mac look alike

[mdovell at comcast.net]

"A workplace should really lock down what employees are allowed 
to do on their computers. There are solutions for that, like AD." 

They were more concerned because there was one virus that spread around (2002 or 2003) I remember it because it went from company to company. It maximized resources to nearly 100% and took an hour to fully cure per computer...that was a long day. Eventually we got tired of running the anti virus checkers 
because they never really found anything and stripping out five hours of productivity a week wasn't worth it. 

> In another place they use linux somewhat but it's still mostly 
> command line (no gui? why?). 

"Perhaps they don't need it? I don't use a gui on my Debian servers." 

It isn't so much of a need than a want because new employees aren't used to using it and GUI would make things significantly easier. It was also quite embarrasing to try to sell customers on things since there is hardly any graphics or photos being displayed at all. A radio shack TRS-80 had a more comprehensive display than what this company used. 

> There's so many places that could easily use the OS but for some 
> reason they like spending more money on things. 

"It's not that simple, though. For instance, I worked at a place some 
years ago where another person and I introduced Linux for server 
usage. But the boss was weary, because we were the only ones 
who knew how to use them. So, while Linux is free, it is also a 
matter of knowledge in how to use it." 

True but the place is a company with a market cap of billions. They would have to send people from North Carolina all over the country rather than hire someone locally or at least instruct people as to what could be done. Sure there's a lack of trust but you can't do that on a national scale for long...and now they want to expand overseas! 

> Emulation I think might bridge some of this gap. Applications I saw 
> much of the time were old DOS ones which were emulated in windows. 

"Lots of places have DOS-based legacy software they use. As long 
as it works, they don't see the need to upgrade." 

That's certainly true and at least if they won't see a return on investment. But the trouble with that is if a system is too proprietary it could turn off other companies from doing business with it. And if a vendor goes out of business well you can forget that system lasting long. I know a place that still uses Wangs! Once those break down forget it there's no repair man. They actually used OS/2 warp with dos unless you have someone inhouse for the long term to work on it then it won't work well. 

-- 
Odd 
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