The thread wherein Windows 7 is discussed...

[Yegolev]

Don't need to reinstall your games to have them working on win7 or xp64.

I don't understand why.

[Sky]

Touche, however your adherence to the Old Ways will betray you... in time.

I'm only Old Ways while it's sensible.

My main obstacle for my current upgrade project is a power bloc of folks at work who insist they can't read anything on a 19" screen unless it's at 800x600. The minimum res of the app they need to upgrade to is 1024x768. Most of the office (and entire library system and world in general) is using modern resolutions. Stupid politics and it's going to get ugly when I finally admit that I am just ordering the 19" monitors and they have to suck it up.

[Big Gulp]

My main obstacle for my current upgrade project is a power bloc of folks at work who insist they can't read anything on a 19" screen unless it's at 800x600. The minimum res of the app they need to upgrade to is 1024x768. Most of the office (and entire library system and world in general) is using modern resolutions. Stupid politics and it's going to get ugly when I finally admit that I am just ordering the 19" monitors and they have to suck it up.

Why not just use a higher resolution and increase the font sizes?  Are they professing some kind of love of pixellation?

[Numtini]

My main obstacle for my current upgrade project is a power bloc of folks at work who insist they can't read anything on a 19" screen unless it's at 800x600. The minimum res of the app they need to upgrade to is 1024x768. Most of the office (and entire library system and world in general) is using modern resolutions. Stupid politics and it's going to get ugly when I finally admit that I am just ordering the 19" monitors and they have to suck it up.

I get exactly the same thing except it's the vast majority here who can't get past 800x600. We have two 1024 apps and they still won't switch. They just use the little bars and occasionally bitch at me asking why they can't have it all on the screen followed by me switching it and them calling me in five minutes to switch it back. The only solution is going to come when they die. (People here don't retire, they die. I have two users in their upper 70s both of whom would improve productivity by staying home.)

And you can't just change the font resolutions--we have lots of apps that just don't react well to it. Customized specialized apps done in VB, fox, access etc that don't have a lot of bells and whistles as they have a total market of say 3 dozen towns in Mass. If you expand the fonts, all the table formatting of data for presentation goes awry.

[Sky]

Gulp, Numtini hit on it, the apps are set for certain sizes, 1024 is the minimum. Raising the font size gives you little windows you have to sidescroll. They do that now with the 800 client.

Numtini, you've got almost the same issue I do, though we can go above 1024, and we all do. Most run the native res of the LCD monitors they have, it's only this one department who is run by someone who intimidates or cajoles everyone into groupthink. And the only solution is her retirement.

Actually, I just got out of a meeting on this issue with my supervisor and we decided to really kick over the anthill. We're also going to migrate them to macs :)

[Zar]

Why in the world would a boss want to cajole their employees into using a specific, crappy resolution?  If my boss walked up to me and was all, "WHAT IS THAT TINY TEXT THERE?  WE USE GOOD OLD PIXELICIOUS 800x600 HERE BY GOD," I'd assume it was some sort of stupid joke.  Then they'd probably just get a blank stare.

[Numtini]

Why in the world would a boss want to cajole their employees into using a specific, crappy resolution?  If my boss walked up to me and was all, "WHAT IS THAT TINY TEXT THERE?  WE USE GOOD OLD PIXELICIOUS 800x600 HERE BY GOD," I'd assume it was some sort of stupid joke.  Then they'd probably just get a blank stare.

It's a lot of not very subtle comments about things not being large enough to read. "Oh look at your new computer! Oh Martha, how can you see that?! I can't see that at all. It's too small, how does she ever think you can read that. You get on the phone and call her right now. She's not going to put one of those on my desk. What's wrong with her that she can't make that the right size. Doesn't she know what she's doing? My computer at home has a flat screen too and it's not like that at all." 

You take someone trying to install that kind of doubt and mix that in with a really healthy dose of "change is bad" conservative thinking. It works, especially in office groupthink.

[Sky]

As I said, Numtini understands. Break-time and general office chatter, slowly pushing your agenda and painting other people as having an agenda (mine is buying technology that exists and meeting minimum requirements of the software, you know, pure ego).

