Guess what my new job is!
 

Everybody--

I got a new job, just so you all know. I feel kind of bad talking about it, since some of the recent posts have been about disasters at the work place. And, sadly, my new job is anything but a disaster ;). I was just hired by Apple as my colleges new Campus Rep. It feels like an odd fit, honestly. Since I'm not really the Mac zealot that I was a year ago. But I still love the product, I know it very well and I think I'll really enjoy the job up until I graduate in a year and a half.

Just some basic information. I'm selling Apple to anyone who will listen to me, mostly by setting up events and what not. I do get some free stuff, so far I have a new MB waiting for me... Plus, they are taking me out to Cupertino for a three day training seminar. I'm hoping I run into Steve Jobs (so I can tell him to put Java 6 on my Mac! :D).

Honestly, I'm not sure how much I'll be posting at that point (not that anyone here will actually miss me ;).) I hear rumors that Apple doesn't like it's employees posting on forums. But since I'm not a "Mac Genius" [sic] or some other support person, maybe it will be okay.

If I can still post, don't worry, I doubt I'll change all that much. They hired me for who I am anyway, right? If not, じゃねえ。

wow... congrats...you must be stoked!


now all I need is to get my job as a porn star by day and whiskey taster by night and we both have our ideal jobs :)

one day i will get my job as a porn star by day and a porn star by night

my goals may be somewhat out of reach

Congratulations with your new job! Working in a big company, such as apple, is stable as hell!:)
I hope you'll have good time working there

Accept my congratulations too! It's really great when you finally find a job in a big company and you like it!!!

i did my time in austin texas for a while, but no new MB thou...

Thanks for the congrats folks :). A couple of comments in response.

@appleman_design -- Yeah, the program is apparently in flux, and just recently saw some major changes. One of which is, I guess, the MB. Honestly, the thing I was the most surprised about is that they would want to fly a lowly Campus rep all the way to Cupertino for training...

@Photek and Mikey-San -- You two are a bit strange at times, you know that? As I recall, I wouldn't having either of your jobs, especially Mikey-Sans, since working in the gaming industry has always been a pocket dream of mine... But this whole porn star thing reminds me of a comment CAlverez made a long time ago. When asked what his favorite and least favorite jobs of all time were, his one word response was: fluffer.

they do that to all of the rep's...and you will see S.J...by the way( meet and greet day)

Zalister... I am a 'bit strange' all the time!

I wonder if they hand out a blow up "Steve Jobs" to all new reps.....now that is the sort of Apple incentive i would be after....joking apart hope reps get a new laptop !

I too used to be a Mac enthusiast. Not so much anymore. Maybe because they are becoming so big that they seem (accent seem) to be ignoring their user base. Seems we are now but numbers on a spread sheet and not members of a congregation. I got a big dose of this when Apple employees were stopped from posting at the Apple Discussions site. After that, my sending of feedback to Apple feels like it is falling on deaf ears.

If I were dictator for a day at Apple, here is what I would implement. On the developer site, I would have a page for each of their application and major OS features. Each page would be a queue of all the bugs, compatibility issues, and feature problems currently waiting to be investigated and fixed. As they are repaired (to be available on next update cycle) it is checked off. When it is implemented, it is removed. Yes, the list would be long, but the user can look to see if their issue is even on the table. Once a user sees how long the list is, you give the developers a little slack and you also can see what the priority issues are. For me, my patience is augmented if I am communicated with. That is why I prefer small companies over large. Example, all my emails to Elgato (regarding EyeTV) are answered with repeated questions for clarification of bugs and issues. It takes quite a while to see the change, but at least I know they are investigating it!

Oops, I'm ranting. Oh well. All that to just say that I feel like you do these days, but still, if I didn't have the job I have now, I would really want the job YOU have now! :)

Don't stay a stranger! Poke your head in now and then, Zalister! - Schneb

Amen, Schneb, particularly about the Discussions and Bug lists.

best job ever... best perk, the pay is amazing :p

@schneb and NovaScotian -- If I see Steve, I'll make sure to tell him :D.

Great! And tell him for me that I love Pixar movies!

If it makes you feel better, I left my job in December. ;)

Tell him that Apple IS AN ENTERPRISE COMPANY!!!!!

