Obama Staffs whine and what???

By Sam the Deaf | Published: January 22, 2009

Well, it’s no more W. Bush in office as Obama are take over the oval office. Here is an interest article that mention about computer issues in the White House.

One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

Read the full article.

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  • http://www.deafchange.com Ben Vess

    As a designer and webmaster for several websites, I’d like to point out that it’s not whining.

    It is very offensive.

    There are standards among designers and webmasters across the world in how to set up and run a website. The standard is there for transitions, such as switching servers, changing designers, and so forth.

    NOw if they’re mac users, they shouldn’t have problems with PC–but you mentioned that the windows is over six years old. Which means it is XP and it’s not as updated as Windows 7.

    This causes a lot of problems when you want to maintain a website that’s very updated.

    The way Bush did it looks like this: let’s mess it up so bad that it will take more than 12 hours for them to cleanly make the transition. When the obama camp got in, they saw that.

    It takes more than 12 hours to clean up a mess like that–a lot of recoding and a lot of reading in the source codes.

    No, they’re not whining–in fact, what Bush did was give them the finger as he left.

    That’s what it is to us designers.

  • Shawn R.

    Now that the new team is in the White House, do they have a budget to buy new Macintoshes and updated equipments??

  • http://www.deafread.com Carrie Gellibrand

    Ben, are you serious??

    I just read this ten minutes ago and I am speechless. I cannot believe tat Bush did that… oh wait. BUSH did that… that I can actually believe.

    What’s his problem? He had the Oval Office to himself for 8 years and now a new President comes in (VOTED BY THE PEOPLE!!) and tries to do his job.

    Well, President Obama and the people who came in to work on the computers, I think they’ll just have the last laugh. I would think that President Obama also is a lot more tech-savvy than Bush ever will be.

    And with us, the people, backing him up more than ever, President Obama is gonna make a GREAT 44th President of the USA. :)

  • http://www.taylerinfomedia.com/ Tayler

    I’m just buckin’ full of glee – the Obama administration’s new media team uses Macs!

    Ben, Windows 7 isn’t out yet, Microsoft’s latest operating system is the god-awful Vista. The former administration may have made a smart decision to stick with XP.

    Were I the IT director of the White House, I would throw out all PCs and buy brand new 15″ Macbooks for everyone! The increased productivity will pay itself in a few months.

  • Midwest Texan

    Wow – and Obama supporters, this happens every time.

    when clinton left, bush went in – clinton aids took all W’s off the keyboards.

  • joseph

    well.. remember bush called it “the internets” and cheney said his wife did his email…

    old farts

  • Silent Red Wolf

    Its better that way so no high tech hackers with newest update can not hack old systems for security reason? Hackers thinks white house have high tech, Dunno.

  • Silent Red Wolf

    Agree with you Taylor, long live Macintosh!

  • http://www.deafchange.com Ben Vess

    YES GO MAC GO!!!!!!

    :)

  • http://thumpaflash.livejournal.com Eddie Runyon

    Here is a link that documents that the GAO (Government Accounting Office) had to pay between $13,000 and $14,000 to repair the damages left by the Clinton team as they were leaving. Vulgar and obscene signs, vulgar and obscene voice mails, stolen door knobs and locks, a 12″ in diameter Presidential seal stolen, etc. Clinton team acted like a bunch of whiny 8 year olds when they left office.

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B63

    As for the computer software being 6 years old, you will find that is VERY common. Usually when there is an upgrade, the time it takes to become fully comfortable with the system, work out the bugs and glitches that ALWAYS occur whenever you undergo a major overhaul, and so forth, more than likely accounts for why it wasn’t immediately upgraded to Vista, etc.

    As for them being Mac users, I forsee quite a few problems initially, when making the changeover from what it currently is (Microsoft XP). As one poster above notes, leaving it at XP may have been the best thing to do, considering that Vista is nowhere near as good in my mind. It is the nature of the beast when it comes to major overhauls, as I said.

    And to the person who asked if they had a budget for this, the answer is yes. Every 4 years, Congress adds more money to the White House budget to ensure transition costs are fully funded. Of course, Obama’s transition was so extravagant, who knows if this will be enough or not? Is it really even necessary to convert to Macs? Would it be cheaper and more efficient to simply upgrade the current Microsoft software?

  • Sam the Bright

    It would be nice if everybody get iPhone and do something advanced that we don’t get one what govt would offer.

    Change is good, Obama said. heh.

  • The highlander

    Bush is caveman and Obama is high-tech.

    Six years old computer is wayyyerrr outdate.

    Sam, Enough with iPhone thing since you never interesting to get iPhone for yourself.

  • The highlander

    http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/01/wired-or-tired.html

    I knew that iPhone is pointless since The white house is no Wifi allow.
    I hope The white house will get OS X over Windows due secure.

  • Sam the Bright

    Yes, thank you for the interest information.

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