Support, It's There To Help
Last summer I made the switch from PC to Mac.
Moving to a Mac at work is not a decision to be taken lightly. Not all software applications have Mac versions.
As a fall back position, I installed a Windows 7 virtual machine. Everything worked - except one program: CA's SCM Workbench. Everything worked fine until I logged on and an error message and even Google had never seen.
I sent the error off to the folks who maintain the application. They found nothing. After monkeying around on my machine I discovered if I set the VM up with its own IP address, it worked fine. So, problem solved ....
.... until we moved.
In our new location it is a one-port, one-IP world. This time a someone else lead the charge. The server guys did trace routes and watched network traffic. Butkis. Finally, another workaround was put in place - set up a spare Windows machine for RDP. Very clunky.
Next on the road of false hope was the upgrade. Somewhere we heard there was a Mac version in the new release. We upgraded and I tried it.
The "Mac" version was actually a linux shell script which had probably been available from day one. However, it resulted in the exact same generic error. Another dead-end.
Disgusted but not discouraged, I asked the application admins if I could get an account with support and work it out with them.
It took one call. And not even a long phone call, it was barely 5 minutes. The solution was a single entry in the /etc/hosts file. Months have gone by. Server administrators, application DBAs, programmers, and end users wasted hours of effort tracking down this problem. But, none of us though "Hey, maybe we should ask the vendor what the hell is wrong with their software." As it turns out, they know. Who would have thunk?
I realize it is fun and challenging to track down a problem and put it to rest. But, sometimes we need to back up and ask the experts for help.
Moving to a Mac at work is not a decision to be taken lightly. Not all software applications have Mac versions.
As a fall back position, I installed a Windows 7 virtual machine. Everything worked - except one program: CA's SCM Workbench. Everything worked fine until I logged on and an error message and even Google had never seen.
I sent the error off to the folks who maintain the application. They found nothing. After monkeying around on my machine I discovered if I set the VM up with its own IP address, it worked fine. So, problem solved ....
.... until we moved.
In our new location it is a one-port, one-IP world. This time a someone else lead the charge. The server guys did trace routes and watched network traffic. Butkis. Finally, another workaround was put in place - set up a spare Windows machine for RDP. Very clunky.
Next on the road of false hope was the upgrade. Somewhere we heard there was a Mac version in the new release. We upgraded and I tried it.
The "Mac" version was actually a linux shell script which had probably been available from day one. However, it resulted in the exact same generic error. Another dead-end.
Disgusted but not discouraged, I asked the application admins if I could get an account with support and work it out with them.
It took one call. And not even a long phone call, it was barely 5 minutes. The solution was a single entry in the /etc/hosts file. Months have gone by. Server administrators, application DBAs, programmers, and end users wasted hours of effort tracking down this problem. But, none of us though "Hey, maybe we should ask the vendor what the hell is wrong with their software." As it turns out, they know. Who would have thunk?
I realize it is fun and challenging to track down a problem and put it to rest. But, sometimes we need to back up and ask the experts for help.
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