Showing messages 1 through 7 of 7.

• Open Standards Zealot
  2004-05-27 22:07:25  xerobase [View]
  
  
  > I'm glad your experience with installing Airport
  > cards went smoothly. Mine did not.
  
  And therein lies the rub. You get to report your individual experience from the O'Reilly platform, while the rest of us who have little or no similar trouble can only bemoan another veiled mac-bashing in the Comments.
  
  > My post was not a diatribe against the Mac. Only
  > against those people who have been telling me ...
  > that the Mac is a panacea.
  
  Then the post is simply ill-conceived to begin with, or at the least just poorly written, because you don't bother to make clear "the point" until the last paragraph.

• Open Standards Zealot
  2004-05-27 09:53:04  Chris Shiflett | [View]
  
  
  > C) More to the point, please, whatever you think
  > of my post, don't call me a liar. If you'd like
  > to talk to me or my wife (who was standing next
  > to me) about the Apple "genius" who clearly had
  > never seen single user mode, you can contact me
  > directly.
  
  I believe he was referring to this comment:
  
  > He'd never seen a command line.
  
  Showing someone the output of fsck in single user mode and coming to the conclusion that he/she has never seen a command line is a bit of a stretch, regardless of the reaction you observed.
  
  Because the original poster did not agree with your conclusion, he stated:
  
  > I simply don't believe that an employee
  > designated to be an Apple "genius" at a retail
  > store didn't know what a command line was and
  > didn't know that the Mac offered it.
  
  I don't see this as questioning your integrity but rather disagreeing with your logic.
• Open Standards Zealot
  2004-05-27 10:18:20  Justin Gehtland | [View]
  
  
  Ahhhhh....I see the confusion now, thanks. ;-)
  
  So, let me go back and make it perfectly clear: it was not that he had never seen fsck. It was that he'd never seen the Mac in CLI mode. It was unclear whether or not he'd ever seen ANYTHING in CLI mode, but he was, and this was clear from further discussion with him, that he had no idea that the Mac could be interacted with in that way.
  
  I hope that helps clear it up.
• Red Herring Argument
  2004-05-27 10:36:46  jmincey [View]
  
  
  Justin, are you absolutely sure the person you spoke with was an Apple "genius"? I ask because at times the most tech savvy sales person may substitute for the genius or help out if one is out sick or on vacation or if the store is otherwise short staffed.
  
  In my experience, even the Apple SALES people (at their retail stores) are quite aware that OS X includes a "Terminal" utility which permits access to the UNIX shells and shell tools (and CLI syntax). They may not all know about single-user mode specifically, but even this is fairly common knowledge to anyone who is so much as a casual visitor to the discussion forums on Apple's web site. I have been pleasantly surprised by the technical fluency of the staff at the Apple stores.
  
  This is why I suggest you may have misunderstood the individual you spoke with. When they spoke of never having seen something before, maybe they were referring to the specific error message which was being reported. And in any event, the Apple people have a protocol to confer with each other in the event one can't help a customer with his problem. No employee can know everything.
  
  Meantime, I'm not among those who thinks Apple (or Steve Jobs) walks on water. At the end of the day, the Macintosh is a machine and OS X is an operating system designed and developed by fallible humans. But I don't know anyone who says anything to the contrary. Even the greatest Mac proponent will acknowledge that the Mac is not flawless -- after all, if it were without flaw, then there would be no need for Apple to release bug-fix updates nor for Apple to maintain a large tech support department. So let me suggest this is a red herring -- you are arguing against a position that no one takes in the first place. (Or can you indeed show me someone who contends that the Mac is a perfect machine?)
• Red Herring Argument
  2004-05-27 10:45:14  Justin Gehtland | [View]
  
  
  Please see my post called "Starting to regret picking on the Mac."
  
  As for whether or not my Genius was a Genius, well, he could have been a Martian in human clothes (and an Apple t-shirt) for all I can prove. All I know is:
  
  a) he claimed he was the Genius on shift
  b) that he had never seen single-user mode before
  c) the only thing he could suggest was running Norton
  
  I'm sure that most Apple Genuises are smart, helpful people. Please, Apple Geniuses, don't hunt me down! You are doing a great job!
  
  
• Red Herring Argument
  2004-05-27 11:26:27  jmincey [View]
  
  
  >Please see my post called "Starting to regret picking on the Mac."
  
  And this post would be...where?
• Red Herring Argument
  2004-05-27 15:00:14  Justin Gehtland | [View]
  
  
  http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4969