[P1] Panther printing

[Eric Richardson]

>I just moved into a windows office. I just hooked up my ethernet 
>connection searched for the office printer under "windows printing" 
>then under "network neighbourhood" and viola there was the printer 
>server. I got the resident computer guy to give me a user id and a 
>password and instant print. My man was impressed at how easy it was.
>
>sean

Still not it. This is for a shared printer off of a windows network. 
Not a print server, that's different.

But you are right that is easy. Every time I hook into a PC network, 
everyone is impressed. You probably just scared the bejeebers out of 
this computer guy. Now he is thinking that if Macs are really that 
easy and then we get a bunch of Macs, they won't need me anymore. Now 
he will work twice as hard to trash Macs as he ever did before.

I was in an office where everyone was using a pc last week and one of 
the guys asked me a couple of questions about my mac and my 
experience with macs. I just answered him honestly and really tried 
to be neutral. Later I heard him telling someone else about how Mac 
guys are always so in love with heir macs, yada, yada, yada.

Another guy was telling me how he spent at least 10 hours ridding his 
pc at home from virii because his kids were surfing the net. He had 
heard that macs don't have any virii. He was thinking about getting a 
mac again, he had one before. I said that's right, no virii, though 
there had been a report of a potential viral threat a couple of weeks 
ago.

I asked him how much his time was worth, he said a $100 per hour.

I said a Mac is a no brainer then. He looked like he had just come 
out of a cave into the bright sunlight.

Then another three high powered guys came in for a conference, and 
got involved in the conversation. One started off about how the 
reason was because there was no point in writing virii for the mac 
because there were so few macs. I didn't feel like arguing the point. 
Another one started about how he had read an article about how there 
were several virii for the mac but not many. I said I read the same 
article and it reported a potential threat on the new system, and the 
guy got angry, "you don't know you read the same article and there 
are several virii for macs." Okay, maybe I didn't but I bet that what 
he read was a direct quote of the press release that resulted in the 
article that I read. Anyway, I backed off and didn't bother to 
explain to him the difference between virii that attacked OS 9 or 
before and the lack of them that attack OS X.

Then all these guys whose collective time was worth about $500/hour 
spent another 40 minutes talking about how to keep their pcs safe 
from virii. They are all spending whatever the subscription fees to 
keep their anti-virus software current and another $1000 worth of 
time non-productively discussing PC viruses.

Getting macs would be such a no-brainer.

The guy that was thinking to get a mac also saw and testified to the 
others how incredibly easy it was for me to access their network. 
Everyone oohed and aahed, but he was the only one that is really 
getting it. I sent him the TMO article from last year on Mac viruses: 
<http://www.macobserver.com/editorial/2003/08/29.1.shtml>

He might get one. We will see.