A Sad for day for County County GA schools

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Dell's winning low cost bid is in the works. Apple's IBook proposal was shunted aside and now Windows XP will have a home for three more years.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-georg...01/1666543.htm

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    I hope the money they saved is enough to buy anti-virus and spyware removal software and a subscription to MS's new security service.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    Quote:

    "Our teachers are deserving of the best teaching tools that we can provide them," said Fred Sanderson, Cobb County Public Schools superintendent.



    So that's why you bought them the cheapest thing on the market?
  • Reply 3 of 12
    lakingsfnlakingsfn Posts: 141member
    Well, they'll regret their choice soon enough, poor kids.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Wow...the went for Dell notebooks that aren't much cheaper...can't run OS X in addition to Windows...which means no iLife for the kids and tons of viruses and malware to monitor and remove.



    Oh well...there's always gotta be some kind of balance between smart and dumb people.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Wow...the went for Dell notebooks that aren't much cheaper...can't run OS X in addition to Windows...





    That's a new concept that most people probably don't understand yet.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    What specific advantages does Mac OS X have over Windows in an educational setting? Many progeams on the computers at my high school (CAD programs, VisualBasic, scientific software for digital thermometers accellerometers etc, Inspiration) aren't available for Mac OS X, and as far as I know, Windows is better suited to the task of maintaining update consistency between machines, network storage for private accounts, etc than Mac OS X is.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Placebo...huh!? It has EVERY advantage. Except when programs aren't native..oh wait, nevermind, cancel that, looks like Apple came out with Intel Macs. Parallels and/or Bootcamp will fix that for 90% of applications. EVERY advantage.



    My high school uses Mac Plusses still. Ever seen a Windows computer in use that old!? That's actually useful?



    Macs = cheaper, longer lasting, less time wasted (antivirus, bad hardware, shit not working, training to use the crappy interface, etc etc etc.)
  • Reply 8 of 12
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Placebo...huh!? It has EVERY advantage. Except when programs aren't native..oh wait, nevermind, cancel that, looks like Apple came out with Intel Macs. Parallels and/or Bootcamp will fix that for 90% of applications. EVERY advantage.



    My high school uses Mac Plusses still. Ever seen a Windows computer in use that old!? That's actually useful?



    Macs = cheaper, longer lasting, less time wasted (antivirus, bad hardware, shit not working, training to use the crappy interface, etc etc etc.)




    I know we all love the Mac look and feel and all of the polish associated with the Mac platform, but those aren't statistics that can be easily presented. The school PCs use Firefox and have NOD32 installed as a network-wide antivirus, which is inexpensive and centralized. I don't think Mac OS X can even log in as a user on a central server and have all files, settings, etc. present at that location, which makes it extremely convenient in a school with a thousand students and a few hundred computers: no matter which computer you log onto, your files and everything are there.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic



    antivirus, bad hardware, shit not working, training to use the crappy interface, etc etc etc.




    Well, lets talk about the last round of Macs installed where I went to HS...Rev A iMacs (CRT, some with OS 8.? some with 9)



    Viruses: let me substitute viruses with bugs and instabilities, they would lock up, apps would crash, launch 3 apps at once...hold on, a reboot is a-comin'



    Hardware: round, flat "UFO" mouse; whoever OKed that should have been fierd!!!!! screwy optical drives in the case of at least 1 or 2 iMacs in the library, plus those fuckers got realllllly hot!!!



    Shit not working: See "Viruses"; to that add that a "word" DOC from mac would look funnyh on windows and a Word 2000 DOC on a CD would not only CRASH Word 98, but the OS too!!! also, lots of text-book supplement CDs were Windows only!



    Training: sad as it is, most folks use (and used) Windows: so the OS is no-training-needed for most



    Crappy interface: It is Mac/OS (classic), enough said!



    This isnt the Apple of today, but a lot of seasoned IT pros want to see more of a track record with OSX before making a huge scale switch...a huge IT system, aint your grandmas email box!
  • Reply 10 of 12
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Dells in Georgia schools.



    See this is why you send your kids to private school.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    Well, lets talk about the last round of Macs installed where I went to HS...Rev A iMacs (CRT, some with OS 8.? some with 9)





    How much better was Windows back then? Or I should ask, How much better was DOS running a GUI back then.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ThinkingDifferent

    How much better was Windows back then? Or I should ask, How much better was DOS running a GUI back then.



    Step away from the coolaid!



    They were installed in 1998! but shit, it felt like using a DOS gui from 1986...



    I started HS in ~2000 we used iMacs in the library and many classrooms; the business dept used Windows 95, and they were MORE reliable than the Macs; of cource if students hacked at them, they would crash, but this is back before spyware was a huge or even minor threat, and most viruses were launched bu students with physical access...but given physical access, you can do anything you want to a mac on the older OSs...





    In my sophmore year, they upgraded all the PCs to win 2000 pro which was way better than windows 98, at about the same time, they upgraded some of the imacs to OS9; the results were more of the same, the macs under proformed -- that is to say that they sucked...the PCs carried their weight well, and rarely if ever crashed; the windows boxes were rebooted maybe three times per semester -- MAYBE -- and they just worked... so well in fact that we could play a massive LAN game of Unreal Tounement in C++ class



    in 2003-4, XP replaced 2000, same damn thing, new splash screen and more RAM...



    Now look at the 2006-7 buying cycle...windows has all but fallen apart the last 3-4 years; whenn it is faster in many cases to just reinstall everything from the grownd up than to do general maintenance, something is wrong! in the same time Mac OSX is somkin' and Linuxes like Ubuntu are starting to look really promising BUT the last 8-10 years have put many schools in a windows lock in -- the real thing to watch will be what happens in the next software cycles...Will windows win everything again? will Mac win everything again as they did in the 80s?



    I say NO.



    What I would expect to see in 3-5 years in the average public school:

    Windows only where needed (Autodesk, I am looking at you)

    Mac where Linux won't work (Adobe stuff, FCP/Avid, Protools...)

    Linux for the mases: Think about it, take Ubunto, r Fedora and customize it to your school theme wise, add FF and OOo and toss in a managment server or two and you have about 80% of the computing needs done with free software!



    Windows Linux and Mac OS X(and beond) Will co-exist, 5 years down the road, I see a 40 30 30 split in market share, who will be the 40? hell if I know!
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