I hate to do this but in case anyone needs a heads up, I tried to use Gather Place with my MAC (OSX 10.5.3 Leopard), it crashed and deleted (permanently) my desktop wallpaper.
Customer service was awesome, here's the reply, which came super promptly. I was actually contacted by two reps, and was offered an extension of the free trial or a re-start when the issue is resolved. Again, great customer service!!!
Hi Rob,
The crashing is a known issue on some Macs and is being addressed.
It typically happens when you pause the presentation, change the presenter or quit the program but varies from Mac to Mac.
The wallpaper is changed to a solid color when you start presenting for performance reasons and changes back to what it was set to before the session when you stop presenting - unless it crashes. In that case the program terminates before we can reset it so it you'll have to re-set it manually. We only change it so it isn't deleted.
We will have a preview copy of the next release available for the Mac in the next few weeks and I'll let you know when it's available so you can try it out. We can extend the trial as well once you have it so you can fully evaluate it.
In the mean time, you trial is still active so if you want to use the current version and try to avoid the pausing or switching of presenters, you'll get an idea of how it works. Note that the performance on the next release looks to be quite a bit better.
Not to dig into MAC, users - if there's any issue I could not care less about it's which computer people choose to buy.
That being said, the sea of never ending complaints from MAC users regarding compatability issues have not stopped.
You can't use "this" or download "that" and MAC users seem to be trying to use some type of "parallel" or whatever you call it to get around these issues.
From where I stand, I'm running a business. I'm going to buy the tools for which it's easier....not harder to run my business.
I'm sure there are many nice features that MACs have over PCs. I've been a PC user - just got a new Acer laptop and couldn't be happier.
If I was going to open a restaurant I'm not sure I'd buy an oven that's not compatible with the gas line - where I'd have to go out and buy and extra device to make it work.
I have about 30 PC's and 2 MAC's I can run everything on the MAC that I can on the PC. The only reason I do not use MAC's in the business is to run PC software it is a few extra steps and the equipment is FAR more expensive than cheap PC's.
I use GatherPlace on my Mac and have never had a problem yet - It works far better than on the PC in my opinion.
You would have to take my MacBook Air out of my cold dead hands!!!
Good points by all, I used to own a recoding studio about 8 years ago, did everything on a MAC, got spoiled and once you go Mac, you never go back, lol.
I've hit problems on my Dell laptop (ugh) with Firefox/Humana compatibility too, and some other minor issues, but yes, tools that make it easy to make money is essential!! It's what I teach, lol.
I don't have any problem running a Mac as my weapon of choice. I have a Toshiba PC I use for travel since it is old and cheap and it works fine as well.
I'll agree that it takes a bit more "effort" to use a Mac in business but I think you get far more in return in the way of ease of use, security, and reliability. I run Windows on my Mac (concurrently with OS X via Parallels... it is just another window!) so when I need to use WinFlex (rating software) it is there. Runs fine.
I've yet to find anything I need for the biz I can't use the Mac for but then again I try to use as much web-centric products as I can so the actual hardware is not that important to me. That's why I won't run YIO or any other proprietary program that is not cross-platform. (True, I could run YIO in my XP "window" but I don't much care for the program... although others think it is terrific and I'm happy for them.... I don't want to start a YIO thread again.)
Being able to run Windows on the Mac sort of gives me the best of both worlds. I prefer the Mac OS X interface better than XP.. (I've not tried Vista. Does it work yet?) But at the end of the day I find that it makes little difference if I'm using my Mac or my Toshiba. Both platforms seem solid and stable (which is why I've not switched to Vista as I've heard lots of bad stuff about it.)
I have a lot of trouble with Aetna's quoting sites with Firefox as well.
Aetna works fine with the Opera browser (free) on the Mac so I assume it will on PC... but if you already have IE, just use that.
In my opinion the entire technology platform of Aetna is about five years behind that of the average refrigerator! (Except for MoO which is ten years behind!)
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