Moving to macs makes sense, we're a mac house and only needed pcs in their department because the interim software we used was pc-only (oh, the battles back then). Now it's java-based, so we can go back to macs. But this department only had one mac, they've basically transitioned from dumb VAX terminals to XP. Now we'll be putting OSX 10.5 in front of them. Should be an interesting year.

[Big Gulp]

As I said, Numtini understands. Break-time and general office chatter, slowly pushing your agenda and painting other people as having an agenda (mine is buying technology that exists and meeting minimum requirements of the software, you know, pure ego).

Moving to macs makes sense, we're a mac house and only needed pcs in their department because the interim software we used was pc-only (oh, the battles back then). Now it's java-based, so we can go back to macs. But this department only had one mac, they've basically transitioned from dumb VAX terminals to XP. Now we'll be putting OSX 10.5 in front of them. Should be an interesting year.

Umm, don't you work in a library?

I'd be irate if my local library was pissing away my property tax money to pay the Apple tax.  The cheapest (and by cheapest, I mean just that.  It's crap) Mac Mini starts at $600.  The least expensive iMac starts at $1200, for Christ's sake.  Now if you're buying for your home, fine, knock yourself out.  If you're sucking on the government tit, though, should you really be spending that much for a fucking library?  You know, the place where the elderly and the homeless go to pass their meaningless existences?

[Yegolev]

Nick Burns works on Macs.

[Salamok]

As I said, Numtini understands. Break-time and general office chatter, slowly pushing your agenda and painting other people as having an agenda (mine is buying technology that exists and meeting minimum requirements of the software, you know, pure ego).

Moving to macs makes sense, we're a mac house and only needed pcs in their department because the interim software we used was pc-only (oh, the battles back then). Now it's java-based, so we can go back to macs. But this department only had one mac, they've basically transitioned from dumb VAX terminals to XP. Now we'll be putting OSX 10.5 in front of them. Should be an interesting year.

Umm, don't you work in a library?

I'd be irate if my local library was pissing away my property tax money to pay the Apple tax.  The cheapest (and by cheapest, I mean just that.  It's crap) Mac Mini starts at $600.  The least expensive iMac starts at $1200, for Christ's sake.  Now if you're buying for your home, fine, knock yourself out.  If you're sucking on the government tit, though, should you really be spending that much for a fucking library?  You know, the place where the elderly and the homeless go to pass their meaningless existences?

Welcome to government if you have been allocated money you damn well better spend it.  If you do not spend it not only will you lose it but you most likely wont get any money the next time around either.

[fuser]

First real issue so far.

Running RC 7100 x64, utorrent, and AVG Free(which isn't fully supported by the new Windows 7 action center for notifications).

The AVG Free is causing issues with some utorrent downloads creating an "Error: user mapped-section open". Adding an exception in AVG for the folder allowed the torrent to continue downloading.

AVG Interface -> Overview -> Resident Shield -> Manage exceptions -> add your folder there.

[fuser]

. Now it's java-based, so we can go back to macs. But this department only had one mac, they've basically transitioned from dumb VAX terminals to XP.

Are you on the Dynix -> Horizon backend too?

[tmp]

It's a lot of not very subtle comments about things not being large enough to read.

Perhaps settings the resolution to 1024 *and* the background to this could help? I mean, if the not very subtle comments are all fine and all...

[Salamok]

It's a lot of not very subtle comments about things not being large enough to read.

Perhaps settings the resolution to 1024 *and* the background to this could help? I mean, if the not very subtle comments are all fine and all...

Or do the right thing and ridicule the problem person to the point where they lose all credability.  Blind old biddy's who have 1 foot still in the stone age giving computer advice to coworkers isn't something to be tolerated. 

"Oh why oh why can't I have my high contrast green screen back!"

[schild]

Remove all native theme options except for that horrible interior black exterior white giant fonted abortion that's still shipped with Windows.

[Numtini]

Or do the right thing and ridicule the problem person to the point where they lose all credability.  Blind old biddy's who have 1 foot still in the stone age giving computer advice to coworkers isn't something to be tolerated.

We don't do that in the public sector because everyone has the right to comment. The Biddy gets three friends to write int to the newspaper and suddenly, you're in front of a board answering why you aren't properly accomodating disabilities.

