[Zark]

For the last several months I've had two computers at work: A G4 dual 866 for Cartogprahy/graphic design and a Dell PC for my GIS needs. Computer needs at work are driving the company to pull my Mac, so I'll have to do all my work on my PC.

I'm absolutely loathing this, and the complete lack of stability of my Dell is only compounding it. My Mac is so damn stable, runs fast for graphics and has an OS that rocks.

The PC so far crashes 2-3 times a day with random momory failures (running ArcGIS) and XP makes me curse Bill Gate's name. My IT person assures me she can do nothing to improve the crashing situation, so I'm pretty much screwed.

I'll miss you OSX

 

[Ridemonkey]

So how much money will your company lose due to lowered productivity before they get you the computer you need?

 

[spincrazy]

You could quit....

 

[Silver]

The PC so far crashes 2-3 times a day with random momory failures (running ArcGIS) and XP makes me curse Bill Gate's name. My IT person assures me she can do nothing to improve the crashing situation, so I'm pretty much screwed.

Your IT person needs to be fired for not even attempting to do her job...

 

[Zark]

So how much money will your company lose due to lowered productivity before they get you the computer you need?

Thats the thing, I don't 'need' it. I need ArcGIS, which only runs on PC's and the other programs are all offered on PC.

My productivity will surely fall. I was multi tasking with two machines at my disposal. Now when my PC is chugging, I'll be scared to run anything else and force a crash, so I won't even try.

Quitting ain't an option really. Not too many Carto firms around and the government side jobs have REALLY slow turnaround time....

This HAS made me decide what computer I'm getting for home next year though.

 

[Zark]

Your IT person needs to be fired for not even attempting to do her job...

Shhh, I.T. hears all

 

[stinkyboy]

:mumble:

I had a job offer a few years back to be the guy to phase the Mac people onto PC's. I thought it was the other way around, so I thanked them, got up and left.

 

[Ciaran]

Your IT person needs to be fired for not even attempting to do her job...

XP is absolutely a semi stable O.S. If you are experiencing otherwise your IT person just plain sucks. I run XP and Win 2000 both at home and here at work and I have many machines that haven't been rebooted in months and they are fast and stable. IMO anyone who has issues with XP or has to reboot more than once a week hasn't configured their OS correctly.

Maybe I should send your big wigs my resume and go save you all from bad IT hell.

Edit: Zark, if you can get the admin password I can fix your PC's remotely for you.

 

[Zark]

XP is absolutely a semi stable O.S. If you are experiencing otherwise your IT person just plain sucks. I run XP and Win 2000 both at home and here at work and I have many machines that haven't been rebooted in months and they are fast and stable. IMO anyone who has issues with XP or has to reboot more than once a week hasn't configured their OS correctly.

Maybe I should send your big wigs my resume and go save you all from bad IT hell.

Edit: Zark, if you can get the admin password I can fix your PC's remotely for you.

Mike, my IT person is looking into it more, but the problem isn't so much XP as Arc GIS, which by all accounts is a finicky mofo thats prone to memory leaks and all kinds of crap.

Unfortunately your assesment of our IT person is dead on and many of my IT buddies have already come to that conlusion. In addition, she's well liked by management so it'll be a cold day in hell.

 

[spincrazy]

Cartography is cool.

What exactly will they be doing with the Mac? It's not like it has much resale value. Dual G4....

 

[JRogers]

Mike, my IT person is looking into it more, but the problem isn't so much XP as Arc GIS, which by all accounts is a finicky mofo thats prone to memory leaks and all kinds of crap.

I hear that. ArcGIS is the most finicky program in existence.

 

[Zark]

Cartography is cool.

What exactly will they be doing with the Mac? It's not like it has much resale value. Dual G4....

Cartograpy is cool, I'm lucky to work in a field I really do enjoy. Even if my company makes me give up my Mac.

Its going to an intern, which is about the same as throwing it away since his productivity couldn't touch me

Question: I know there is itunes for the PC, but will I be able transfer my tunes from Mac to PC? (I know a lot about graphic files and compatability, but don't know crap about audio files!)

 

[H8R]

Question: I know there is itunes for the PC, but will I be able transfer my tunes from Mac to PC? (I know a lot about graphic files and compatability, but don't know crap about audio files!)

Yes.

And tell your boss that the IT chick is f*cking up BIG time.

I run XP pro on a Dell GX270 here at work and it's fine. I've only choked it by having all running at once:

Outlook
iTunes (sharing my files on the network)
AS/400 software running JD Edwards production environment
Access
Excel
Firefox
IE

Then I tried to run Halo CE for PC at lunch. Oops.


Other than that it runs fine.

 

[Zark]

I hear that. ArcGIS is the most finicky program in existence.

