But as an off-the-grid user how to "play nice" with the people around you.
As I've said I like lists so here are my steps to being a mac in a pc world:
- Realize you are not entitled to the platform of your choice. You are the alien and they owe you nothing. You've been given something in that you get a choice. So try to play nice.
- Purchase the MS office suite for mac. One of the first steps to playing nice is using what they use.
- Get a PC. Install some sort of virtualization software on your computer. I prefer VMWare, however, given that our "PC's" are all virtual at Perimeter I prefer to use a client as it doesn't use my processor or memory.
- Map the network drives. Mounting in mac vernacular. These are actually a great drop zone between your virtual PC and your mac, plus you'll need it to access network files.
- If you have multiple drives to mount use automator to write a script to mount all of them at once. Save as an application and put in your dock.
- Download screenshots for free from versiontracker.com. Your PC friends can't open you png screenshot files easily. Screenshots let's you determine what format they save in.
- Obviously get a good security suite and password protect your machine. You are now an open tunnel into the network.
- Get IP addresses for your printers and print via IP. Our IT department is so awesome they added a server side application that allows me to add printers as a bonjour printer. I bet Tony may tell you guys what that is in a comment.
4 comments:
Great thoughts Scott. The only thing I'd add is that one can save the $80 + Windows license by using Citrix or Provision Networks. I've had great success that way. One has to realize that Entourage isn't Outlook, and without regularly being in Outlook, life in our environment is VERY difficult...
Great advice, Scott. I totally agree. I work in a 99% Windows 1% Mac environment, but I have found it pretty easy to bring a mac onto our network and function without many problems.
That whole Entourage not being Outlook that Richard brought up is so true... unless all you need is email and your basic personal calendar. I'm just digging into Entourage '08, though, which I've found is already much better than '04.
OK, since you asked. The "print" product is ExtremeZ-IP Print Server. Here's the info: http://www.grouplogic.com/products/print_server/overview.cfm
Nice post - and I've bene looking for ExtremeZ-IP or similar but having had a quick look that price is rather high - especially for a single MAC user we have on out network.
You mehtion using Autoamtor to script the drive mounts - can you point me to a post / url that takes a novice through that as our MAC user is a MAC die hard but hasn't a clue other than the design frontend and I have to do the rest.
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