Schneb-

I agree with you whole heartily that Apple has become the Architect, and they basically design their product by what they think people need and should use. Some of the things Apple does is just plain brilliant. Like the SMS sensor and the light sensor on the Macbook pro that will crank the back lit keyboard on/off by the light in the room. SMS sensor that will shut off the hard drive if it detects a fall, to save the mechanical part from failing. The magnetic AC adapter connection, so no more ripping it out of the laptop.

On the other hand some things they do is very irritating. For one, their wireless drivers suck, and I mean suck hard core. They allow no customization at all like other OSes allow. They also do not allow you to block SSIDs or anything else in the OS which is also a thorn in my side all the time at work. This has been an issue since 10.0, actually since 9 when they first started offering Airport cards. The lack of configuration is infuriating sometime. They also off very little GUI customization, where their slogan may be 'Think Different' they don't give you a lot of options to be creative and different. This has to be achieved by third party. Annoying if you ask me. They have also started bundling apps like QT + itunes together. Granted only the Windows installer does this but I think its only a matter of time before they start to integrate applications. Once you can download all sorts of HD content from the ITMS, I bet we see a QT + iTunes + DVD all in one media player from Apple. I would gladly use iTunes if I had full customization over it, it ran on Linux, and supported OGG and FLAC, and had on the fly conversion for those formats. I have signed in a very nice and professional way many petitions and letters to apple asking them to please release some source code from iTunes to the public so we can have this support. There is a larger amount of users that use this format than you think, but then again Apple knows best.

MS, why they do get bashed, and while I do think that their OSes tend to be a bit more bloated take the time to give the users what they want. Fast user switches was a feature request, and they complied and put it in XP. They also make sure they, as best to their ability, make applications backward compatible. I even ran a win95 game (mech warrior 2) on my XP and run plenty of games from the 90s. They also included a compatibility mode that you can try to fool the application into thinking its running in windows 9x. Classic games like X-COM, Command and Conquer, Fallout, Full throttle, day of the tentacle, monkey island, etc still run in windows XP. Not too shabby if you ask me. Every release of OS X tends to break several of my needed and regularly used Applications. I recently went to a seminar by Mike Bombich and he said that Netrestore was not meant to run or be coded to run in Leopard. he came right out and admitted its pretty much a miracle it runs. He is a pretty cool guy by the way.

I do think that Apple should listen more to its user base and give them what they want instead of being the Architect and desiging it for us, with what they think is best for us.

Zalister-

grats on the job, are you an SE or on the sales side?

Come on, everyone. This is not a "let's critique this guy's new employer" thread. Start one for that if you want, but this isn't really an appropriate place, now is it?

I'm just a rep basically. I set up events and try and show people how cool Macs are. I don't really see it as direct sales, honestly.

Mikey-San -- Thanks for the point of order ;). Do you have another job then? If you left your last one...

sooo err, how much for you to tell us secrate apple stuff? Every man has his price lol :D

You can wave your millions in front of my face kel101, I'll never talk, never! Especially since I don't think they are going to tell me any real secrets...

well maybe not money, how about a copy of fhm or playboy :P

Personally, i think you will be promoted to a high position in no time, the funny lovable man you are:rolleyes:

If you make it (which im sure you will) you wouldnt mind sending a job recommendation my way would you?

Congrats on the new job. How many hours a week will it be then?

@kel101 -- As much as I love free subscriptions, I love my wife ever more ;).

@GavinBKK -- They say it should hover around 15 hours a week, but will depend on the time of year. I'm hoping that the summers will hover around 10, since I have other projects I would like to work on as well. It is a college job, so these hour are just about perfect for me.

Congrats, I envy you.:) I was interviewed by Apple as a quality engineer for the iPhone but I am sad to report that they didn't hire me.

Maybe one day I to will join you at Apple...

I'd have to admit I would consider working for Apple, if I ever got the opportunity. I mean as it is now, I am already starting to get both the JAMF people and Apple people to pull me in on conferences calls with people who are looking to manage very large Apple networks.

That doesn't mean I have a shoe in anywhere, but it means that when they need an example they are starting to come to me. That I think is somewhat of a good sign.