Sort of like the "oh, I know nothing about your application, userbase, support, or infrastructure, but I object to you wasting money on Macs because as a citizen I have the right to second guess any decision you make."

[Big Gulp]

Sort of like the "oh, I know nothing about your application, userbase, support, or infrastructure, but I object to you wasting money on Macs because as a citizen I have the right to second guess any decision you make."

How am I wrong in saying that Macs are overpriced boutique computers that probably shouldn't be the main desktop computer of a septuagenarian librarian?  What is that Mac doing that couldn't be done for far cheaper on commodity hardware?

[Sky]

I'd be irate if my local library was pissing away my property tax money to pay the Apple tax.  The cheapest (and by cheapest, I mean just that.  It's crap) Mac Mini starts at $600.  The least expensive iMac starts at $1200, for Christ's sake.  Now if you're buying for your home, fine, knock yourself out.  If you're sucking on the government tit, though, should you really be spending that much for a fucking library?  You know, the place where the elderly and the homeless go to pass their meaningless existences?

First, it's not your tax money. It's not anyone's tax money. It's gifts and grants.

Second, the mini is about $50 more than the state contract Dells, and it's fine for browsing and Office.

Third, I prefer to admin macs. I suppose I could save your tax money (that I'm not using) and just deploy PIIIs running linux. And why use MS Office? It's way over-priced, I should just run OpenOffice and hope your documents work.

Fourth, way to be a douchebag about libraries. I did not realize you were that ignorant and prejudiced.

What is that Mac doing that couldn't be done for far cheaper on commodity hardware?

Not getting viruses, being easier to set up and deploy.

Finally, if we had to buy on taxpayer money, we would not have any computers. I've been here nine years and all I've seen are budget cuts and I've never had a tech budget. Luckily, we're good with grants. Because the government is filled with people like you who really don't give a shit about people who can't afford computers or internet access. This final round of cuts was a step too far, and the community is rallying, and it's not looking good for selfish "bottom-line" politicians right now, the public needs help and we're on the side of the folks helping them. So go ahead and mock Apples or whatever makes you happy, but I'll be here helping people find jobs, connect with their families, and research how to function in a society that is economically imploding. And I'll be doing it with Macs.

[schild]

Sky, to be fair, anyone with the internet who knows how to use it never has to go to a library again.

Libraries creep the shit out of me anyway, too many people touching too many books who have dirty hands. Everyone has dirty hands. They have to be stopped.

Edit: And to be fair, the worst people to deal with while I was at GoDaddy was people doing administration shit over the fucking library net connection. God. Damn. What a nightmare. Mostly poor folk suckered into pyramid schemes also. So, technically, it's not just the elderly and homeless. TECHNICALLY.

[fuser]

Second, the mini is about $50 more than the state contract Dells, and it's fine for browsing and Office.

Not getting viruses, being easier to set up and deploy.

I dunno man, I worked in a ~500-700 library setting (IT staff of half a dozen). Windows + Office(not PAC's but dedicated work areas) + Deepfreeze worked flawlessly on COTS hardware. We had images created for every hardware build + scenario (staff terminal,  public access, educational software PC) and if anything catastrophic happened just re-image the hardware or replace the box.

Sky, to be fair, anyone with the internet who knows how to use it never has to go to a library again.

Yeah, but you get quite a few people with families or spend time there improving or learning such as seniors. I don't know much of the demographics of teen's etc as most are at home playing WoW I'd assume

Libraries creep the shit out of me anyway, too many people touching too many books who have dirty hands. Everyone has dirty hands. They have to be stopped.

Yeah the librarians had some really creepy stories, and the stacks of the older large libraries were really scary. Al tho in more recent days you see a mix of patrons but the newer libraries are amazingly well designed/lit/open concept. There's a lot of social programs ran out of the library which I'd say is very invaluable to the public. Maybe it's just a luck of the draw that I worked in a very forward thinking system where staff were on the cutting edge of technology and well supported.

[Sky]

Sky, to be fair, anyone with the internet who knows how to use it never has to go to a library again.

(IT staff of half a dozen)

See what you did there?

I've looked into and played with some windows solutions to do what I do on the macs, it's just faster and easier on the macs. Also, excepting the PPC/Intel divide right now, one image for a function (staff/public/etc) can be put on any computer because the hardware is all covered in the OS.

