On Oct 7, 2005, at 6:07 PM, Normand Peladeau wrote:
> Last August, we have done a 2 days training in a lab of 15
> researchers, all equipped with Mac computers and Virtual PC, all of
> them running QDA Miner. I did not witness it with my own eyes, since I
> was not the one who went there for the training, but my employee who
> went there just told me that the program was running very smoothly and
> was quite responsive.
>
> I can think of several factors that may explain why your experience
> was so different with Atlas.ti.
In addition to the reasons you provided, I can think of one other
reason that has to do with the social environment, not the software. If
I was using Atlas.ti with Virtual PC and I was in a small class for two
days with expert instructors, I'm sure I would have had a much better
experience. When I use Virtual PC and something goes wrong, I always
have to ask myself "Is it the program I'm running on Virtual PC? Is it
a problem with Virtual PC itself? Is it a problem with the Mac OS? Or
is it a hardware problem?" Now if I had an expert in Virtual PC and
Atlas.ti by my side and I encountered a problem, she could probably
tell me "Oh, this is a typical Mac problem" or "Yea, Virtual PC is
buggy like that. Here is what you do." or "It's the program." And after
two days of that kind of help, I bet I would be up and running. But in
the absence of support for Virtual PC or Atlas.ti at my university, I
found it mind-boggling to identify and solve problems. Also, most of
the problems I had went away when I used Atlas.ti on a real PC.
- Don
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