Macs at Work: Not Just for Designers

Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory for Your Mac Top Quality, Competitive Price, Lifetime Backed Free Expert Support + Installation Videos too! MacBook & mini 8GB, iMac 16GB, Mac Pro up to 32GB. Click here

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

- 2002.07.25

Do you use a Mac at work? Have you ever?

I have, but it's a fair assumption that the majority of the sneaky daytime peeks at Low End Mac are done from the, ahem, "comfortable" surroundings of a Microsoft OS. [Editor's note: 45.5% of all pages served in June were read on Windows computers; 44.6% on Macs.]

So what did I do on this Mac in the workplace, and, more importantly, how can you get my old job? Readers of my frequent ramblings on this site may know that I previously worked as a video editor, and the editing was done in Adobe Premiere 5.1 on a Power Macintosh G4/400.

Nice and typical, eh? Creative work. Web design, illustration, desktop publishing, even journalism (which is, sadly, more often creative than truthful) are all areas of industry which are atypical in their choice of computer - but they're far from the only industries which feature Macs.

At one stage of my life, I found myself working in a diagnostic radiology department of a large hospital, and lo and behold, what did I find? Macs. The main clerical duties were performed on dumb Unix terminals running Digital's DG/UX, the secretarial work was done in Windows, and the CT Scans were processed in Sun Solaris. But across the hallway, the Nuclear Medicine and Ultrasound departments ran the Mac OS - even to the extent of using Photoshop, presumably for retouching the less professionally taken images.

What I want to talk about is the difference in the two cultures when it came to the Mac.

Designers and other such dilettantes are fueled with obsession for their favourite computers - sure, they pretend they're above the Mac zealotry, but get a drink in them, and they'll start enthusing about how "Photoshop just runs better on a Mac." Like many of us who use Apple machines at home, they become walking, talking advertisements for the cabal at Infinite Loop, Cupertino.

Back at X-Ray, things were different. Now, I'm not going to make disparaging remarks about radiographers, but those that owned computers owned PCs. The clinicians were even worse.

Due to the obscene hours which I worked at said establishment, when I decided to buy an iMac Rev. B that I'd seen for £600, I had to nip out on my lunch hour (which, incidentally, was only 50 minutes - what is this, medical time?). Upon returning to the hospital with my iMac in tow, I was confronted by a registrar, "God, you haven't bought one of those bloody iMac things, have you?"

Doctors, pah!

I smiled, said yes, and tried to think of something suitably inane for the medical mind to take in. The last thing I needed to do was look like a complete lunatic by explaining that I'd always used Macs since I could afford them, and that I'd stop when my iMac was prized from my cold, dead hands.

Mac owners always enthuse about how, once you've used a Mac you won't want to go back to Windows. On top of this, we've all heard that to be successful in the home market, a computer must first be successful in the workplace. In fact, this is how Wintel PCs finally killed of the Atari ST and shrank the Amiga user base to almost nothing.

For years we were tortured with tales of our own impending doom - that we'd go the way of those machines.

It didn't happen.

What exactly is Apple's foothold in industry? Is it still largely confined to areas around imaging? If so, is this a bad thing? Macs have a habit of turning up in the oddest of places - small businesses where the owner has a personal passion for them, even large government departments such as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive use them, and if I recall correctly, the U.S. military is fond of them because there are so few Mac based crackers.

Mind you, I'm sure there are no BBC Microcomputers used by crackers either, so there must be more to it than this.

If any of you use Macs in the workplace, I'd love to hear from you (excepting Dan Knight, whom I already know uses Macs). What do you do for a living? What do you do on the Mac? Has the Mac in the workplace persuaded any of your colleagues to buy an Apple?

If you don't work in a Mac based environment, do your colleagues eyes glaze over when you mention your Mac? Do you feel it's your personal duty to promote the machine to friends and family, or do you just get on with doing what you do on it?

Jason Walsh is a journalist and postgraduate student. These observations, though unscientific by any standard, derive from his studies in sociology of culture. One day soon he'll be a doctor, and then we'll all be sorry.

Recent Mac Life Columns

Macs in the workplace, part 2, 08.08. "Macs are more common in offices than many people in the media realise."
Macs at work: Not just for designers, 07.25. Why Macs are found in the workplace -- and not just for graphics design work.
Macintosh community or cult?, 07.18. Is there really a Mac community, or are we more cult-like?
Our passion for the Mac, 07.11. Why in the world are we so passionate about our Macs?
More in the Mac Life index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard

Recent Deals

Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.03. Used 867 MHz SperDrive, $348; 1 GHz, $499; 1.33 Combo, $298; SD, $559; 1.5 Combo, $448; SuperDrive, $589.
Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; G4/366, $49; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733 MHz, $69; 933 MHz, $209; 1.25 GHz dual, $299.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.02. Used 2.0 GHz, $800; 2.2, $900; 2.4, $1,000; refurb 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,949; 3.06, $2,169; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
Best G4 iBook Deals, 10.30. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $225; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1 GHz, $349; 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz SuperDrive, $498.
Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.