U.S. Government switcher observations

iball

iball

Network Demon
Ok, so while I was on vacation recently I decided to pick up one of those $599 Mac minis. I got that, a keyboard and a super mouse.
Now, since I work in IT for the U.S. government I figured I could upgrade the RAM on my own and I was able to do that fairly easily thanks to this site and others.

Some "obeservations" from a government IT worker:

- Mac OS X doesn't crash like my XP Pro always did (fewer reboots)
Now, I work heavily with MS operating systems at work (Server 2000/2003/XP Pro) and have to use MS software (Office 2003 and Exchange 5.5....don't why about Exchange 5.5 it IS the U.S. government after all) and I'm used to having to reboot this or that or recover this or that from a crash. Not so on my Mac mini. Good.

- VPN just works
We use Cisco VPN at work in order to remote in from home and "fix" things that sometimes go wrong at odd, non-work hours. Well, using Cisco VPN Client for Mac OS X (the latest one with Tiger support) I'm able to do just that. I even installed the Microsoft Remote Desktop software for Mac OS X in order to remote in to our servers to fix them when they act up. In XP Pro there was always one thing or another that usually crashed the VPN connection, and that was on a new laptop with just XP Pro, Office 2003, and the Cisco XP Pro client installed. Even better now.

- The whole OS is just easier to use. No registry to go hacking into to get something to work properly. No unexpected "startup" items getting dumped on me. No having to reboot all the time. Took some time to get used to DMG files and I had to install StuffIt to really work with other archive formats seamlessly, but that was no big deal. Had it down pat in about 5 minutes thanks to this site and others like it.

- Bluetooth is a hell of a lot easier to use: Now my phone syncs perfectly with Address Book and iCal....so much so, I decided to check out BluePhoneElite and will probably purchase it after my trial is over...never having to touch my phone whilst on the computer is a big plus. I never could get proper and easy bluetooth syncing like this on my old XP Pro laptop. Really good!

- It's more secure than XP Pro. I no longer have to worry about 99% of all known virii out there. Still, since I'm a government worker I installed the latest Symantec AV client software on it which is made available to us for free use on our home PCs/Macs. Hey, it was free so don't knock it.
Also, I slammed on the Mac mini from my XP Pro laptop loaded down with our work pen-testing tools and the OS X itself is pretty damn secure out-of-the-box. Of course, I tweaked the firewall settings to make it better but I didn't have to do much to the existing ruleset. Excellent!

- This website. No, seriously, finding helpful info for XP Pro was a frickin' chore with having to wade through all the garbage and Microsoft's horrible "Technet". For Mac OS X I just need this place, versiontracker, and the occassional Google search and I have the info I need to do something in Mac OS X within five minutes. Sometimes the Mac site helps out, but I come here first. After all, why re-invent the wheel or ask the same question over and over again when it's already been done/answered?
Tip for new folks: Search!

Now for the bad...there's always at least one or two bad things. So far I've only been able to find ONE bad point and it has nothing to do with the hardware, software, or Mac OS X at all:

- Apple's gross lack of support for the soldier/sailor/airman/marine:
Time to go a little in-depth here: Apple flat-out refuses to ship anything to an Army Post Office (APO) mailbox, period. I've lodged this complaint with Apple numerous times and they've always told me that they "lose money" when shipping to APOs. Hah, how can they lose money over something they've never attempted to do before? I even took it up with Apple's U.S. goverment European sales rep and was stonewalled over it. So I decided to embarass him in front of all the other vendors at a recent IT conference here in Europe this year: "Raise your hand if you ship directly to APOs."
Everyone but the Apple sales rep raised their hands. He didn't bother to try to explain, he just sat there looking aloof, the smug bastard.
How can a U.S. computer company refuse to support the Americans that make their way-of-way possible? It's beyond me. Apple would make a massive killing if they would just do this simple thing. I mean, Dell/Compaq/HP/IBM/Amazon and many, many other PC vendors and web-based companies support shipping to APOs easily enough and they don't complain one bit about any possible "lost profits" from doing so. Actually, it's easier to track a postal item that is in the U.S. military postal system than it is with USPS! It's a more "accountable" system anyway.
Honestly, companies LOVE dealing with military personnel because they KNOW they are going to get their money, either through garnishing wages or taking it up with that person's "chain-of-command". The U.S. military is going to make sure their fighting men and women pay their bills.
If Apple cares one bit about expanding their profit margins and their market shares, then they will have to start shipping to APOs. How do you think the U.S. military standardized on Microsoft? Simple. It came in through the "backdoor": folks at home were buying PCs left and right and it crept into the workplace. If Apple ever wishes to expand and grow on the non-iPod front, then they need to get their act together. I should be able to go to the Apple store online and order just about any-damn-thing and have it shipped to my military APO here overseas. Shipping to an APO is EXACTLY like shipping anything else via USPS.
Gee, Apple, thanks for your lack of support for the U.S. military. I've already proposed an idea to the Army Small Computer Program (ASCP) to drop any and everything Apple until they start supporting the Warfighter by shipping to military APOs and they are looking into it. I love OS X Tiger, but detest Apple's shipping "priorities" in regards to APOs.
Apple employees, this your ticket to get on the clue train in regards to government IT contracts. Your RAID system itself isn't going to do it.
Funny thing is, the Apple store in Kansas City even gave me a government worker discount, go figure.
Apple, this is the real reason why you never make any large headway in U.S. military contracts for your servers/workstations. You're seen as "non-supportive" of America's fighting men and women and that will always brand you with an ugly "un-American" stigmata as far as the military beancounters and purchasing agents are concerned.
Rant over on that point. Bad Apple, bad! No soup for you! Next!