Our library system recommends Deep Freeze, but I've worked with the MS freeware they built on top of the old Gates Foundation tools. The first two generations sucked compared to the old tools (which had snapins that rocked), but the newest version is pretty good. Finally have the windows boxes working like I want, and it's free.

Are you using techsoup.org for the public machines? YOU NEED TECHSOUP if you work at a non-profit with the public.

[fuser]

(IT staff of half a dozen)

See what you did there?

Sure did half a dozen people with manager to support the pc's/terminals/back end/network (14site wan)/staff training and management of the dept . I think they are running in the 800pc range now.

What size of a system are you dealing with?

Our library system recommends Deep Freeze, but I've worked with the MS freeware they built on top of the old Gates Foundation tools. The first two generations sucked compared to the old tools (which had snapins that rocked), but the newest version is pretty good. Finally have the windows boxes working
like I want, and it's free.

When the Gates Foundation was rolling around did you get the Gateway setups with servers/desktops? At that point we were migrating to a lot more PC's and evaluated Linux/Windows and it came down to me loosing a year of my life to Group Policy

Then Deepfreeze came and it had an insane discount (~$20/seat) and there's no way it was passed up. The whole fire and forget is great for any patrons that are sensitive about personal information, just reboot it. It seems like microsoft's steady state is pretty much the same and looking at deploying it internal (Is that what your refering to the old tool because our Gates PC's were group policy restricted).

Are you using techsoup.org for the public machines? YOU NEED TECHSOUP if you work at a non-profit with the public.

Honestly, I left the job in 04 and moved back into private sector but still talk with the staff there a lot.

[Sky]

My point is that the more people you have, the more you can both multitask and get deeper into technologies. I have about 80 computers but have to do everything myself (networking/server/web/support/support/support), which stretches me pretty thin. Also why I'm trying to streamline the staff to a single OS.

Yes, we did the Gateways with the first Gates grant. They're just giving us monetary grants this time around, in two phases, which is nice. More work on setup for me, but we were also able to get both pcs and macs for the public. And yes, I'm talking about Steady State. As you know, there are two factors in locking down machines, limiting what a patron can do and then putting on the disk protection. Steady State does both fairly well. We used to use the Gates tool for our public PCs, to lock them down, and then Centurion Guard to protect the disk. Most of the system is running Deep Freeze and afaik no lockdowns. I'm a rebel and whatnot (one of only three libraries with a technical staff at all).

[Venkman]

Back to Windows 7: you all hear RCs are going to begin shutting down computers every two hours come June 10? Not a shocker of course, but  prompts me to ask:

When my computer comes back (again), it'll have WinXP on it. Is it safe to jump to Windows 7 in July-ish? Or should I wait for the inevitable SP1?

[Yegolev]

The conversation went into Funny Land when I read six people to do IT at a library.  My team has eight people and we support about 150 enterprise AIX servers of "varying complexity".  Our Windows team has eight-ish people and they have more like 1500 servers spread around the world.

When my computer comes back (again), it'll have WinXP on it. Is it safe to jump to Windows 7 in July-ish? Or should I wait for the inevitable SP1?

I kinda think of W7 and Vista SP2 so I would not bother to wait, really.

I am having some weird and horrible lag in certain filesystem operations (create folder, for example), however it could very well be the ancient 70GB disk I put it on.  New disk is in the mail, will report back.

[naum]

Umm, don't you work in a library?

I'd be irate if my local library was pissing away my property tax money to pay the Apple tax.  The cheapest (and by cheapest, I mean just that.  It's crap) Mac Mini starts at $600.  The least expensive iMac starts at $1200, for Christ's sake.  Now if you're buying for your home, fine, knock yourself out.  If you're sucking on the government tit, though, should you really be spending that much for a fucking library?  You know, the place where the elderly and the homeless go to pass their meaningless existences?

Um, there's more to total cost than just the cost of the hardware.

With Windows machines, a lot more money outlay on software that comes bundled with the Mac or is not needed (antivirus).

And with Macs, most things just work, where a lot more labor is required for Windows. This has been evident in the last few shops I've worked where there's a split between Mac users and Windows users. Yet, 90-95% of IT support goes to the Windows side, even before I tally the machines that still manage to be infected and must be wiped clean even with firewall, anti-virus, secure network, etc.…

Sorry, but that's just an ignorant statement, based far from reality, centered on one single aspect that's minuscule when all costs are factored in.

