Apple give the boot to a friendly critic

I'll bet that the comment that Apple didn't like from a member of Apple's University Executive Forum is, "...we don't recommend more Macs..."

With supporters like that, who needs enemies.

"As to why we don't recommend more Macs anyway, which isn't really what you were asking but what the hey..."

It's one thing for someone in his position to point out vulnerabilities, particularly in response to a query. It's quite another to offer an unsolicited, highly public, deeply contentious critique that could encourage folks to regard Apple skeptically. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

I would have little faith in a CIO of a Higher Learning Institute who was so ill-informed. NAME a Trojan or virus known to affect OS X, please. Security updates are released every few months to plug holes in a reasonable tight system. The small installed base not being attractive to hackers has been debunked in other settings. And since when do Apple users pay for security updates? They pay for signficant system-wide updates, e.g 10.1 ->Jaguar>Panther. I can't comment on expense aspects of mac repair procedures in a university setting, but I'd guess TCO remains less for Mac than Wintel units

*jinx*
:-)

Whether Apple needs advice is irrelevant. If someone is associated with Apple, they shouldn't go around saying things like "Macs are only more secure because they're less interesting", "you can't get tech support for Macs", and "Macs are more expensive" in a *public* forum. Those statements *are* inaccurate, or at best misleading; that's exactly the kind of FUD that Apple is trying to combat. I would have fired his ass too.

What posses a person to tell outright lies about a COMPUTER! If someone feels a need to lie about metal and plastic, then this issue with Apple is probably the least of this guys' problems. He needs help! But still, what a total guberish mush-head!!

His logic about installed base and attractiveness to worm/virus writers etc etc, while common wisdom flies in the face of the facts. Hackers are known to love the obscure and arcane, witness the many exploits for IRIX, Hp/UX, Solaris, hardly examples of large market share Operating Systems.

But his comment about the lack of techs trained to repair Apple equipment or trained to admin Mac OS X server IS accurate. The company that sponsors the A+ training used to have a module for macintosh but did away with it. Apple has their own repair certifications as well as admin certs BUT the classes are expensive, hard to find. Additionally there is a lack of good books on Mac OS X server. Check Amazon some time.

Apple isn't perfect and as they continue to enter the Enterprise space, I expect they will address these issues.

I tend to be sympathetic with those who say that Macs are more expensive, but whenever I try ot configure a Dell it ends up being at least 2 to 3 times their low-ball promotional price of $499. Who would want to run a 128MB RAM Winows XP system? I have seen some "apples to apples" (pun sort of intended) comparisons where Macs are cheaper. Ths is mostly because all the "extras" like firewire, modem, ethernet, and basic software packages are built in. I suppose the university doesn't need all of these features, and thus the macs are more expensive for what they need.

Clearly the sacked gentleman was not too happy at the time with regards his Apple appointment. It is really very obvious. So he chose to ay a few things as a parting gesture. So what. Apple said goodbye to him. Job well done Apple. Now perhaps the person could elaborate upon why he had begun to be obviously (and publicly) against the people responsible for his appointment. There is somethign unstated here that made him bitter. He would not have accepted the appointment in that state of mind. Something changed. What gave, Greg?

There are a number of inaccuracies in this gentleman's statements. The fact that he can make them and stand by them shows that he is unqualified to hold his position - either because he is intentionally misspeaking or because he woefully misinformed and isn't humble or professional enough to research his statements and admit to those mistakes.

Is OS X, or any *nix secure against attacks? No. They are just as prone to be cracked as any other platform. How many viruses are they vulnerable to? None. Period. You can have a MS Word file on a Mac that is infected with a macro virus, but that will not affect them Mac, that virus did not enter that file on the Mac. The Mac will just act as a carrier if the user forward the file, but the infection process started and ended with a Windows PC and only affects Windows PC's. There is just one example of a Trojan on OS X, and that was a proof of concept, not found in the wild, and terrible ineffective in it's implementation. (you have to have downloaded a carrier mp3 file in a zipped format, because sending it flat strips the trojan. You have to double-click on the infected file rather than do what the vast majority of Mac users do, drag it on iTunes)

I have personally known three PC users who have been tricked by the "throw the teddy-bear icon in your System folder away" email hoax, and ended up hosing their computers. This hoax points to a major flaw in Windows security in which ordinary users (and malicious viruses/trojans that those users initiate) are allowed to access, delete and modify nearly every file on the OS. Regardless how popular or widespread OS X and *nix become, this will never be the case under those OS's. A user who launches a malicious program will, at the very worse, only affect his own files. Not the OS and not other user's files on the same computer.

