Goddamn macs

[neutralizer]

So I was "working" on a project last Tuesday in Imaging while browsing ATOT 😉 and then i get that stupid spinny wheel of death and the teacher announces that the mac server went down. So on Thursday, when I have the class again, the Macs are still down and I'm just spending the time browsing ATOT, I don't mind that, but I think its a waste when I can be ditching :evil:. And now today, the macs are supposedly working, but when I try again, I get the spinny wheel of death again. dang macs, even an apple tech support is here right now and after an hour, he still can't fix it. then again, neither could my school techs over the weekend.

 

[MazerRackham]

I've never had a problem with my mac, but then again maybe I'm just really special?

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Sounds like my workplace. New iMacs arrive, complete with specially ordered software. Install new software. Turns out the new software kills the iMacs so completely that only an AARS can revive them.

 

[neutralizer]

Yeah, but right at my school, we have to connect to a server to access our files. I can't login or access my file. Piece of sh!t!

 

[notfred]

Spinny wheel of death?

 

[UNCjigga]

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Well, it is a stupid cursor! 😀

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Yes when Macs freeze, they have this rainbow colored that spins... I guess it's supposed to be less aggravating than a BSOD because it can be soothing

 

[PatboyX]

Originally posted by: Jigga

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Well, it is a stupid cursor! 😀

i work with all macs in a school system.
we like to refer to it as the beach ball.

that way we can catch ourselves in the middle of screaming "son of a...beach ball" and not be too inappropriate in front of the children.

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: PatboyX

Originally posted by: Jigga

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Well, it is a stupid cursor! 😀

i work with all macs in a school system.
we like to refer to it as the beach ball.

that way we can catch ourselves in the middle of screaming "son of a...beach ball" and not be too inappropriate in front of the children.

my school has all PCs except for the fine arts department that has all macs because macs still run photoshop faster than the 1.4 ghz p4s in the media center and the 733 mhz cellys we have in the comp sci lab. however, the macs freeze so much due to their lack of ram and processor speed. not to the mention the network is sooooo loaded.

it's funny how dell and the school managed the make the 733 mhz cellys run 10x slower than my 3.0ghz p4.

but calling it a beach ball is kinda creative.

 

[RossMAN]

All the Macs I have ever owned have been 10x more reliable than their PC counterparts.

Of course they're also slow, OS is buggy (haven't used OS X yet) and over priced for what you get.

My Mac Plus (dual floppies, no hard drive), Performa 630CD and iMac B all work just fine and are great paper weights 🙂

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Yes when Macs freeze, they have this rainbow colored that spins... I guess it's supposed to be less aggravating than a BSOD because it can be soothing

It's called the "beach ball" by everyone but you. It doesn't come up when the machine freezes, but when it's busy. It's similar to the hourglass in windows. Sometimes you will see it when an app has frozen. in that case, kill the application that's having a problem. If the whole OS crashes (which I've only seen once) you get a screen that says "you need to restart your computer" in about 10 different languages.

 

[JetsFanatic]

Originally posted by: MazerRackham
I've never had a problem with my mac, but then again maybe I'm just really special?

me too

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Yes when Macs freeze, they have this rainbow colored that spins... I guess it's supposed to be less aggravating than a BSOD because it can be soothing

It's called the "beach ball" by everyone but you. It doesn't come up when the machine freezes, but when it's busy. It's similar to the hourglass in windows. Sometimes you will see it when an app has frozen. in that case, kill the application that's having a problem. If the whole OS crashes (which I've only seen once) you get a screen that says "you need to restart your computer" in about 10 different languages.

i'm calling it the "spinny wheel of death" because thats what my imaging teacher and the techs are calling it. funny, i can't kill the application when i have the "beach ball" and the imaging teacher tells me to restart.

and godammit, the scroll wheel is scrolling too fast!! and the mouse settings wont load right now. :|

 

[PowerMacG5]

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Yes when Macs freeze, they have this rainbow colored that spins... I guess it's supposed to be less aggravating than a BSOD because it can be soothing

It's called the "beach ball" by everyone but you. It doesn't come up when the machine freezes, but when it's busy. It's similar to the hourglass in windows. Sometimes you will see it when an app has frozen. in that case, kill the application that's having a problem. If the whole OS crashes (which I've only seen once) you get a screen that says "you need to restart your computer" in about 10 different languages.

i'm calling it the "spinny wheel of death" because thats what my imaging teacher and the techs are calling it. funny, i can't kill the application when i have the "beach ball" and the imaging teacher tells me to restart.

and godammit, the scroll wheel is scrolling too fast!! and the mouse settings wont load right now. :|

It's called Force Quit (Hold command option and escape). I have been using my mac almost exclusively for now 3 months almost, and have never once brought the OS down. And like notfred said, it is known as the beach ball, and has a similar function to that of the hourglass in windows.