And that still doesn't address the "joy of computing" factor — the truth that every time I have to boot up Vista I want to cry like a hungry newborn.

[Big Gulp]

Back to Windows 7: you all hear RCs are going to begin shutting down computers every two hours come June 10? Not a shocker of course, but  prompts me to ask:

When my computer comes back (again), it'll have WinXP on it. Is it safe to jump to Windows 7 in July-ish? Or should I wait for the inevitable SP1?

It won't start doing the shut down after 2 hours until March of 2010.  It won't stop working until June of that year.  So basically, you get a free OS for a year.  And I'm also willing to bet that some enterprising community member will find a way to circumvent that shutdown date.

[tmp]

And that still doesn't address the "joy of computing" factor — the truth that every time I have to boot up Vista I want to cry like a hungry newborn.

[Big Gulp]

And that still doesn't address the "joy of computing" factor — the truth that every time I have to boot up Vista I want to cry like a hungry newborn.

So?  Don't use Vista.

We're talking about a library, not your home setup.  Sky has already admitted that his tech budget is nonexistent and he operates off of grants.  That's an even better reason not to buy Apple and just switch over to Ubuntu.  You can use cheap, outdated commodity hardware, and as long as people have a browser and an office suite (all free, by the way) they're set.  I have zero sympathy for the whole "BUT APPLE IS THE ONLY COMPANY WHO CAN SAVE US FROM MALWARE!!!" horseshit.  He's an Apple fanboy trying to justify spending too much so he can deploy his pet OS.  Nothing much more than that.

[fuser]

The conversation went into Funny Land when I read six people to do IT at a library.  My team has eight people and we support about 150 enterprise AIX servers of "varying complexity".  Our Windows team has eight-ish people and they have more like 1500 servers spread around the world.

 But you don't have to deal with end users workstations where a general call could be "our PC has smoke coming out of the back", or "someone stole all our mice". It's like comparing apple and oranges of support where something server based has a very optimized work flow with remote management tools, monitoring, and predicted failures.

You could spend your whole job there on road just repairing malicious software and physical damage.

[naum]

And that still doesn't address the "joy of computing" factor — the truth that every time I have to boot up Vista I want to cry like a hungry newborn.

So?  Don't use Vista.

We're talking about a library, not your home setup.  Sky has already admitted that his tech budget is nonexistent and he operates off of grants.  That's an even better reason not to buy Apple and just switch over to Ubuntu.  You can use cheap, outdated commodity hardware, and as long as people have a browser and an office suite (all free, by the way) they're set.  I have zero sympathy for the whole "BUT APPLE IS THE ONLY COMPANY WHO CAN SAVE US FROM MALWARE!!!" horseshit.  He's an Apple fanboy trying to justify spending too much so he can deploy his pet OS.  Nothing much more than that.

Let me extend that to Vista AND XP.

I'd prefer Ubuntu over Apple too personally, but I'm not sure that would be easier and less costly to maintain than Mac OS X. Networking Macs together just works whereas can be tricky with Linux distros, not the machines themselves but connecting to printers and other equipment.

[Sky]

He's an Apple fanboy trying to justify spending too much so he can deploy his pet OS.  Nothing much more than that.

Oh, I've got to show that one to my supervisor, the Apple fanboy. He'll get a laugh.

I also have to show around your septuagenarian quote, that'll get some laughs, too.

Maybe I should tell you how to tattoo people. I suggest using a guitar string, bic pen case and motor from a cassette player, dipped into india ink. Otherwise you're just wasting your customer's money! 

[Hindenburg]

Exactly how ancient are you, Sky?

[Yegolev]

But you don't have to deal with end users workstations where a general call could be "our PC has smoke coming out of the back", or "someone stole all our mice". It's like comparing apple and oranges of support where something server based has a very optimized work flow with remote management tools, monitoring, and predicted failures.

You could spend your whole job there on road just repairing malicious software and physical damage.

Touche and thank God.  Possibly not in that order.  I think we have more than six contractors doing deskside support (I only know of three of them, though), and we don't let homeless people in here.