Comments on: A Mac or Not a Mac? Ancestry World Archives Project

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:12:07 +0000

Peter @31: Usually these issues are inflicted on you by the OEM or by yourself. Every slow Windows machine I’ve seen in recent years has had one or more of the following:
1. Norton/Symantec Antivirus
2. multiple antivirus programs running
3. multiple indexers (eg MSN and Google) running and neither used
4. OEM preinstalled crapware loading and calling home every time you start your computer
5. spyware running

A little spring cleaning goes a long way!

By: Peter Forkes

Peter Forkes — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:36:09 +0000

If only I could ditch my Windows machine, once and for all.
Windows is lazy and insubbortinate. It is as if it has another job, somewhere, and whenever I want it to do something for me it is off doing something else.
It is now 1 in 8 homes with a computer has a Mac…

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:40:11 +0000

Mac users shouldn’t be too concerned about equal treatment. FTM products are incredibly unstable under Windows. The level of technical support is appalling especially if you are a user outside of the USA, for whom free upgrade offers don’t apply. Complaints fall on deaf ears.

By: Bill Synwoldt

Bill Synwoldt — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:37:50 +0000

I agree fully with the preceding comments made by Smeehan, on Oct 7. My first Mac was given to me for evaluation purposes by no other than Steve Jobs when at small meeting of information systems executives in 1984. Even though I eventually had responsibility for a network of 5,000 PCs before I retired I have always been a loyal Mac user at home. I suspect that if you look at the demographics of Ancestry.com users, many of then are seniors who find Macs much less intimidating than PCs. Simply stated: PCs are for corporations; Macs are for people.

By: Smeehan

Smeehan — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:43:42 +0000

These fingers don’t do Windows. I’ve had Macs since the first one came out in March of 1984, and I have no intention of ever shifting. We Apple folks are very loyal.

I don’t understand the corporate culture at Ancestry deliberately limiting its customer base. Shortsighted is the first word that comes to mind, and contemptuous is the second. The folks at Reunion work night and day to give us a better product, It is high time that Ancestry realizes the value of our loyalty and produces a product that can earn it. You are making so many strides for the PC world that surely your creativity can be applied to serving us as well. We deserve to be first-class citizens of the Ancestry world and shouldn’t have to be begging for crumbs. Equal treatment is very long overdue.

By: Lantrix

Lantrix — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:54:43 +0000

Actually maybe I was hasty in stating the web site is becoming more standards compliant. Despite http://ancestry.com.au being a transitional XHTML 1 document, it has over 260 errors when validating against the web standard it is published under:
http://tinyurl.com/y9kqcqz

If you are publishing a website for use on multi platforms, including Mac, then have your site pass standards, e.g. http://tinyurl.com/y8deb2v

By: Gus Marsh

Gus Marsh — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:43:05 +0000

There are more than 40 million Mac users in the USA. Please help us out so we can stay abreast with Ancestry.

By: Lantrix

Lantrix — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:31:23 +0000

@22, Phil: I’m successfully using the Ancestry family tree website and searchable archives on a Mac on Safari. Ancestry seem to have done much to make the website more standards based in the last year, which is good. I agree with you that websites should be written to standards and not a product.

However, my issue is lack of non-web based products i.e. the World Archives and Family Tree Maker applications for Mac.

By: pandanustree

pandanustree — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:52:28 +0000

I enquired to Ancestry before purchasing mac about the compatibility, I was assured within 12 months all would be compatible, including FTM which is also under the wing of Ancestry, would have a patch to run on mac. With only a few months to go, I hope Ancestry is true to their word.
I must say I am also surprised it took so long. I was even surprised that Ancestry was window based & not mac. Seems like a huge oversight to their paying members of Ancestry. More value for money would be appreciated.

By: Chagoi

Chagoi — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:26:30 +0000

It’s interesting to note on Eastman’s Genealogy Newsletter that he took a survey of his online readers. 10% were using Mac OS X.

What company other than Ancestry deliberately ignores potentially 10% of their customers? Their logs might only show, say, 5% Mac users but that’ll be because the other 5% have long ago given up the battle with Ancestry.

Another Mac user … and in despair.