Author: Francisco

Being The Mac Guy

Tech Talk2 Comments

For a long time, I was stuck in the world of Microsoft support. All I did was research and fix problems with applications running on Windows networks. Being a hard core Macintosh user since 1993, I sometimes felt miserable and frustrated with the Microsoft world. This all changed last year. I now have to support Macintosh users and it ain’t easy being the Mac guy!

The first thing you run into in supporting Macs is the Mac users themselves. Not all of them are smug, but quite a few certainly come off that way, from the first moment you inquire about their problem. Then there is OS X itself, an operating system which doesn’t have any of the usual crutches that you encounter with Windows. There is no un-installer, no Event Viewer, and so on. Instead you have to deal with The Console, and most of the BSD and UNIX tools which not all Mac users are even familiar with. Needless to say, supporting Macs when they do have a significant problem is actually harder than regular Windows support. A lot harder! I find myself sometimes even dreading a Mac call, but I’ve only been doing it for a few months and I’m certainly getting the hang of not only how to investigate Mac problems, but also how Mac users think.

Over the weekend though, my precious Venus (a Blue&White G3 Power Macintosh) decided to no longer boot up after applying the latest Mac OS X 10.4.9 update. I’ve had this machine for years; it is even older than my first born. Over the years I’ve upgraded hard drives, memory, video cards, and CPUs in it, and it has taken everything I’ve thrown at it and more. Alas I will try one more attempt to get it to boot into an OS tonight, before I totally give up on it. Losing Venus has been hard on me, I still don’t think I am over it, but one must go on.

I’ll probably end up getting a new iMac, just because I can’t see myself spending $2500 on a Mac Pro Tower.

Women No Longer Need Heroes

Relationships1 Comment

Sometimes pop songs are all we listen to. Of late I have been thinking of Bonnie Tyler singing Holding Out For A Hero, and wondering if women really need any heroes nowadays? The song starts out asking, “Where have all the good men gone? and where are all the gods?”, needless to say women have pretty much intimidated them all, to the point that men have stopped listening. Relationships have become a tangled mess of complexities that men often fail to navigate successfully, or which some men find too daunting to even approach. This has caused both genders to worry. The heroes are dead. Men never wanted to be heroes, to begin with, for the most part, men want attention, but on their own terms. Women who see themselves as very perceptive and emotionally intelligent, (they have to be given the society we live in), often misunderstand men. For our part, men are not traditionally good communicators of their wants and needs. This is something that men need to work on. But women need to speak up as well. Waiting for a hero, the shining knight, does not work very well with the image of a modern day Miss Independent woman. I guess it is hard not to go crazy, trying to be two things at once, both heroine and supplicant. So why do it? Relationships are not about being romanced or playing games, they are about getting what you want from your partner. Be honest with yourself and then ask for what you want. Romance and games are fun, but they are not what two grown people should base their relationship on. At the end of the day, are you happy or miserable? Chances are there isn’t any hero coming to your rescue, and even if there was, can he or she even hear you?

New Economy

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The White House announced their new budget plan and it lays out exactly how The New Economy works. In case you don’t understand economics or are not an accountant, here is How The New Economy Works For Dummies:

Companies pay less taxes, but continue to get great subsidies from the government. This is great because companies can have better profit margins and hopefully hire more people. On the other hand, employee wages in comparison to CEO salaries have been stagnant and there seems to be a sense that businesses do not need to share the wealth with most of their employees, just their executives.

Government continues to shrink domestic programs, because we all know that citizens should not expect anything from their government. Killing job programs, education, and unneeded services forces people to become more self-sufficient. If you can’t afford your prescription drugs, too bad, maybe you should have taken better care of yourself. If you can’t read, too bad, No-Child-Left-Behind will surely fail you and whatever school system got stuck with you. And of course, if a big giant force of nature comes down and destroys your property, too bad, don’t expect FEMA to come to your rescue. See all this makes you self-sufficient.

The New Economy is all about dumbing down Americans and bankrupting the nation.