Glad I'm not alone in my pain. Its like ESRI took a page out of Microsoft's play book on product testing before launch (you know the blank page at the end) :nuts:

 

[Ciaran]

Mike, my IT person is looking into it more, but the problem isn't so much XP as Arc GIS, which by all accounts is a finicky mofo thats prone to memory leaks and all kinds of crap.

Unfortunately your assesment of our IT person is dead on and many of my IT buddies have already come to that conlusion. In addition, she's well liked by management so it'll be a cold day in hell.

Ahhh... I have never worked with Arc GIS, so I couldn't help there. But I hate finicky programs.

Hmmm... someone who doesn't know what they are doing, causing a drop in productivity but is well liked by management. (Probably get's raises and promotions too, huh?) Are you sure you don't work here at Kaiser?

Ah well, think of it this way... (here it comes, a rip on Mac people ) At least with the Mac off your desk, guys will stop hitting on you.












Geez! I'm just kidding mac people. Don't make H8R debunch your panties!

 

[johnbryanpeters]

What version of ArcGIS are you running?

http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?a=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=21141

FAQ: Is ArcGIS 8.1 supported on Windows XP?
Article ID: 21141
Software: ArcGIS - ArcEditor 8.1 ArcGIS - ArcInfo 8.1 ArcGIS - ArcView 8.1
Platforms: Windows XP

Question
Is ArcGIS 8.1 supported on Windows XP?

Answer
ArcGIS 8.1 is not supported on Windows XP.

ArcGIS 8.1.2 and newer releases are fully supported on both Windows XP Professional and Home Edition.

Related Information
ArcGIS Desktop System Requirements

Created: 12/7/2001
Last Modified: 4/11/2005

 

[Zark]

What version of ArcGIS are you running?

9.1, the newest version.

 

[H8R]

Geez! I'm just kidding mac people. Don't make H8R debunch your panties!

HAHHHH!!!

BOW DOWN, WARM AND FUZZY OS USERS!!

 

[reflux]

I'm impressed with you guys. I took a GIS class a few years back where we had to learn to "use" a few ESRI progs (hey, it was better than taking poultry science). Anyway, I managed an A in the class, but holy crap, that isht is confusing!!!

 

[black noise]

I feel your pain. I'm a Mac user and at work I have to use this old burdened PC and it is a pile of ****. A Mac of the same era and burdened with the same stuff probably wouldn't handle that much better, but since it's a PC I can barely use it. Plus, Windows is the ugliest OS ever. It's rank as hell compared to the sleek lines of OSX

 

[kinghami3]

Yes.

And tell your boss that the IT chick is f*cking up BIG time.

I run XP pro on a Dell GX270 here at work and it's fine. I've only choked it by having all running at once:

Outlook
iTunes (sharing my files on the network)
AS/400 software running JD Edwards production environment
Access
Excel
Firefox
IE

Then I tried to run Halo CE for PC at lunch. Oops.


Other than that it runs fine.

Only those programs? I've got those same programs and about 5 more going at any given time on my eMac. Back to subject... I use Win2000 at work, and honestly I've only had to restart it three times, once because it crashed, and the two other times because the server crashed. Windows is fairly stable if you take care of it. Also that IT gal should be fired or disciplined if she lets your stable Mac get replaced by a buggy PC that she refuses to fix.

 

[d-sop]

XP is absolutely a semi stable O.S. If you are experiencing otherwise your IT person just plain sucks. I run XP and Win 2000 both at home and here at work and I have many machines that haven't been rebooted in months and they are fast and stable. IMO anyone who has issues with XP or has to reboot more than once a week hasn't configured their OS correctly.

Maybe I should send your big wigs my resume and go save you all from bad IT hell.

Edit: Zark, if you can get the admin password I can fix your PC's remotely for you.

yea, or theyve been filling their comps with porn and sh*t. trust me, it can really fcuk up a computer

 

[JoeRay]

To hang my computer you need:

Outlook Express,
Musicmatch Pro,
Internet Explorer,
JD Edwards x2 (I loathe the program)
Surpac
Autocad
Excel

P4 something choked full of iron ore dust, yep it hangs all the time!!

Gimme a mac, I lost 300 data points on Surpace this morning, the corresponding pit outline and associated grade lines aaahh.

 

[pZyteX]

I have a pc at home and a mac at work (g5 2x2 ), I smile each time I turn the mac on

 

[caboverpete]

I don't doubt ArcGIS is the problem, it is slow cludgy junk but there arent a whole lot of options right now. I honestly think they know they have the desktop GIS market cornered and don't care how their software runs. For instance I upgraded to 9.1 and could not load any raster data, how the hell doest that slip by quality control. It wasnt just me either, I know of several others users that had the same problem. ESRI is a thorn in my side.

Don't get me started on Autocad 2006 either, dont know if you have the misfortune of running that junk or not.