Another security flaw prevelant on the Windows platform is MS's propensity for integrating their software with automated processes. MS is trying to make it impossible to think about buying one component of a suite by so tightly integrating their features that they feel like half a program unless you buy the whole suite. The result of this policy is that any malicious process has access to multiple processes on the computer and thus multiple vectors for infection. How ridiculous is it that IE is so tightly integrated into the OS that it becomes a part of almost everything you do, and yet it has security vulnerabilities so severe, that it has MS reccomending that you not click on hyperlinks, but instead type all URL's into the address field? Yes, I know it has been patched, and affects older versions of the browser, but if you aren't sure if you have the patch, why don't you retype the following URL into your address field and see what MS has to say about it?

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;%5bLN%5d;834489

The guy's an a$$. He ENTHUSIASTICALLY pushed people AWAY from the Mac -- and he was factually wrong on many counts. Given his supposed knowledge of computers, this can only come down to flat-out bias. There's nothing wrong in criticizing Apple, but skewing facts to do it shows bias. And, he's ON AN APPLE BOARD??! LMAO! The only board of Apple's that he should be on is their gang plank!

At work I'm a Linux and Solaris admin. Somebody at work forked out his personal money for a mac months ago to replace his Dell and asked me to integrate it in. It became a test case that could've gotten five more Macs in the building. Months later I've still got him only half-working and instead of iMacs, it's going to be iMac-ish Gateways.

Silly me... I assumed that between Mac experience (going back to the 1985-vintage 512K) and that I'm a Solaris/Linux Engineer I couldn't get him past the Command-K stage. He needs to be able to login/authenticate via the standard mac login and then have key network 'drives' magically appear in the Finder.

It's supposed to be really easy --and seems like it should be-- but the documentation for Mac/Windows integration is lacking. There are still articles on Apple's website that are really refering to 10.2 or before (but don't tell you that). The articles on other parts of the web are incomplete at best. The books on the market barely mention the topic.

In frustration, I decided to check into Apple's Sys Admin (ACSA) certification on the assumption there are self-study materials that would provide the info I needed to pass the certification (and provide the info I needed to fully integrate his iMac in). Hahahahahahaha.

Even after scouring Amazon, scouring Apple.com and having a friend who works at Apple (as a user group liason) check with other Apple employees, the only self-study materials I can find are for the hardware repair certification. About the only thing I haven't tried is to ask another Apple employee is he can _swipe_ and mail me course materials. Of course, that could get him _fired_.

For all the other certifications I've dealt with, there's always a good self-study path (e.g. read and practive until you're ready):

RedHat Linux (RHCE) -- thousands of pages of documentation on right on the installer CD. A lot of material, but you know exactly what you need to go through.

Sun - Inexpensive self-study materials via any of a number of websites (cert21.com, etc.).

Microsoft (MCSE) -- Go to Amazon/Borders/B&N and take your pick of cram guides or follow the online training route.

I'd be happy to spend the time it takes (and effort) and pay for the certification, but I can't afford the time/money for formal classes. If Apple wants more ACSA's, they need to make sure there are good self-study materials available for the ACSA.

I feel Apple was justified in asking for this guy's resignation.

He isn't helping spread the facts about the product, he is only helping to perpetuate the myths.

Good riddance!

Mr. Wood (previous commenter),

1] Log into the Servers that you want to auto-mount on start-up. Before typing username and pass, click on the "Options..." button on the login window, and select "Save password in keychain."

