[iBook] Need a job? Don't use a Mac | CNET News.com

[Gary]

On Oct 30, 2005, at 6:24 PM, Jim Manley wrote:

>
> On Oct 30, 2005, at 5:19 PM, Tom Legare wrote:
>
>> That article is dead on correct.  When I've been inbetween jobs,  
>> it's my old slow freebie Windows laptop for all my emails and  
>> online applications.
>
> Hi Tom. I don't agree. I work in the prepress industry in printing  
> companies and they are 99% Mac. I have worked all across the  
> country & its still all Mac. In-fact most printing companies charge  
> extra for customer supplied PC files. I checked the American  
> Express web site & I didn't see any warning about Macs. We all  
> should log-on to CNET & post a comment about what we think about  
> their article. I have a friend that is a big designer in New York  
> City & he said it is mostly Macs there as well.
     The article talked about online applications and it is truer  
than it should be.
     For example, my best friend is an employee of Gap, Inc. and had  
to use a PC in order to access his employee account (benefits, salary  
info, etc.) until Gap at least made it available for Mac users, but  
only with Internet Explorer, not any other browser.
     Hurricane Katrina victims discovered that FEMA's website  
required not only IE, but the most recent IE AND Windows XP.  Even  
Windows 98 and Windows 2000 users were unable to file claims.
     I teach college and my students regularly encounter sites that  
have either Windows-only or IE-only requirements for online  
applications. And since the version of IE is the latest for Windows,  
the no-longer-updated Mac version of IE doesn't work.
     The latest issue of eWeek suggested this might change, not  
because of a growing Mac market share, but a growing non-IE browser  
share.  Corporate web designers who have been designing pages that  
only work with Internet Explorer are having getting a lot of flack  
from PC users who much prefer Firefox, for example.
     A recent example of the problem involved Gap Inc. online sites  
for consumers. The re-designed Banana Republic, Gap and Old Navy  
sites would only work with Firefox on Macs and only certain IE  
versions on Windows. I just checked and Safari opens a page informing  
me that they are working to soon have full compatibility.

Gary
--
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