configurations that allowed us to install lots of different stuff from different manufacturers in our PC's. Those days were great. Those days are over.

At the time apple's strategy was to take care of their customer by giving them limited options, but options that worked. How many apple users have I known to say, "Apple. It just works." I think that must have been one of their marketing messages. It was a bad strategy at the time. Bad in the sense of the apple community and platform was dwarfed by the PC community and platform, which wowed consumers with the dizzying array of cheap options.

But everything is different now.

I have spent most of the day on several phone calls with Lenovo tech support for trouble with my Thinkpad. I spent close to $3000 USD on this laptop about a year ago, which included the highest level of warranty possible with next day on-site repairs. Most of our conversations included one burst of fury from me when the tech suggested that the only thing the warranty covered was hardware problems, or that the best advice he had for me was to erase the hard drive and reinstall from the factory CD's (and he recommended that I back up all my files first. Thanks.).

In short the issue I am having is that the wireless network quit working all of the sudden. The first tech had me remove the IBM/Lenovo software that controlled the wireless and just use the Windows XP software, which did get me back connected to the internet, but left several issues unresolved. To start with, I liked the IBM/Lenovo software. I could configure all the wireless networks I connect to (a lot since I frequent coffee shops and hotels). And it was the only way this particular wireless adapter could connect to my super-fast 802.11N router at home. But worse than this is that I cannot press the hot key and enable/disable the wireless (something American Airlines frowns on) and cannot do a Repair (which if you run Windows and connect to many different networks, you know is something that keeps you from rebooting all the time and is the only way to resolve some routing and DNS caching issues). And it's just gotten progressively worse the more I follow their suggestions on fixing it. Eventually I will (apart from them) stumble across something that fixes it, and they will never hear back from me. I could call them and tell them what it was that fixed it, but they wouldn't care or know what to do with that information.

This is just symptomatic of the shift that has happened.

Lenovo tells me that only the hardware is covered. If I want them to transfer me over to the software team then it's going to be a $50 minimum charge for them to open a ticket. I'm sure that Lenovo has contracted out these guys and told them that they get points for not having to send a tech out with new parts, and to make the customer prove that it's a hardware issue or else send them to the software team to remove some more ca$h from their customers' pockets. And this, too, is symptomatic of the shift.

In a world where everyone is specializing and outsourcing, in a world where measurable metrics are put in place for each department and division, in a world that is increasingly dehumanized, why is anyone surprised that the world is disintegrated? Why is anyone surprised at being transferred 5 or 10 times to different parts of the world? Why is anyone surprised at extensive navigation through computerized phone menus? Why is anyone surprised that there is no more respect for customers anymore?

If I called apple with a problem, every person I talked to would know how to spell 802.11N, and someone I talked to would know how to get my network card back up. They wouldn't tell me that they only cover hardware. They recognize, like all of us now do, that there is no such thing as just hardware. Every piece of hardware has to have software that makes it play with the rest of the world. And they recognize that I don't buy a computer for the opportunity to negotiate with several groups of people who don't want to take responsibility for the problem someone else created and I paid for. Apple works.

I want to live in a world that is integrated. I want to be integrated. I am an apple.

11 comments:

Jon said...

I'n an apple now. The switch was no fun, but it's basically smooth sailing now.

When you make the move, let's use ichat, ok?

Jon

Steve Coan said...

yeah, that sounds great. i miss the chat days. *melancholy sigh*

Steve Coan said...

OMG.

I actually found a fix for my problem on a Mac website. The guy was running Windows XP on his mac, and figured out that the windows cryptographic services had been corrupted. He posted the entire script for resolving it, and a list of the affected modules.

I am back up, but not able to reinstall the Lenovo Thinkpad software successfully. Apparently it doesn't uninstall completely, so that when you reinstall, it hooks back in to some broken registry keys. Nice.

At least I'm able to do basic window functionality.

Jon said...

Is there anything like Parallels for Windows--so you can run OSX on your PC?

Just kidding.

Steve Coan said...

LOL.

But if you think that sounds crazy, let me tell you what my work day consists of.

1. Log in to Windows XP on my own computer (I have to use my own equipment because my employer doesn't understand why the issues I have on the computer they issued me prevent me from getting my work done).

2. Open a VPN connection to my customer so I can access files and systems on their network.

3. Run Firefox and connect to my employer via Citrix, which gives me a virtual desktop on windows. This is desktop #2.

4. Run VMWARE to open a virtual session for Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition, where all of the software I work with is installed. This is desktop #3.

As my day goes on, I check email on my gmail account (which delivers mail very quickly, and has no size limit per message, and 6000 MB total); I check email on my employer's email account (which delivers mail very slowly, and has a size limit of 4 MB per message and 160 MB total); I work primarily on desktop #3 and then export my work to my own laptop's desktop, and then email it either to my customer or my employer or my gmail account (depending on the size of the attachments) and then forward it as appropriate; In addition to email (that I cannot add attachments to) I use desktop #2 for entering my time and expenses and accessing the Company Portal (oohhaaaaahhh - the magic Portal with a gazillion disintegrated pieces of information that is supposed to make me more successful and better "connected" with all of my associates, colleagues, and corporate culture, as well as provide IT support, purchasing, HR information, and allow me to self-serve myself to death).

I used to avoid the switch to Apple because of how efficient I have become on Windows. And to be sure I am damn efficient on Windows. But when you look at the total package I'm in with all of its inherent inefficiencies, an apple would be the least of my wastes of time. And in fact there are some nice pickups with apple.

Jon said...

Hehehehe.

How many desktops does it take to screw up a man's day?

Steve Coan said...

Heh. Add one more. I just got access to a remote desktop connection for my customer.

Jon said...

Here's my day:

Blackberry alarm goes off (Swingle Singers singing a Bach fugue). I push the snooze button and glance at the screen to see if there are any emails. Read, respond if necessary. Climb out of bed.

Shut off Blackberry alarm. Eat, clean up. Drive 1.5 minutes to work.

Flip open 15" Macbook. Three seconds later, I'm on the wireless network and I launch Entourage. Entourage syncs with Gmail, revealing mostly emails I have already read and responded to.

Nine hours later, after reading and writing about 40-50 emails, I "eject" the server, flip the lid down, and head home.

Arrive home, check the blackberry through the evening for new emails. Put blackberry beside bed at 11:00, and drift off to sleep, knowing that in six or seven hours I'll hear those Swingle Singers once again and we'll start it all over.

The only diversion from this pattern is if I need to launch Parallels in order to use Photoshop or redesign an ad in Illustrator.

But that doesn't happen until after my third cup of coffee.

Steve Coan said...

And we refer to this stuff as "life".

Jon said...

Yeah. Good point.

Sounds more like slow death, eh.

Computers=working without work.
Email=communicating without talk.

*must contemplate*

Unknown said...

Well....Cosmo just said that one of the best places to meet a guy is at the apple store - so when you go to buy one - take me with you!

This song is resonating with me. It's in my heart and has found my voice. I admit to being a Christina Perry fan. I've been known to...