2] In 10.3, open Apple Menu> System Preferences...>Accounts>Startup Items, In 10.2, open Apple Menu>System Preferences...>Login Items

3] Drag icons for the drive you want to auto-mount into the

Startup Items/Login Items window.

This is an extremely basic operation. It is covered in at least two of the OS X books I've scanned while trying to find introductery material for my userbase (I finally decided not to buy any material, since the OS is so simple that no one was asking questions about it after a 10 minute verbal tutorial) This type of information is easily found also under google, and macosxhints.com to name just a couple of resources. As an experienced sys admin, I don't suppose you've ever heard of such a thing as the internet, or a user community?

Or is it that your bias blinds you to common sense?

I read this expecting to be upset with Apple and found myself understanding their position. This person was doing nothing to further the stated goal of the Forum and it would make sense to replace him with someone who would.

To imply the Mac OS is probably no more secure than any other but just less interesting is not a provable fact, it is an opinion and a moot point. Today and for the fore seeable future, people who own Mac's will have far fewer problems that PC users.

To imply that Apple will charge for security updates is just wrong, they have been putting out security patches for free.

To state that "We don't recommend macs any more" sort of tells the story about why Apple would want someone else representing them, as recommending Apple systems and Mac OS X is part of it's stated goals.

It is true that people need to point out the negative to Apple to create change but that is not what he was doing.

If he was truly just trying to point out weaknesses with Apple to get them to fix things he would not say there are too few people who know how to support the mac as there is nothing directly Apple can do about this. He would not speculate on something that can not be proven. Apple can't prove they are more ready for virus and security threats that don't yet exist. And although I agree that apple still has pricing issues they are competitive at more levels than he implies. eMac's, PowerBooks, High-end 64bit systems and Servers to name a few.

I'd think he was happy to be out of the position.

Isn't the University of Chicago where Don Crabb worked before he passed away a couple of years ago? Don was a very capable computer expert and columist and user of Apple machines. Even though he knew the advantages of using Apple computers for many types of settings, he was also very capable of telling Apple where they were weak and/or in need of improvement. In light of his comments as related above, I hope that Greg Jackson isn't representative of what was left behind in Don's passing at the U of C.

Tim Wood, also check out http://www.macwindows.com

How did this guy get on the board to start with?
He deserved to be fired/let go/demoted/whatever.
He wasn't good for Apple and he isn't good for the University. They should probably follow Apple's lead.

Here's the problem in a nutshell. I, as a table grape farmer in California know more about OSX, networking and the pluses and minus of the operating system then the CIO at the University of Chicago. Now WTF is that all about. If there was any doubt, the Peter Principle is alive and well and still living in the halls of Higher Education the answer is staring us in the face. But then, it was born there wasn't it?? With tenure and all. Watching Penn & Teller's BS show the other night and a comment was made that fits here perfectly. That an uneducated stupid comment such as this had to be ascribed to the fact that the maker did have a college education. And so it is here. Just enough college words, "kernal", "vexing" and others, but the fact reamins that Mr. Jackson's promotions are in lock step with the above stated priciple and the time honored tradition of tenure. Excuse me while I purge myself. I mean, if i was the CIO of a university and all I could do was give the standard MS answer to such an important question I would be outright ashamed. But sprinkle it a bit with a few nicely chosen words and the CIO has offered a wonderful answer, completely void of substance and meaning whatsoever. Eh Peter. You were so right.

He said: Well, first of all, there are viruses and Trojans that afflict MacOS,

No, there aren't. None that afflict OSX. Some that affect OS9 (but you can't get it now). Some that affect apps that run on top.

> witness Apple's periodic release of security fixes to counteract them.

Those address vulnerabilities in the underlying OS - the Unix-y stuff. They're not against known Trojans that attack OSX.

> But the small installed base of Macs makes them an unexciting, low-visibility target for the bad guys, and so the weaknesses don't get exploited much.

True.
> In the case of Unix, the vulnerabilities are greater -- even in the Mach kernel underlying MacOS -- but once again the nstalled base makes for an uninteresting target.

Sure, just all those governments, universities, research organisations... But it's true that it's higher-profile to hit Microsoft, because it's a clear target. If you hit "Unix", what have you hit?