I definitely will ride out my state pension first before I get a new job though, I got three more years and then I am vested into it. It would be kind of dumb not to at least meet vestment in my state pension.

Grats again, let us know exactly how it pans out, and you never answered my other question, are you on the support or sales side? Or do you have one of those in the middle gray positions?

I think Jack-of-quite-a-few-trades is the best description :). I do sales, yes. I'll be pitching ideas around to different departments on campus, and hopefully I will be spending time talking to other students about Macs. Most of the later will be done through events, like iMovie contests, etc.

As for support. I'm not contracted to do support, but it is pretty much my job to make sure every Mac person I run into is enjoying their Mac. So, to me it's seems that some support is implied. But no, I'm not specifically being paid to support Mac users.

As per your request this is what DMZ is networking wise, it does in fact stand for De-militarized zone. How most routers work is that they run a technology called NAT (network address translation) which translates communications between two different subnets. So, you have your public IP from your ISP would could be like 72.73.74.75 for example, and it will translates all communications into your private network which would be a 192.x.x.x or a 10.x.x.x depending on how you have it set up.

DMZ basically just puts that specific machine outside the NAT with no protection at all, since by design NAT does not just allow remote hosts to connect to your system, so even though NAT was designed to help with the limited numbers of IPv4, it also doubles as a layer of security. So, if you put a Mac in a DMZ the routers just allows all traffic right to it, with no filtering or protection. Which is why I suggested it to be a great demonstration of how by design Unix is way more secure than Windows.

Now this has to do by design, not really by anything else. OS X follows the basic Unix theory of Kernel > Shell > GUI, where nothing directly from the GUI can ever access the kernel (in theory, there are loop holes and exploits) but can communicate with the kernel via the shell, but the shell requires authentication to do so. Where as with windows, applications, drivers, APIs, so on and so forth can get direct access to the windows kernel via kernel hooks. Now, this allows for easier software development and more robust tools and options when given direct access to an OSes kernel, on the flip side it is also a huge security risk.

So, as a great demonstration you could put two machines, 1 mac and 1 windows machine out in the wild world web, both on DMZ (may need multiple routers, not sure if all routers support multiple DMZ machines, typically they only allow one). Then you could have them running every P2P downloading application that is known to be just filled with viruses and you could go to every malicious site you can google or think of and see which one starts to fail first and how long it took to fail.

Of course you would want to add in some factors, make sure all security patches are up to date on both OSes, so you don't get that, hey noob they fixed that comment.

Then go ahead and be a dumb user and install every codec it asks for or any add on it asks for and see what it does. The results should show you how by design an OS has security level that do not allow self propagating malicious files from the wild just plomp them self on your system and then make babies and infect your system even more.

It would be a great demonstration on several things:

1) basic layered network security

2) Basic theory of OS security

3) and of course the don't worry feature when the Windows box has a plethora of things gone amuck to it from the malicious files it picked up, and how OS X doesn't have this issue.

I think the main thing you've proven to me is that I know absolutely jack about networking... So, what book do I need to read so that he IT departments on campus don't look at me like I'm a moron (oh, and I would prefer that I'm actually not a moron as well. I.e., I'm not out to simply have the appearance of knowing what I'm doing.)

Watch all current episodes of the new TV series, Big Bang Theory. Because really, that is what it all sounds like to me as well.

See, but I understand the Big Bang Theory.

For me the problem is, has and always will be lingo. As soon as I understand the lingo, things start to come together. Until then...ugh. Networking is foreign now, but I understand computers and I understand the principles behind networks. I figure all that I need is a good book to put all the pieces together and give them some names...

.
Congratulations, Zalister! :)
:D That’s brilliant!!

Well, basically an IP address is like a house or apartment address, its a number representing a client on a network. Each ISP is assigned a set of public IPs, which they then assign to their clients on their own network. Public IPs are accessible via the world wide web, and are used for websites and what not. Private IPs are set ranges that are reserved for private networks and can not be accessed unless routed through a public IP. That is where NAT comes in. It translates requests from outside the network to inside the network. It was designed to help with the limited number of IPv4. So, once corporation can buy a couple of public IPs, and then use private IPs for the rest of the company and everything can communicate via NAT. It also doubles as a layer of security since by design it does not allow a remote host to connect. You have to set up port forwarding.

