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I would like to thank everyone for their responses, all of which were
helpful. I received twelve responses, one out of office announcement, and
had one phone call.
I did a poor job of asking what I needed to know, as about half of those who
responded politely pointed out ("I'm not sure what you are looking for..."),
so let me clarify. I need to get my Macintosh knowledge and skills back up
to speed, so was soliciting resources that would at least help me brush up
on what I used to know, and catch up on what has changed over the years.
Since this will be for an "engagement" in a research and development
company, any insight on what I am likely to find there helps, what is state
of the art and what is the business reality. I can imagine finding equipment
that I was familiar with nine years ago, because someone won't sign off on
the req for a newer machine, or someone bringing in their trusty Mac Plus
and insisting that this is what they will use (because I have worked with
people who brought in their own machines!).
I am being brought in primarily to fill a management need, managing an IT
desktop support function. This is because I have management experience, and
because I am familiar with CGI's Management Frameworks (insert your own
Dilbert joke here). The customer wants us to manage this function so they
don't have to, and manage it "our way". In all fairness and all joking
aside, our Management Frameworks do get the job done, or else there is NO
WAY I would be working on this assessment. And, it appears that this
client's growing company does not want to have to worry about this area, so
they can focus on their core business. This environment has about 350
Macintosh, 150 PCs, and 60 servers of currently unknown OSs. Which OSs is
one of our questions, as well as some standard questions about what is
supported and how. Perhaps this is my bias because I am more technical than
just management, but I think it important to understand the involved
technologies really well, if only to be able to talk intelligently with and
understand the issues of the individuals who we will manage.
I understand that the size of this environment matters, as it brings with it
its own issues. This could double in one to two years.
I have been told:
good resources:
http://www.macintouch.com an excellent news site that covers Apple and third
party software and
hardware, as well as related issues, and the page is updated every day.
http://til.info.apple.com Applecare Tech Info Library.
Adam Engst's "Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook" helps
users of one side understand how to do a similar thing on the other side.
<http://www.tidbits.com/bookbits/staff.html#crossing>
There are numerous books available, such as "Mac OS 9 for Dummies" that
cover all the new features quite nicely. For the more technically oriented,
there is "The Mac OS Bible" (or similar title).
At a minimum everyone should be running Mac OS 8.1 or higher. What I'd hope
you'd see would be every Mac running 9.0.4. V9 is quite widely adopted; it's
been out for about ten months. It's significantly more stable, and of
course, it's required for all the new systems. V9 has much better
multiprocessing support than V8.5 and earlier, so it could be of interest to
the scientific users. V9 does not work on older (non-PowerPC) Macintoshes,
however, so if they've got any pre-1996 machines, they'll be running 8.x.
Mac OS is still pretty much the same thing as it used to be. OS 9 isn't that
much different than 7. Things are more "internet"ish. The big change will be
OS X (pronounced "ten" not "ecks" of course), which should be in full public
release by the first quarter of next year. EVERYTHING will change shortly
with Mac OS X. OS X has a BSD foundation. I have heard MacOS 10 described as
"Linux underneath, Mac GUI is an X-windows application". X is supposed to be
excellent for the servers. If you're asking for what's changed since System
7, the answer is "a lot" but it should all basically be upwards compatible.
That is, it won't feel like you're moving from Windows 3.1 to 95, where
pretty much everything changed. There is no shortage of new features
(spring-loaded folders, folder drill down, "WindowShade", a menu bar clock,
tear-off application menu). Online help has evolved greatly as well, and is
now quite useful.
Virtual PC can turn most modern PowerPC Macs into very useable Windows
machines for interoperability. Virtual PC will allow you to interact with
the servers/PC on the network seamlessly.
There are tools to fill most of the interoperability niches such as clients
for Samba/Microsoft networks.
Avoid the Motorolas like the plague, at least get a PowerPC one. It's the
de-facto standard. Many applications are no longer supported on Motorola
platforms. Some others ship with "fat" binaries with both Motorola and PPC
support (Reflection comes to mind). An iMac isn't the only thing choice
available, but it's the closest / cheapest thing to it. Your power Mac users
will have the PowerPC G3s and G4s. Apple just announced dual processor G4s.
I don't think the new "cube" has quite caught on. The clones are dead,
everyone got out of that business.
Everything is typically done over Ethernet these days. Appleshare IP for
servers would be my choice as it allows access via the chooser on new macs
via IP and can ftp to the server.
The best choice at the moment for an Apple file server is the MacOS 9-based
file server software, unless you need the net boot features (that is, unless
all the systems need to be very uniform). NT runs Services for
Macintosh, but running under NT doesn't buy you much: the Macintosh file
system is segregated from the rest of the server.
The newer macs (since 7.5 I think) do DHCP for IP services so they should
have a DHCP server. Beware of weird Mac DHCP behavior. Mac DHCP only issues
a lease request when it needs to use the network (e.g., you launch a
browser) and does a release as soon as all network applications are closed
(and yes, a hard release). So while Windows machines will retain reasonably
static IPs (within the scope of the lease period), Macs will often jump
around from address to address and deplete your IP pool (in certain
circumstances). If you find this happening, you might want to set static
MAC-to-IP reservations on the DHCP server for those Macs.
There are issues with router setup and maintenance in (a large) size network
that you don't usually see in smaller AT installations. AppleTalk's
self-configuration features work less and less well as the size of the
network increases.
The boot process is a nice, fat multicast. The server wants to play "root
server". Make absolutely sure that it is configured with the right Appletalk
cable ranges, and the Appletalk preferences in the boot image is set to the
right cable range, else forget Appletalk routing on that subnet (yes, it
boots via Appletalk, not IP). It's a network pig when they turn on (several
at once), even with 100Mbps Ethernet switched to the desktop.
You can also run MacOS X Server, which provides Apple filing services and
also runs Samba in order to provide Windows services.
The worst thing about Apple is they introduce an upgraded OS about every 6
months which is a pain for maintenance and troubleshooting since each one
adds/causes more headache with existing software.
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I am aware that some parts of the above contradict with other parts. Any
infelicities should probably be attributed to my editing skills, or lack
thereof. Even the differences in points of view help me appreciate what were
issues for at least one list member. With the number and the rich variety of
responses I received, perhaps this would have made an excellent OT thread.
It still could, if others care to add to it or comment on it, or if someone
who responded feels my editing skills resemble sausage-making more than
surgery.
Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
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