> If, as you suggest, suddenly Macs were much more widely used, they'd rapidly become an interesting target, and we'd see more bad-guy action.

True.

> An interesting consequence of this would be a focus on Apple's policy for security updates, which is approximately that after a brief while you have to pay for them. But I digress.

What on earth is this about? Nobody has ever had to pay for a security update from Apple. They're free downloads, and pretty small.

>As to why we don't recommend more Macs anyway, which isn't really what you were asking but what the hey, there are two vexing and continuing problems: it's becoming harder and harder (and hence more and more expensive) to find qualified Mac technicians and support staff

..which is a chicken/egg thing; fewer users means less support. But neither is it rocket science. They're computers, not some alien life form. Supporting Macs is no harder than Windows. People can learn.

>, and Macs themselves, with a couple of exceptions (such as iMacs and low-end iBooks), remain stubbornly more expensive than their Windows or Linux competitors.

Except you don't have the virus downtime of the Windows machines (this is where we started, remember?) and you don't have the configuration joy of the Linux boxes. Pace Tim's comments above, you usually just get machines that talk happily on a network, and keep working through the virus storms. Seems like a recipe for admin happiness to me.

But you can hardly be surprised at Apple binning him.

Charles

I've never understood the comeback "Macs don't have viruses because of a small installed base." Is this supposed to justify staying with Windows? It makes no sense. So what if the Mac is more secure because of its relative obscurity. The fact is you can have a robustly secure system TODAY by just going and buying a Mac. It would take years for the Mac market share to get large enough to interest hackers, SO your investment in Apple today will stay secure for years! How can Windows compete with that? The Mac's smaller user base IS the competitive advantage.

By the way, in response to Tim Wood. I am a Mac consultant with relatively little experience with Windows. However, I've installed Macs in a variety of Windows and LINUX based offices and it is mind numbingly simple. I suggest you try again.

"It seems to me that Apple needs to have advice from people at major universities who are willing to call things the way they appear at their institutions, no matter whether it's totally complimentary or not."

Agreed. However, airing out this laundry in a public forum for the Chronicle of Higher Education displays an appalling lack of judgement on the part of your friend. This kind of stuff should be discussed in a less public manner with Apple, especially if he is supposedly providing support to them. This attack appears to be unprovoked and uncalled for.

"Greg notes in an email that he's been asked to publicly correct inaccuracies in his response, and that "I don't believe there are any inaccuracies, although there are many points in the interchange open to elaboration and debate..."

As many other posters have illustrated here, not only are there many points open to debate, but a majority of what Mr. Jackson said is downright false. In fact, his level of cluelessness is awe inspiring for a CIO. He can believe what he wants to believe, but most of what he believes is pure bunk.

"I don't think this kind of reaction makes Apple look very good as a company, and it makes me sad to see it."

On the contrary, this is an entirely appropriate action by Apple. They are looking for individuals to serve on their University Executive Forum who display good judgement, a firm grasp of the facts, and are sensitive to their surroundings. Based on what I am reading here, Mr. Jackson is incapable of this. In fact, he can't be trusted. Oren, the only thing sad here is your failure to also grasp this situation.

Care to rebut, Oren?

Truth is, there wasn't one sentence in Mr. Jackson's post that didn't contain at least one factual inaccuracy. His entire post is an astoundingly embarrassing display of a total lack of possession of any "infomation" regarding the subject whatsoever. And seeing as he's supposed to be the "Chief Information Officer", he shouldn't just resign from Apple's Forum; he should probably resign from the university as well. Sounds harsh, I know. But if he's that far astoundingly off base in that many areas (I count at least seven factual inaccuracies in the man's post that represent gross incomptence), there's no reason for me to think that he has much of a clue about anything else he might be blabbing about on behalf of his employer.

But if you want to know precisely why Apple wants him out of their forum, you need look no further than the part where he falsely accuses Apple of charging for security updates, or "after a brief while you have to pay for them," in his exact words. This is not only a one thousand percent false statement, it falsely accuses Apple of holding its own users hostage for cash ransom on security updates.

