Since the week I started at SchoolDude I've been trying to convince my bosses that I need an Apple to do my work efficiently and without interruption. My immediate boss, Martha was in total support of the idea from the get-go... I just had to convince the President of the company before anything could happen. Well, I got a new computer, still a Windows PC but a laptop this time so I could work from home, if needed. ACK! I don't know if that's always a good idea or not but... I've got it... and I've worked with what I was given for over a year. I didn't complain too much but I've mentioned how many issues I've had with it. It's true, I'd be a LOT more productive on a computer that could handle running more than two applications at a time without crashing. I've tried so many time to convince the IT guys that it's not going to be too hard to network the computers and that really, they aren't going to need to learn a whole heck of a lot to get us functioning. None of our IT guys are mac-savvy... little do they know that I pretty much was the IT person when I worked at my previous job. I networked the computers, upgraded the operating systems from OS8 to OSX, upgraded all of the software, set up a backup system over the network and was general "tech support" whenever we had a problem in the office. Macs are extremely easy to keep up and after you get them up and running, treating them with the respect they deserve, they never give you a hard time. Really, it's time that we get Macs in the office... after all, I think Jon and I are the only designers in the RTP who are working on PCs.
So... after convincing the president that it's time for Apples, the meeting with the IT guys comes. THIS is what's holding up the process. They are so against getting Apples, it's insane. I understand that it's going to take a lot for them to accept this and incorporate this into the system and to learn how to start this up and network the new systems... but... uh, if I can do it, computer geniuses can do it with no problem. I don't understand why they are so afraid of this!
Friday, I had another memory error. A crash of sorts, JUST before my meeting with the IT guys. Perfect timing! Whenever I work on a project that is slightly strenuous on my system, it crashes with the same "memory can not be read error" and the application closes without warning. This time it just so happened that I was working on a big project and I got the error. I took a screenshot of it for the guys, printed it as proof, and told them that this is the memory error that I continue to get. Glad they got to see it. A visual aid is always helpful.
The decided that the best course of action was to reinstall all of my Adobe applications in case the memory error was being caused by a corrupt application. I told them that Adobe doesn't design their software to be for Windows systems and that it was more of an afterthought to create the software for Windows because the bulk of their consumers are Apple users.
So, after getting my software reinstalled, the error was something different. I tried to so a simple function in Illustrator and I got a
Not Responding application error and then the application crashed. THIS is not acceptable. It took me about an HOUR to get my system back to working order. Uum, not so good for productivity. I sent the error to the IT guys via my crashing email application. They'll probably think nothing of it but from now on, I'm going to make a log of all of the time lost to crashing applications, restarts, memory errors, restarting applications, and time lost to applications freezing over SIMPLE tasks.
It has to be a sign that I'm one of the two people who have systems that are as good as the executives (the best in the company) and I'm having problems with my memory not being read and computer crashes on a daily basis! It has to be a sign that this computer system is NOT working. They just don't understand the strain that this is taking on my daily tasks. I could get sooo much more work done, if only I had a system that ACTUALLY responded when I gave a command. UGH! SO... I didn't get much work done on Friday. And... I didn't get much work finished today because of constant computer problems. It's become more trouble for me in the past few months as we bring on larger and larger projects and I don't know if this computer that I work on day in and day out can handle it. I'm getting frustrated.
So... after that long rant, I have no work to really show for Friday or today but I do have an error message!

Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.