Tag Archives: Mac OS

Outsourcing Blues

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An actual transcript from a “technical support” chat with Microsoft.

Outsourcing telephone support jobs to cheaper foreign labor sources is one of the reasons my sister is currently unemployed. But that’s just one of the reasons I’m so opposed to outsourcing. The other is obvious from this actual transcript from a recent technical support session I had with Microsoft. This alone is one good reason to avoid buying products from companies that outsource their technical support.

Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP Chat Support
The Windows XP Chat Session has been accepted.

{Vinoth}Thank you for using Microsoft Windows XP Chat Support. My name is Vinoth. May I address you by your first name?
{Maria Langer}Yes.
{Vinoth}Thank you.
{Vinoth}Maria, how are you today?
{Maria Langer}I’d be better if I could get this thing to work.
{Maria Langer}Can I explain my configuration to you? It’s somewhat unusual.
{Maria Langer}I think knowing what I have here will help you.
{Vinoth}Maria, please do not worry, I will put my level best to fix this issue.
{Vinoth}Sure.
{Maria Langer}All the computers are networked via a wireless network on an Airport Base Station.
{Vinoth}Okay.
{Maria Langer}So I know the wireless part is okay.
{Maria Langer}The printer is an HP LaserJet 2100TN network printer.
{Maria Langer}It is connected to one of the Macs via an Ethernet cable and hub.
{Maria Langer}I cannot, however get the PC to print to the printer.
{Vinoth}Is your computer is connected to a Domain or a Workgroup?
{Maria Langer}Domain or workgroup. Not sure what you mean.
{Vinoth}Is the airport basestation is connected to any fileserver?
{Maria Langer}No.
{Vinoth}Okay.
{Vinoth}Just to make sure I have the correct information, could you please confirm the following information?
Case ID : SRZ050606001585
Email Address : mlanger@xxx.com
Phone Number : 928-684-XXXX
{Maria Langer}That looks right
{Vinoth}In case, if we need to contact you through phone regarding this issue, what would be the best suitable time (A two hour time slot with the time zone)?
{Maria Langer}Mornings are best. I’m here by 7 AM MST.
{Vinoth}We are going to troubleshoot this issue through chat and in case if we need to contact you through, can I take the suitable call back time as 7 am – 9 am MST?
{Maria Langer}Any time from 7 AM to 3 PM should work.
{Maria Langer}That’s a more precise answer.
{Vinoth}Okay.
{Vinoth}Maria, I understand that you want to install a network printer in your wireless network environment, is this correct?
{Maria Langer}Let me try this again.
{Vinoth}Okay.
{Maria Langer}I want to connect to an existing printer that is connected to a computer accessible via a wireless network.
{Maria Langer}Ok.
{Maria Langer}I guess the terminology would be to “add” a network printer to Windows.
{Vinoth}May I know how many computers connected in your network?
{Maria Langer}There are actually 3 Macs and 2 PCs, including my husband’s laptop in the other room. But I don’t access the Laptop.
{Vinoth}Maria, I understand that you have 3 Macs and 2 PCs and your laptop, currently the HP Printer is connected to one of the MAC and working correctly as a Local Printer, now you want to install that printer as a network printer so that you can give print from any one of this computer, is this correct?
{Maria Langer}Yes, but that printer is also working fine as a network printer among the Macs. Printer sharing is turned on on the Mac.
{Maria Langer}I don’t think it’s working as a “local” printer at all. They all access via the network.
{Maria Langer}The answer, according to the Apple support site, is to set up SMB/CIFS printer sharing.
{Maria Langer}There’s nothing about it in onscreen help.
{Maria Langer}http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1770.html
{Vinoth}Okay.
{Vinoth}Do you able to access that network computer through any of the other two Windows XP Desktop computers?
{Maria Langer}Yes.
{Maria Langer}The computer I’m trying to print from has no trouble “talking” to any of the Macs via the Wireless network.
{Vinoth}May I know the operating system of both the MAC and the Desktop Computer (XP Home or Professional)?
{Maria Langer}Mac = Mac OS X 10.4.1
{Maria Langer}PC = Windows XP Home
{Vinoth}Thank you for providing this information. Please give me 2 to 5 minutes, while I go through this case information. In the meantime, please read through the following:
{Vinoth}In the meantime, if for any reason you need to reconnect to Chat Support regarding this issue, please use your SRZ case number.

