Dear Stupid F*cking Luser B*tch,

[xforge.livejournal.com]

F*ck you very much.

Found in her Outbox while repairing her Mac email client for the 100th time:

HTML and text format - doesn't matter. Our mail server is not accepting entourage application. The IT department has informed me to use our web based mail connection to send mail. GO IT!!! That is the best solution they can think of instead of coming up with the solution to the application conflicts. that and rebuilding my computer and reinstalling my mail application. GO IT!!! What a joke sometimes. I'm working through some one else who knows MACs but the draw back is they do not know our mail server.

Yo bitch, why don't YOU f*cking come over here and take a f*cking crack at it? Ever wonder why it's just only YOU that has this problem? Hmmmm? Ever hear the word PEBKAC? Ever hear the words "clue by four?"

(those of you who know anyone at Mister Company will kindly keep your mouths shut, I want to keep my job, thank you)

Comments

[kuang.livejournal.com]

We have something like 10% of our desktops as Macs of various specs, and we hit the Entourage debate today - the users haven't even seen the new webmail setup (Exchange 2003, which is actually a pretty damn good interface for Webmail) but are adamant they don't want it. We've told them we're not supporting Entourage simply because we can't be arsed and there really is no point as most of them wouldn't know what the extra features available over Exchange Webmail do anyway.

I always get this though - 'oh, you're just a PC person, you wouldn't understand Macs'. Listen fucknut, I've owned more macs than you've had hot dinners, I have two on my desktop at home right now with my PCs that have been rebuilt and Frankenstein'd massively throughout the years, rather than doing what you do which is to buy a prettier one every six months when Apple's newfound lack of quality control kicks in. I'm the person that has to get your sodding macs to connect to our existing W2K3 infrastructure such that you're not even aware they're doing it at all - you don't actually have an Appleserve you know?... - so don't patronise me.

Oh and for the record, this ageing blueberry G3/400 here is running 10.28 perfectly happily and feels as nippy on the desktop after some 'tweaks' as your new and already mildy broken eMac. How much did that cost again?... ;)

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Even though I'm the Mac guy at a large corporate ecology, I hate supporting Entourage. Give me Outlook's 7 shades of flakeyness any day. Am really hoping the new Intel Macs will eventually be able to run Windows apps seamlessly, they way OSX can run OS9 apps. That would be sweet. Cringley is making some noise about Apple having full access to Windows XP api's, do to their tech exchange agreement with MS so this may come true one day.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

i know macs (just finished doing 2 and a half years of tech support for Apple) and I wouldn't touch that....

that email is enough my make me bleed from the eyes

[ezerick.livejournal.com]

would someone please clue in this PC only techie? What is Entourage and why does it pain you? People seem to groan at the mere mention and I would like to join in on the groaning :)

[ezerick.livejournal.com]

would someone please clue in this PC only techie? What is Entourage and why does it pain you? People seem to groan at the mere mention and I would like to join in on the groaning :)

[bynkii.livejournal.com]

It's the Email/PIM/Exchange Client that comes with Mac:Office.

It tends to give Exchange administrators the irrits because they want it to be outlook and it isn't.

Prior to Microsoft Entourage 2004 SP 2, it was a really lame Exchange client. Now, it's a pretty solid one. Still missing some stuff, but it's getting there with each rev. It's also 3x the IMAP client Outlook 2003 is, (I use both every day, Outlook's IMAP blows ass, always has). If you're not on 2004 SP2, your exchange life sucks ass.

The big issue is that it doesn't use MAPI, it uses DAV/LDAP, and if you have a complex Exchange setup, then dealing with Microsoft Entourage can be tedious.

The other issue is, if you call up Microsoft Exchange support, they always try to slough you off to the Mac BU support people who have no friggin' idea about Exchange.

The Microsoft Entourage folks have a blog up, it's at http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/default.aspx (http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/default.aspx). There's an Microsoft Entourage mailing list at: http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/ (http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/), but it's more for non-exchange users.

The Microsoft Entourage newsgroups are useful as well, and a lot of the E'rage team hangs out on it. Finally, the MacEnterprise list has a lot of enterprise IT folk supporting E'rage.

I've been using it since well, before it was called E'rage. There's things Outlook does that it will never do, because that would require Windows, and Apple's not porting Windows to OS X anytime soon, nor is MS. However, the MacBU is still actively working on Office, (yes, I did see it at Macworld, mostly so I could tell people I've seen it, they get tired of the innuendo and BS).