You're smart enough to go read the wiki page on basic networking and NAT to explain and understand the differences, and DMZ. Then, as a demonstration about how well a Mac out of the box can defend itself against the evil all powerful interwebs simply put one out on a DMZ and let everything and its sister hits it and see how it fares. To be fair though, there isn't much out in the wild that can infect the Mac, so that can also be a strong point for you to show the security side of it. I know that an un-patched non secured windows box won't last too long. You could also use that as a point of why one would seek a mac over a windows box.

Private addresses fall in these ranges:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 -- an extremely large group (24 bits out of 32) most often used by large corporate intranets.
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 -- not used all that often.
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 -- where most small routers set up their NAT.
0.0.0.0 - default route -- the router from the LAN
127.x.x.x - loopback address -- your own address from within.
zeros at the end refer to the network
x.x.255.255 is a broadcast address to all
machines on x.x.

So, let me see if I can get this straight.

If I but the computer out on the DMZ, it's basically that it's outside of the NAT. Thus it has to deal with all sorts of access requests from various (most likely unknown sources). Since Mac's block requests for root they should be safe in these instances, but because windows "leaves the door open" all those requests will simply walk strait into the windows box, bringing it to it's knees in a matter of hours. Is that about right?

@ArcticStone -- Thanks :).

Correct the fact that OS X requires Authentication to install anything that malicious software would need admin rights. See you already know! The fact that applications can just install with out having authenticated on windows means a remote host can connect and do nasty bits to it and then leave it infected.

Why does Windows allow that anyway, that's never made any sense to me...

It is just by design. All users run as root basically and applications, drivers, APIs, etc can access the kernel directly via kernel hooks. One side, it makes things super easy and allows developers access to the kernel, on the other side its like opening up pandora's box as far as security goes.

Of course it can be locked down just like any other OS, the problem is it is just easier to find a way around. I wouldn't call it less secure, I would just call it a bit harder to manage. I can lock down windows just like I can lock down OS X, it just takes more effort with windows.

When you say more effort, how much effort are we talking? OSX comes locked down out of the box, as I recall. Is the normal "Joe/Jane Citizen" going to be able to lock down Windows to that same extent right out of the box (and can they do it before they get tired of all the stupid pop ups?)

Well, you would have to create an admin account and log in/out of it every time for system wide changes and then run everything as a limited user account to avoid software from automatically running. OS X is not immune to lots of what windows users have to deal with, the only major difference is that they are prompted to put in an admin password to do so.

Nope, your average person cares not how it works rather just that it works. If I tell you how to set registry keys, create accounts and lock down things by policy and permission you'd probably think I was talking about some complex system of mathematics or what not. Your average user will never be immune to social engineering attacks regardless of what platform they choose to run. However, when it comes to self propagating viruses that are network active, then yeah, out of the box OS X is more secure. That is unless you leave all your passwords blank, because I am sure most viruses try a blank password if they are required authentication.

Defective by design.
 

User Account Control in Windows Vista supposed to put an end to this sort of "open door" access. So was Kernel Patch Protection.

yeah but some big gorillas like Symantec complained so they left API and Kernel hooks in the OS.

If it changed everything why are there Vista viruses? You still are running every user as root.

This just isn't true.

http://weblogs.asp.net/kennykerr/arc...t-Control.aspx

http://www.techbyter.com/2007/20070701.shtml

Quote from the second link:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1170936

From this link:

And the documents at this link do not suggest that every account runs as root, in fact describing quite the opposite:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/w.../aa905113.aspx

For several reasons, the relative significance of each of which is debated by many.

You know, just for kicks and giggles, I went and googled things like "Vista Viruses" or "List of Vista Viruses", and I saw a couple. But what really caught my attention was the number of Mac forums that harp on Vista viruses. Have to admit, it is starting to sound a bit passe.

I still think OSX is more secure that Vista. Though I do think the recent steps Microsoft has taken (as shown by Mikey-San), are in the right direction. So, for myself, I think I'll concentrate more on the user experience.

I was thinking about this yesterday and it occurred to me that some time soon computers will be a lot like cars. There will be plenty of brands that work, and the big difference (at least in similar price ranges) is really more a style issue that anything else.