> Are the glitches as bad as was reported?
>Should schools be moving away from MACs? Is there any resource that I can
>share with the school board on this controversy? Thanks for your help. You
>may reply via the listserve or directly to my e-mail.
I read that article and I'd have to say it presents an image quite
different from my experience. Even if specific situations bear out the
claims in the article, those situtions may not exist on all networks or
installations. I feel the article presents a very biased view, while
presenting the audience with little if any useful information. Even the
tone of the article implies that someone had an axe to grind.
One thing that I do know though, despite Levin's claim otherwise, is that
Microsoft Internet Explorer is available for the Macintosh. (This should be
a red flag about the articles general validity.)
In a 100 Mac (400 PC's, 12 Suns) NT network, I have experienced little
problem with the Macs and would not hesitate to add more. I can have a Mac
on the network (drag and drop files into prefs, extensions, and controls
folder and reboot) and accessing servers in minutes. The new Power Macs
have the 10bT connector on the logic board, so there is no card to install,
configure, or keep track of later. And with the new OpenTransport panel,
the IP settings can be locked in place with the Admin password function.
As for NT's Macintosh Services, NT handles the Mac print jobs (postscript,
LPR, text, etc.) without difficulty. The Macintosh file space on the NT
disks can be accessed and mounted on the Mac desktops. Network software
installs off of the NT disks without incident. NT machines are also
maintaining the DNS and AppleTalk zones, so the advantage of being able to
easily structure and optimize those zones as needed exists. It's also nice
touch to have an AppleTalk file server just for the Mac users. (I use an
old Centris 650 which also serves the Meeting Maker software.) On a TCP/IP
network the fact that they are Macs just doesn't matter.
Unless you have some really wacked out network config, you'll may start to
wonder if the Macs might actually be better NT clients then Windows 95 for
many users. At least on this particular network the amount of time an
effort that goes into Mac support is far, far less then the proportion of
their numbers to PC's would indicate.
Ron DAscenzo
Consulting and Training
Penn State University
rmd103@psu.edu