To reconnect, please do the following:
1) Open “Help & Support”
2) Choose to “Get Support”
3) Choose to “Get Help from Microsoft”
4) On the next screen, choose the option to “View My Support Requests”
5) Click on this SRZ Case number in the ID list and then select Chat.
{Maria Langer}Okay. Perhaps you can point me to a document with the following information:
{Maria Langer}”To print to your printer, Windows users must configure an SMB/CIFS network printer and use the Postscript printer driver, even if the printer isn’t a Postscript printer. Your Mac will translate the Postscript code into code the printer can understand. Have the Windows users see their Windows documentation for information on adding a network printer.”
{Vinoth}Okay.
{Vinoth}Now, all the computers in the network able to communicate with each other (both the Mac & Desktop Win XP) and the HP printer is working as a network printer and you can able to access the printer on all the MAC computer and now you want to share the printer so the Windows XP Computer can also access that computer, is this correct?
{Maria Langer}The printer is already set up for sharing, but the PC can’t “see” it.
{Maria Langer}In other words, I’ve done everything correctly on the Mac side. It’s the windows side I can’t get set up right.
{Vinoth}Does only the Windows XP Desktop computer unable to access the Printer or the MAC?
{Maria Langer}Yes.
{Vinoth}Does the MAC computer able to access this network printer?
{Maria Langer}Yes.
{Maria Langer}All of the computers can print to the printer EXCEPT THE WINDOWS PC.
{Vinoth}Okay, please give me 5 to 7 minutes to research this issue.
{Vinoth}Thanks for waiting. I appreciate your patience.
{Vinoth}Maria, since the printer is connected to one of the MAC, it lies under out of our Windows XP Support boundary, but still I will my level best to fix this issue.
{Vinoth}I’m going to research this issue for you now. It could take up to 5 to 8 minutes to check every possible avenue for a resolution to our issue. If you need to step away from the computer for a few minutes while I’m researching it, please feel free to do so. Your patience and co-operation is highly appreciated.
{Maria Langer}THIS IS BULLSHIT. The problem is, you don’t understand English.
{Maria Langer}While I was waiting for you to decipher the information, I FIXED THE DAMN PROBLEM.
{Maria Langer}Why do you think I have FIVE MACS and only one PC?
{Maria Langer}Because I’m sick of dealing with support people who will use any excuse they can to NOT answer a question they don’t understand.
{Vinoth}I am sorry for the inconvenience.

At that point, I left the chat.

Subsequently, Microsoft tried to contact me several times to talk to me about this session. I refused to talk to them.

It’s a shame that one of the biggest companies in the world, owned by the richest man in the world, turns its back on the U.S. public by outsourcing jobs to people who don’t even have the basic communications skills needed to get the job done.

I’d ask everyone to boycott Microsoft, but we all know how impossible that is. Instead, I ask that if you have a similar experience, write to Microsoft to complain. Let them know that U.S. customers want to be supported by U.S. workers. Keep jobs for American companies in the U.S.

AirPort Express with AirTunes

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I buy yet another gadget for my Macs.

I’d just finished writing the Networking chapter of my Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Visual QuickStart Guide when my editor, Cliff, called me into an iChat chat. Cliff and I often use iChat during the day to ask each other quick questions.

“Why didn’t you include AirPort Express in the book?” he wanted to know.

“I don’t have one of those,” I told him. Or at least I typed at his icon, which was a orange globe that day. “I can’t be expected to buy every piece of Apple hardware,” I added.