(NOTE: If you're a government or military IT worker overseas, forget about Apple unless you wish to pay HUGE shipping fees to get it delivered to your home address instead of your overseas APO/FPO. I guess I can make do with what I was able to pickup on a recent trip to the U.S.)

Final thoughts:

There are actually a ton of other observations, too many to post here, but I've found I can get the EXACT same work done from home on my Mac mini as I can at work with the exception being working with Visio Pro and Project Pro files but I figure I can find a workaround for those soon enough via the versiontracker and macwindows sites.
 
That's a *very* nice switcher's report! Congrats! ... I don't, however, agree that Apple can *only* grow their Mac business if they start supporting US troops. ;) "If Apple ever wishes to expand and grow on the non-iPod front, then they need to get their act together." - Well, yes and no. Your problems with Apple not shipping to APOs is quite a specialised problem. Not everyone on this Earth works for the US army (and I'm *very* glad about this...), and quite probably, Apple has at one point decided that the hassle would be too much for the (lower) profit. Also, Apple's corporate ideology doesn't exactly _fit_ with the current US regime. Doesn't make them a bad American company. ;)
 
fryke said:
That's a *very* nice switcher's report! Congrats! ... I don't, however, agree that Apple can *only* grow their Mac business if they start supporting US troops. ;) "If Apple ever wishes to expand and grow on the non-iPod front, then they need to get their act together." - Well, yes and no. Your problems with Apple not shipping to APOs is quite a specialised problem. Not everyone on this Earth works for the US army (and I'm *very* glad about this...), and quite probably, Apple has at one point decided that the hassle would be too much for the (lower) profit. Also, Apple's corporate ideology doesn't exactly _fit_ with the current US regime. Doesn't make them a bad American company. ;)
Click to expand...
Any American company who doesn't support the men and women I've seen die overseas in various hellholes doesn't deserve to be an American company. Yes, they make an excellent operating system and good software, but they don't support the military.
Face it: the U.S. DoD IS Microsoft's largest single customer, period. I know, I'm one of the DoD's MS software agents overseas.
I've run the numbers, Microsoft has run the numbers, GAO has run the numbers and they are all the same: U.S. DoD is the largest OS customer on the planet. Period. Why would a company NOT want any of that market share? Every software company on the planet would love to "get them some of that pie". It's idiocy to not want any of it.
This thing called the "internet" that you're currently using? Yes, the DoD invented that as well. Why? To have a computer network that could survive a nuclear attack. Face it, the U.S. DoD is the driving force behind almost every single new technology today. IPV6? DoD will be the first huge organization to implement it. We are already banned from buying ANYTHING at work that does not support IPV6, which has lead to some really bizarro purchasing decisions, believe you me. And Cisco is jumping around right now to ensure that their products will support it...why? Because they KNOW the DoD is going to IPV6.
In one way or another, everyone in the U.S. works for the "Army" as you put it. Soldiers buy cars, get laundry cleaned, and pretty much purchase EVERYTHING sold in the U.S. That's more than a million people right there not even counting the Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps.
You would have a better time trying to prove that illegal immigrants don't "work" for the U.S. economy than to prove that no one "works for" the U.S. Army. You pay taxes in the U.S.? Guess what? You "work for" the U.S. Army and put money into my bank account (thanks!).
I've seen companies reschedule or flat-out cancel meetings with other civilian companies just to fly to us to demonstrate new technology. Face it, a contract for over a million licenses of a client/server software product trumps any other deal a company would currently be working on.
Good old American greed will drive every company to "work for" the U.S. Army or DoD whether you like it or not.
Don't see it as a bi-polar good or bad issue, see it as an issue of:
"Imagine what could Apple do with billions of dollars from U.S. Government contracts?"
And the fastest way in is via the U.S. military.
 
Very interesting post. I had no idea that apple had a sales strategy like that - puzzling.

