[Bollaroid II]

Just got through reading the quoted post and i thought that this would be the perfect opportunity for Apple to get users to know about their applications. The issue about Apple needing MS is partly caused by the fact most people have not sampled Apple's goods So even when you have macs in a lab setting, most students are still looking for MS applications which means they are still thinking of MS even though they using a mac.

Whats needed from Apple or a third party is a simple app that pops up when a user/student logs in that has the most common type of applications (internet, im, wp, spreadsheet, etc.) displayed as icons with a label e.g.

Internet: Safari
Documents: MS Word
Chatting/IM: iChat
Music: iTunes
Spreadsheet: Excel
Presentation/Slideshow: Keynote
Email: Mail
Other: link to Applications folder
Option: Do not display on login

To add more interesting functionality one could do things such as including ical and having each users custom "calendars" stored with their profiles on the server. Similar things can be done for other apps.

This would do a great deal for Apple coz i can testify that in the one lab at school that has macs, the only people that know about apples other apps are the lab guys (even though they do not use them - they are windows guys) and maybe the rare student that is a mac user at home. Many do not know that they can listen to music, chat on aol, connect to their online email, etc using Apples' apps (if they are even aware of their existant - most are not or at least do not know waht the icons in the Applications folder stand)

so should anyone out there decide to make this app, make sure that things such as configuring Mail to connect to online mailboxes is "extremely" simplified e.g. instead of requiring students to type in the url for their mail service have, say, the 6 or 8 most common listed as options and an other option listed if it not among those - remember when dealing with sheep, think as sheep would (i know that was low, just tryna get the message across)

btw - if targetted for labs app should have ability to force user to use headphones or however it is configured on the server

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Here is quotation from other forum:
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I have witnessed these with my own eyes, coming from someone who has to babysit a lab full of G4's, eMacs, iMacs, and old school Performas.


I can honestly say that Jaguar is not quite viable for a lab setting for the following reasons:

1. Whenever a program (most of the time Internet Exploder) goes into a spinning beachball, the students either walk away thinking the computer has crashed, unplug/replug it, or give it the old three-finger salute. Apple needs to have an option to turn on a dialog that appears after a few seconds directing the user to force quit the crashed application.

(No, I don't have admin privileges to put Safari on these machines as much as I want to)

2. On the computers in a different lab where I have deleted Internet Exploder, you'd be surprised at what lengths students will go to find it, often launching the classic version. The techs got mad that I installed Safari and have since took away my admin privileges. So those machines got stuck with V60 in the Applications folder. Fortunately, I downloaded V73 and stuck it somewhere in the student home account and put that copy in the Dock...heh heh heh

3. Some students don't know what the hell to do with the Dock. They look for the "Start" menu or go fiddling with the top menus to launch programs. Others drive through Finder windows to the Applications folder. DUH.

4. Here's the most annoying thing: students pulling stuff OUT of the Dock.

5. Print Center is also problematic. Every time a print job fails, somehow the settings in Print Center get messed up by students trying to print their stuff off some remote printer on the other side of campus, or by deleting the printer all together. HP is the worst offender for problems.


I guess I shouldn't complain so much...it's better than the Performas getting their files all rearranged!


Any other lab techs have similar horror stories?

[Developer]

Originally posted by Bollaroid II:
Whats needed from Apple or a third party is a simple app that pops up when a user/student logs in that has the most common type of applications (internet, im, wp, spreadsheet, etc.) displayed as icons with a label

Put them in the Dock, label them on the desktop picture.

[Truepop]

Drag Strip (or is it Drag Thing).

Also you could make an applescript program and place it in start up.

[OpenStep]

Teh launcher again?