This was true. Every year, I invested hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars buying the Apple hardware I needed to write my Mac OS X book. A new desktop Mac every two years. A new laptop every three years. AirPort base stations and cards. iPods. Digital cameras, scanners, color printers. The list went on and on. It was very costly and I had a huge collection of old hardware that I just didn’t have time to put on eBay. Apple might help legitimate authors out with software, but it seldom coughed up hardware for the cause.

“But we should mention it,” he insisted.

“Do people buy it?”

“I’m sure they do.”

I switched over to Safari and surfed on over to the Apple store where I read a description of AirPort Express. Among other things, it enabled you to send iTunes data from an AirPort-equiped Mac to compatible stereo speakers. I thought about Mike and his desire to buy a new receiver. I looked at the price. Oh hell. What was another $129?

So I bought one.

It’s actually a pretty cool little device. It plugs into a wall socket and has three ports: USB, Ethernet, and Audio Out. You plug the Ethernet into a Mac, cable modem or DSL connection, or hub. (Mine isn’t plugged into anything.) You plug the USB into a printer, so the printer is accessible to users on the network. (Mine isn’t plugged into anything.) And you plug the audio out into a pair of stereo speakers or, in our case, a stereo receiver with speakers attached.

Then you configure the whole thing with the AirPort Setup Assistant. You have two options: configure it just so it sends iTunes to the speakers or configure it so it extends an existing AirPort network. I chose the second option. I mean, why not? And the iTunes to stereo thing still works.

It’s kind of cool to control the stereo upstairs with my PowerBook in the kitchen.

I’m impressed. I added a tiny bit of info to the book about it. But I’m also going to write an article about it for InformIt.com. That’s how I pay for this stuff, after all.

Clash of the Technologies

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I teach an old computer new tricks.

I have a 20th Anniversary Mac. I bought it about six months after they were released and got a pretty good deal on it. It sits on a table in my living room, a piece of functional art. It runs System 7.6 — if anyone can remember that. The cool thing about this computer — other than the fact that both a floppy disk drive and CD ROM drive are built into the monitor — is that it has a Bose sound system. It also has a stereo receiver and, somehow, my cleaning lady has learned how to tune in Mexican music while she works.

Anyway, I bought an iPod Photo a few months back so I could write about it. I really don’t need an iPod Photo, but once you have something like that, you try to come up with ways to make it useful. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could attach the iPod to the Mac, play music through those Bose speakers, and show photos onscreen?

Remember, the 20th Anniversary Mac is old technology. It dates back to ADB, Serial, and SCSI ports. There wasn’t any USB or Firewire in those days. But it does have an S-Video port and a microphone-in port. So I started experimenting.

The iPod Photo’s dock includes both an S-Video port and an audio line-out port. I didn’t have an S-video cable with the multi-pin connectors on both sides. But I did remember someone saying that an ADB cable’s pins are the same configuration as an S-video cable. So I took an old keyboard cable from the office, brought it home, and used it to connect the Mac to the dock. Then I took a standard RCA-type stereo cable and connected it from the line-out port on the top of the iPod to the Mac. (When I connected that cable from the dock to the Mac, I had no volume control and I still can’t figure out why.)

I fired up the two devices and set up a slide show. The iPod’s music immediately played through the Mac’s Bose speakers. It sounded really good at any volume. But to get the video to show up, I had to fire up an application that comes with the 20th Anniversary Mac. I think it’s called Apple Video Player. It enables me to use the built-in TV tuner (which doesn’t work here on the edge of nowhere) or to take video from an external source. It recognized the iPod Photo’s signal and displayed the images onscreen as a slide show. The only drawback: I had to set monitor resolution to 640 x 480 to get it to work right.

So now, when I have company, I can entertain them with music and a slide show, playing in the background while we chat.

Needless to say, I use the 20th Anniversary Mac a bit more often now.

Tiger: The Saga Continues

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I continue work on my Tiger book.