Have you found a solution to your project/visio compatibility? I got Omni Outliner and Omni Graffle with my powermac g5 and I can warmly recommend the latter (haven't really tried outliner yet). I just love Graffle and use it at least four days a week.

At the omni group website I found that Omni Graffle Pro supports import/export to and from the visio format. I don't know if the omni group has some application supporting the ms project format, but its very likely.

Ref:
http://www.omnigroup.com
 
Haven't found a solution yet to either, but the Visio issue is more important to me. I rarely (if ever) do anything with Project Pro other than setup and test Project servers with it.
Visio, though, is what we use at work for EVERYTHING network/server-related. From throwing up quick diagrams of a testbed network, to our current network infrastructure, to mapping Exchange clusters and connectivity.
As long as I can find something that will import/export in Visio's format (Visio Pro 2003) and give me all the little icons I need for network/server diagramming, then I'm all about checking it out.
And if I find it's good enough, then a data call will be done with looking towards a DoD-wide licensing purchase. (hear that Apple?)
Go ask WinZip if a DoD-wide purchasing scheme didn't make them a ton of dough. Or Microsoft. Or Adobe. Or just about any hardware vendor outside of Apple.
 
Well I'm surprised to find this. My good buddy Kainjow told me after I was complaining to him.

See I'm an American, US Air Force member, overseas... Korea to be exact. My iPod mini decided to take a poop on me, and delete all my music. It also doesn't like to hold a charge. So I figure its time for a new iPod, fancy new 30 gig video iPod.

Our store on base is FULL of apple accessories, never do they have iPods. They're just plain out of stock or back ordered or something. No where in the immediate off base do we see any iPods.

I figured okay, i'll buy one online. WRONG, Apple says no to APO's. I don't know what to say about this besides THIS SUCKS. You all might respond with, have mom and dad send one, have a buddy send one. That means me transferring funds, which takes days, and then God only knows how long it'll take to get to me via mail after they finally ship it out.

I'll just sign my name to the list of people affected by Apple's choice to not ship to APO's. I've been looking for korean alternatives to the iPod, and for someone so into Apple, thats sad. But you all who are iPod freeks know how not having music with you can drive you insane.

Thanks for bringing this topic to the air!

Alex
 
Yep, not shipping to APO is just, plain, well, silly. APO is nothing but standard US mail until it reaches a port on the East or West Coast. Then the military takes over. There is no lost profit issue. As mentioned, it's USPS to the coast as far as any company is concerned: no other costs are incurred or charged to the originating sender.

For all you overseas, rely on macmall or macwarehouse for your Apple needs. Good prices and usually some form of upgrade is bundled into their offerings. And last I checked, they supported those fancy shmancy exotic APO addresses (New Jersey or San Francisco).
 
Alex it's the same situation here in Germany, but just a teensy bit better in that there are a few Apple stores here. But everything is in GERMAN for those stores: German-layout keyboards, German-language software. The girlfriend's iPod mini also took a "dump" and we're looking for a mysteriously-hidden Apple store in the Wiesbaden area.
In the exchanges here in Germany there are TONS of iPod accessories as well, but no actual iPods. Apple actually told me themselves that they were in an agreement to have AAFES sell Mac minis and other Apple products in their PXs and exchanges but so far it's been nothing outside of iPods....they don't have ANYTHING other than iPods...no "official" Apple iPod accessories either.
Apple just doesn't have their act together on this front.
And the money-making U.S. military market can continue to be ignored, but at Apple's peril in regards to future contracts.
I'm thinking of making a list thread here that has a list of all "ships-to-APO" Apple retailers.
I did it before on a automotive forum and you would be surprised how fast some aftermarket companies start shipping to APOs once they hit the "APO blacklist". Other forum members looked at the list and decided not to buy from certain companies who did NOT "support the U.S. military".
 
Amazon seems to ship to us, I might go with them.

BTW Im headed to Germany in about 11 months =) Ramstein!

Good luck in your fight, If you wish to talk to me, feel free to contact me via AIM AK4K.

Later!
 
Interesting post. Not much to add except that Norton AV software has historically caused FAR more problems on Macs than it ever solved (at a ratio about about a gajillion to none). I wouldn't touch the thing if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me enough to buy a new Mac I could use without it...). I recommend uninstalling it. It's bound to make your life easier.

If you do keep it, be VERY wary of installing any system updates. Check Norton's site for compatibility updates, and keep your eyes on http://www.macfixit.com.
 
I hear Intego's Virusbarrier works well and is not a processor hog (from Randy Singer). He reviewed all the OS X antivirus programs.

Also, the "pro" version (or whatever) of OmniGraffle reads and writes certain Visio file formats.

Doug

P.S. Norton + OS X = bad Kaboom
 
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