State of Emergency

By Jerry Pournelle

June 14, 2004

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We have just recovered from a series of disasters. I am not at all sure what happened, but it's worth telling the story. This is Chaos Manor, where we do all kinds of silly things so you don't have to.

One thing is certain. If you ever have to configure Outlook and Outlook Express on a new machine while trying to get back where you were at 11:00 this morning, you might contemplate suicide by self-immolation as a less painful alternative. Thanks, Microsoft.

Connecting to the Mac

The first problem came about because of Ariadne, my 15" PowerBook. It wasn't her fault, precisely, but she was instrumental in goading me into putting a computer into an unrecoverable attitude, as we used to say about airplanes.

The first renditions of Mac OS X couldn't network to Windows for sour owl jowls, and if you wanted a Mac on a Windows Active Directory Domain, you were well advised to buy "Dave" or "AdmitMac" from www.thursby.com and install that. It knew how to make the networking happen, and nothing else did.

Updates to Mac OS X fixed that, sort of. With OS X 10.3 it's possible to connect up to a Mac from Windows machines, and once the connection is made, it works pretty seamlessly. It works the Mac way, not the Windows way, and that can make for confusion if the same person is using both Mac and Windows systems because you have to switch habits of mind; if you stick with Mac or with Windows, you'll get used to it.

Alas, it doesn't always work, and when it doesn't, the Mac philosophy doesn't leave you many choices.

I See You But You Are Not There

The first thing you have to remember is that with the Mac, the menu bar—there's nothing quite like it on Windows—changes depending on what application you are in. With Windows there's a tool bar for each application, so if you're in one of them you'll have its tool bar, and if you want to go to another you can see the tool bar in place before you focus on the application.

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