For him to plublicly state (on behalf of the university, for god's sake) that Apple is taking such actions when it's not? That's so far beyond belief that the CIO of a University could be doing such a think in a official capacity, it blows my mind, He's damn lucky Apple is merely asking him to resign from their forum, and not taking steps to ensure that he loses his job at the university.

When I initially posed the question to Dr. Jackson. I really wanted a serious answer, and I expected one from someone of his caliber. I was not impressed. He was inaccurate, and a somewhat condescending. Moreover, he did not actually answer my question. I really am curious--I would at least expect to see more XRack servers, whether running Mac OS X or another OS. I would expect to see more Macs used for streaming than I am seeing, and a lot more used for multimedia development and individual use. Moreover, I would expect Dr. Jackson to know at least as much as I do, not only about Mac OS X and 9, but about Sun Solaris, Microsoft XP and NT and Windows, and Linux--it's his job to be well informed. He wasn't. You can see my reactions to his response here:
http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/it/archive/000203.html
and here:
http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/it/archive/000209.html

Replying to Scott MacDonald:

Since you obviously missed the last half of my post here it is one sentence:

If Apple wants to increase the Mac's market share in the corporate world, they needs to make sure there are self-study guides for all their certifications ... just like every other platform used in corporate America.

To your comment:

After almost 20 years, I'm very biased _towards_ the Mac. So maybe that blinds me is my Mac bias, "Mr." MacDonald.

Comments that my 'bias blinds' are not just rude, they're one step removed from slamming down your caps-lock and shout "I'm a Mac bigot" to the world.

If you're not interested in helping the Mac cause, keep your bloody yap shut and don't shoot the rest of us in the foot.

Nice follow-up Lisa! Your balanced, objective analysis is in stark contrast to Dr. Jackson's often inconceivable ramblings. Even though some people took you to task for using "idiotic", you correctly pointed out that you weren't referring to the man, but to some of his assertions. Which were idiotic, by the way.

Your common sense and grasp of the truth will take you far in life. Maybe to the head of the IT department at the University of Chicago?

To Tim Woods...
Jeeeez, lighten up, his comments weren't "that bad". I think you take formal certification too seriously. For OSX, learn unix, get a unix certification or a BSD cert. if there is such a thing. That covers the down-n-dirty guts. The rest is easily covered with a couple of OSX books or just Googling or asking at one of the many Mac related discussion boards including Slash-Dot or Ars.
It really is relatively easy!

Gerg Jackson's comments are some of the most uninformed gibberish I have heard in a while, and this is coming from a "professional"...

HE SHOULD BE FIRED!

To Tim Woods or anyone else who wants or needs to know more about Mac OS X certification: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=113612

When I went to Macworld and asked about basic Mac certification they said to take the Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist Certification and I would be able to answer and deal with most basic problems that come up. They told me all I need to do is read most of the popular books out on OS X and I could pass certification like The Missing Manual series by David Pogue or Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks if you need more in depth info, both from O'REILLY. All the books I have read so far on OS X have shown how to hook a mac up to the network and get it rolling so if you buy the books Tim, the rest should be very easy.

Yes, Apple needs solid feedback from the education community, even if it is unfavorable; however, given his association with Apple, your friend chose an inappropriate forum to express those opinions, IMHO.

1. Viruses/trojans -- If the Macintosh, and Unix systems, are not immune from these afflictions, so what? Since every other platform is also vulnerable--and many are presently more vulnerable, for the reasons he stated--this doesn't explain why Macs make unattractive purchases.

2. What "for pay" security patches are we talking about here?

3. Qualified Mac technicians and support staff -- Probably true but a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, don't you think?

4. Cost -- No contest here (we could argue about how full-featured most Macs are to similarly unenhanced PCs right out of the box), but Macs cost more. In my experience, they also fail a lot less often.

He appears to be so clueless he can't even set (or have set)
up many of the links on his WWW page properly:
http://whodunit.uchicago.edu/gj/

(See embedded "file://" links to his local files ... duhhhhh!!!)