 

[firetoole]

at least you are not stuck on a IBM netvista like me I have to bring my powerbook to wrork just get anything done

 

[MtnBikerNJ]

Cartography is cool.

What exactly will they be doing with the Mac? It's not like it has much resale value. Dual G4....

um... have you checked into the price of a used Mac lately? They hold their value. I bet that machine gets as much or more than a NEW dell...

 

[MtnBikerNJ]

and the funny thing about a mac is that you don't NEED a full time IT guy...

 

[Ciaran]

You guys are cracking me up! I can't believe how many problems some folks have with their PC's. Now I am just a moderately skilled desktop support guy so I don't know all that programming and heavy duty server wizardry, but I can build a pretty stable PC. I don't know what it is that I do that differs from other people but I just don't seem to have the issues that some have.

Question for the Apple people: With PC's how well your computer runs is largely dependent on how skilled the builder is. Does this hold true for Macs as well?

And FYI - if you are running Macs in an environment as large as the one I work in (100,000 + desktops, 7,000 + Win servers, and many many linux and unix servers - Enterprise wide) you do need a full time Mac-IT guy.

I am interisted to know how Narlus' PC is running...

 

[DRB]

And FYI - if you are running Macs in an environment as large as the one I work in (100,000 + desktops, 7,000 + Win servers, and many many linux and unix servers - Enterprise wide) you do need a full time Mac-IT guy.

Come on you know Steve Jobs comes over and takes care of it for you.

 

[H8R]

Only those programs? I've got those same programs and about 5 more going at any given time on my eMac.

Halo CE for PC with all the quality setting cranked running a custom map + iTunes is sharing a music file to the network = hang.

Halo CE is a buggy game though. It's the only thing that's ever given me a problem on this machine.

I run it on my custom clunker at home and it's fine.

 

[H8R]

I am interisted to know how Narlus' PC is running...

I'm not interisted, but I'm interested.

 

[sam_little]

Zark,
What processes are killing your PC with 9.1 running? There are a few known bugs that cause major memory issues (and subsequent crashing) that I have found workarounds for, and I would be happy to share them.

Given the $$$ issues, I assume that your firm isn't hiring, but let me know if they are. I just finished my geography MS and am looking for work. I would love to be close to Tunnel and Cold Springs again. -SL

 

[Zark]

Zark,
What processes are killing your PC with 9.1 running? There are a few known bugs that cause major memory issues (and subsequent crashing) that I have found workarounds for, and I would be happy to share them.

Given the $$$ issues, I assume that your firm isn't hiring, but let me know if they are. I just finished my geography MS and am looking for work. I would love to be close to Tunnel and Cold Springs again. -SL

I wish I could pin it down to specific operations, but its happened sporatically in about everything. Editing sessions tend to cause it more.

If you are seriously looking for some GIS position pm me and I'll give you the contact to send a resume to. While we aren't hiring right now, our GIS division is looking to expand and hopefully hire some more people.

 

[sam_little]

I wish I could pin it down to specific operations, but its happened sporatically in about everything. Editing sessions tend to cause it more.

If you are seriously looking for some GIS position pm me and I'll give you the contact to send a resume to. While we aren't hiring right now, our GIS division is looking to expand and hopefully hire some more people.

I find that 9.x has problems with editing when a layout has already been generated. My workaround for this is having two active map documents running simultaneously. One with the layout including the layer that you need to edit. The second with only the layer you are looking to edit, with no layout. Edit in the second window, save edits, and refresh the first .mxd with the layout.

PM with info sent. -SL

 

[Zark]

OK, the IT person pulled through a little. I have a new BIOS and video driver and we'll see how long it'll take until the next boom boom. BTW, there were already two crashes this morning before these installations.

 

[Silver]

OK, the IT person pulled through a little. I have a new BIOS and video driver and we'll see how long it'll take until the next boom boom. BTW, there were already two crashes this morning before these installations.

Do you have a floppy drive or a CD burner? Make a boot disc with memtest86 on it and run it at lunch if you're still having trouble.

 

[JRB]

Our IT group never fixed this dude in my group's PC. He quit on Monday, not for that, so I told them they could close his ticket and focus on whatever they were already focusing on. They didn't think I was funny. I don't think the fact that they don't fix sh*t is funny either.

 

[Ciaran]

Our IT group never fixed this dude in my group's PC. He quit on Monday, not for that, so I told them they could close his ticket and focus on whatever they were already focusing on. They didn't think I was funny. I don't think the fact that they don't fix sh*t is funny either.

You're right. It's not funny. Where i work I have 8 hours to fix a PC problem and 10 days to complete new installations. Any longer and my boss gets notifications. If I still sit on my ass doing nothing the boss' boss gets notified. No excuse for bad service.