Originally posted by: JetsFanatic

Originally posted by: MazerRackham
I've never had a problem with my mac, but then again maybe I'm just really special?

me too

Me three.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: neutralizer
i'm calling it the "spinny wheel of death" because thats what my imaging teacher and the techs are calling it. funny, i can't kill the application when i have the "beach ball" and the imaging teacher tells me to restart.

and godammit, the scroll wheel is scrolling too fast!! and the mouse settings wont load right now. :|

How much confidence would you have in a teacher or PC technician that he was able to keep the machine maintained properly if he referred to a BSOD as "the blue crashy screen"?

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: Marauder911

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: notfred
Spinny wheel of death?

Yes when Macs freeze, they have this rainbow colored that spins... I guess it's supposed to be less aggravating than a BSOD because it can be soothing

It's called the "beach ball" by everyone but you. It doesn't come up when the machine freezes, but when it's busy. It's similar to the hourglass in windows. Sometimes you will see it when an app has frozen. in that case, kill the application that's having a problem. If the whole OS crashes (which I've only seen once) you get a screen that says "you need to restart your computer" in about 10 different languages.

i'm calling it the "spinny wheel of death" because thats what my imaging teacher and the techs are calling it. funny, i can't kill the application when i have the "beach ball" and the imaging teacher tells me to restart.

and godammit, the scroll wheel is scrolling too fast!! and the mouse settings wont load right now. :|

It's called Force Quit (Hold command option and escape). I have been using my mac almost exclusively for now 3 months almost, and have never once brought the OS down. And like notfred said, it is known as the beach ball, and has a similar function to that of the hourglass in windows.

Originally posted by: JetsFanatic

Originally posted by: MazerRackham
I've never had a problem with my mac, but then again maybe I'm just really special?

me too

Me three.

Im a Mac n00b so i don't know these things. the only sad part is the techs have had already a week to fix it and its not completely fixed yet. I still can't login, but i can access my files.

 

[Platypus]

My experience with Mac computer labs, at least at my university is that whoever sets them up really doesn't care enough to do it right. I have yet to have a serious problem with a Mac, hardware or software(that was Mac's fault, not 3rd party garbage), and I fix/rebuild PCs with new parts every day. I'd say it's a 100 to 1 ratio between brand new Dells breaking and Macs breaking. In fact, the only thing I've ever had to replace on a Mac was the hard drive, which incidently was an IBM Deathstar.

 

[helpme]

Netinfo blows, which is why you are having so much trouble in your situation (sounds like your machines are part of a netinfo domain).

I don't usually have any problems with my G4 ibook, but when it comes to my mom's school, failure ensues on any computer belonging to the netinfo domain.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation
My experience with Mac computer labs, at least at my university is that whoever sets them up really doesn't care enough to do it right.

That is definitely the biggest problem. We have about 6 Macs in my office for the arty folks at my company and for the longest time they were the redheaded stepchild of our technology investments because no one cared enough to figure out how to integrate them into the network.

Enter: Jzero. "You can't get rid of the Macs. They are going to use Macs, and that is the way it's going to be." I've got it to the point where the only reason they still have PCs on their desks is because Entourage sucks donkey nuts. All someone needed to do was spend an hour at AppleCare and Google figuring out how to get them what they needed.

Aside from sh!tty Entourage, they never crash and they can function much the same as any other networked PC.

 

[dsd17]

That "spinny ball of death" or "beach ball" is actually supposed to resemble a cd-rom spinning. This is done when it is accessing data (as someone mentioned above). If you are on OS X, you can still usually get up to the apple menu and click on Force quit to quit the application that is causing issues. This is usually seen as a red application instead of black if it is actually frozen.

 

[Eug]

What OS?

If OS 9 then you're SOL, because OS 9 just sucks.

If OS X then make sure you have enough RAM. Something like 256 is recommended for basic surfing, and a lot more if you do anything substantial. OS X itself is uber-stable though. Some apps for it may not be, but if an app is stuck you can always just kill it and continue working fine (with no need for a restart). Well, that's assuming that those machines are set up properly, which as others have said isn't something one can assume.

 

[TitanDiddly]

0wn3d!

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: MazerRackham
I've never had a problem with my mac, but then again maybe I'm just really special?

Educational institutions generally don't pay enough. I could fix the PCs I'm using now to work well, but they want someone cheap (FI, I can install spyware, IM clients, and filesharing clients...but I can't get homework done--OK, of the 40+ PCs I can access any time of the day here, ONE has a java compiler [that's 40+ PCs with multiple IDEs, but no working compiler], and Sun's SDK won't install because it checks permissions).

Now take that working model, and add niche products like Macs. Disaster. Hardware isn't better or worse, and when it comes down to what they will be used for, maybe not software...but the maintenance guys...

 

[MAME]

everyone in my cs class hates using the mac lab. They're new computers too, lcd's and all

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: MAME
everyone in my cs class hates using the mac lab. They're new computers too, lcd's and all

Are they badly managed, your needed software not on the macs, or are your classmates idiots? Just for the desktop, I'd be using them. 🙂 (Or, by some fluke, do your Windows boxes not horribly suck?)