Some of the Entourage improvements on tap are, (and that have been discussed semi-publicly) are:

Task/Notes sync support
Kerberos support
OOF
Deleted Items sync
Category sync
better read receipt support
Auto resource booking
better LCS support
looking at how to support SharePoint in concert with Exchange 2007

The thing *I* hate, and i've been doing IT support of Macs for..well, ever in once sense, is that mac users are, due to many foot-shootings on both sides, rather prickish about the whole thing. I had one start to tell me that they had a Mac, and that I should listen to them since IT doesn't know fuck all about Macs, and I waited until he finished, smiled and said:

Let me explain something. I co-wrote the first book on Mac OS X server, when Version 1.2, the one that looked more like NeXT than OS X was out. I wrote the Mac chapters for "Beginning Shell Scripting" from Wrox. I threw in on chapters for three other books. I've been writing for MacTech since 1999, and for my first article, did a rather serious treatise on 802.11b, well enough that had their idea not been 'Steved', I would have gotten an Airport Base Station signed by the Airport team. If there's a Mac publication or technical web site, i've written for it in one form or another. I helped the Maxum guys figure out how to make a Mac OS 9 based FTP server deal with > 31 character file names, and when I go to Macworld Expo, I get drunk with the VP in charge of Macworld at parties you'll never hear about. I don't care HOW big you think your Mac dick is, MINE'S BIGGER, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN BIGGER, AND IT ALWAYS WILL BE BIGGER THAN YOURS. Now, if we can get back to an actual work relationship, I'm game, how about you.

He STFU right nicely about that.

I have a name for people like him: MacMac. Because at Macworld Expo, they walk around in a line, like fucking penguins..."MAAACMACMAACMACMACMAAAAAAAAACMACMAC". Fucking morons is what they are.

Oh, if you need to plug OS X boxes into an AD 2003 setup, you *really* want Tiger, the AD plugin's tons better. You also, if using the Apple AD plugin, have to kill SMB signing, or problems you will have. ADmitMac, from Thursby systems avoids this, but it's kinda pricey.

if you need actual specific help, ping me off-LJ, (email's in my profile), and I'll hook y'all up with good info and help, especially about things like how to do proper management of Mac clients.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

(chuckle) I get this sometimes as well. Entourage is the suckage mind you. But yeah, the automatic theory that IT is clueless when it's a single user having that problem is fustrating.

And it's usually the same person that expects us to routinely pull rabbits out of our asses.

[tsutton.livejournal.com]

Putting this aside... were you supposed to read her e-mails?

[xforge.livejournal.com]

No, I'm supposed to be trusted not to, but when you give a tech permission to work on your email program, there's an expectation that he's going to be able to see into your email account, however briefly. This one was right on top and I couldn't help looking at it, especially since I strongly suspected this is what this intransigent c*nt was saying about us behind our backs anyway.

I'm IT's Mac admin; I've been handling Macs since 1989 so I **DO** have a clue, and the things I can't figure out or don't understand yet, I'm spending several hours per day working to learn about. But she boils it all down to "they can't figure out this one problem that only I am having, so they're stupid and useless." I've got 500 Windows users out there to take care of too - wonder how she'd handle even half the number of tickets I get in a day. (She'd be gibbering mad at the end of the first week, guaranteed.)

[xforge.livejournal.com]

You totally rock. You'll be hearing from me some more, thanks ever so much.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Entourage is the email client that comes with Mac Office. It's SUPPOSED to be able to be set up as an Exchange client, but it's OBVIOUSLY a VERY haphazard KLUDGE. As bynkii says below, as of SP2 it's finally starting to become slightly competent, but believe me, if there were ANY other viable alternative I'd be using that. Tiger's (Mac OS X 10.4) Mail.app can be made to work with Exchange, but there's no calendaring function, and especially in the case of THIS particular idiot, that's out of the question. She's got calendar items set ad infinitum for things like taking her dog to the vet and picking up dry cleaning, no joke. Her calendar on the Exchange server was 50 megabytes until the server guys cleaned it up.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Oh God, still my beating heart, I'd kill for that.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we've given this nitwit a growing succession of faster and faster Macs; the next one we're rotating onto her desk is a dual-800MHz G4. She Officially Pronounced that She Didn't Think Minis Were Worth Shit, but I made sure she ate those words and we've had two of 'em doing just fine for about the past year or so. Eventually she'll have an Intel Powermac, and I'm sure she'll find something wrong with that too. She should be using a Winbox, and I've told her that, and she practically jumped across the table at me. Idiot.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I did already look into ADmitMac but, what you said, to many $$$ per seat. If it were maybe half the price or a little less I might think about it, but we're talking 20 grand or more to get all the Macs in the company on AD. Um, yeah, not gonna happen in THIS lifetime.

[bynkii.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ADmit's great, but oy, $$$$$.

For *most* needs, the Active Directory plugin in Mac OS X 10.4 will take care of what you need, but there's some stuff that's not as well documented as it should be.

A *great* site for this is afp548.com

[dazzedelf.livejournal.com]

You should edit the email in her outbox, to discuss her prices for S&M services, and all the uses she has found for her desk after the office closes down for the day. It would be funny.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Soooo tempting...

[dirtymatt.livejournal.com]

It took me about a year to finally get Entourage on my Mac up to the point where I had Outlook on my PC. Entourage is a huge piece of poo!

[dirtymatt.livejournal.com]

Entourage is the glorified webmail client that Microsoft passes as Outlook for Mac OS X. The best part is in OS 9 they actually had Outlook, and it worked.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I know, WTF??!! Why the HELL couldn't they have just ported Outlook 2001??? Stupid bastards.

[coleridge78.livejournal.com]

Seconded on Outlook's fundamental IMAP brokenness. One of the best: unless you specifically tell it not to, it reads every single folder TWICE every time you check mail. Why twice? You got me. Awesome coding, email admins everywhere thank you!