The other day, I got a new Tiger build from Apple. I’d been waiting anxiously for it. My editor, Cliff, who’d been at the Keynote address at Macworld Expo had reported that the build Steve Jobs was using for his demo looked different from what we had. Although most authors wouldn’t mind a few appearance differences, my book has over 2,000 screenshots in it and every minor difference will affect at least one page. So after having some difficulties with Font Book and not being motivated enough to revise the Classic chapter, I put the book aside to wait for new software.

The differences, it turns out, are not major. Sure, some screenshots will change, but not many. The New Burnable Folder command has become the New Burn Folder command — that little change will force me to revise every single screenshot of the File menu. But hey, I expect stuff like that. It goes with the territory. It’s one of the drawbacks of writing about software that hasn’t been completed yet.

Interestingly, I’ll work with the software right up to the Gold Master and still get the book out on time. That’s because of the “system” Peachpit and I have for getting these books done. No other publisher works the way we do. As a result, if another book comes out on time, it’s likely based on something other than the Gold Master. That means it’ll have errors in it. But more likely, other books will be delayed and will appear on shelves a month or more after Mac OS X 10.4 has gone to the Apple Stores and is available in new computers.

Yesterday, I worked on the Applications chapter, the one where I go into some detail on how to use the applications that come with Mac OS X. We’ve decided to folk the i-Apps chapter into this one, so it’s likely to be a very long chapter. I got about 20 pages done yesterday and I hope to finish it up today. I found two surprises in the Applications folder: a brand new application that I’m looking forward to using every day and the return of an old application that disappeared when Mac OS X was first released. I’m not sure if I can talk about them — Apple is notoriously secretive about pre-release software and I don’t want to get sued — so I won’t. But I think Mac users will be pleasantly surprised (as I was) to find at least one of these new tools.

The book is over 600 pages long so I have a lot of work to do. It’s my biggest book, both in size and sales, and the one I’m proudest of. Mac OS has grown quite a bit since I first wrote about it for Mac OS 8. It has far more features and is a bit more complex than the Mac OS of the old days. The book makes the complex features simple and the simple features even simpler. It also has tons of tips and tricks for using Mac OS X.

Writing about Tiger

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I begin work on my Mac OS X book revision.

I started working on my Tiger book this week.

So far, I have three of the 21 chapters done. I skipped Chapter 1, which is about installation and configuration. I always do that one last. Instead, I dove right into the Finder chapters: Finder Basics, File Management, Advanced Finder Techniques.

I added some new information to the File Management chapter about a new and undocumented feature called burnable folders. This was a challenge. Although I could figure out how to use this feature and write sufficiently about it, there wasn’t a single mention of it anywhere in online help or Apple’s Tiger Web pages.

What burns me up about this is that although I couldn’t find any official documentation about the feature, there was an article, with screen shots, on someone else’s Web site. Why does that burn me up? Because I had to sign a nondisclosure and swear up and down that I wouldn’t share anything about Tiger — especially screen shots — with anyone until the software was released. Technically, if my husband looks over my shoulder while I’m writing, I’d be in violation of this agreement. So that prevents me from giving my readers a sneak preview of the software and getting them all fired up for what’s to come. Yet someone else can publish articles on the Web, for the world to see, without getting in trouble. Does that sound fair?

Anyway, about burnable folders, to make matters worse, since I’m working with pre-release software, the feature isn’t perfected yet and is a bit buggy. Or perhaps it just set up conflicts with my screen shot software. In any case, my eMac was acting up and had to be restarted periodically. So it took me the better part of an afternoon to write two new pages and rewrite two others.

The Advanced Finder Techniques chapter was completely reworked. I pulled a lot of material out of this chapter to make a new chapter (Chapter 6) about customizing the Finder. This required complete renumbering of all figures throughout the chapter. A tedious task, but someone has to do it.

Next week, I continue writing with a brand new chapter about Apple’s new Spotlight and Smart Folders features. I hope to be able to knock that one off in two days.