[Macintosh]

I am astonished at this! My school has a computer graphics lab with wintel machines! They say they have them because they get good deals on 3d Studio Max and upgrades. My school won some competitions and so it goes that they get some software for cheap prices. Does this sound logical? Wouldn't you think they could have Maya,my school district is considered wealthy too!?
Also there is another lab running auto-cad and they say that that is also the reason for Wintels. Do you have any suggestions about how I should approach the administration about this? The 4 iMac labs in the school are aging and will not be upgraded to OS X "for at least 2 years." I am sick about this! My brother who's is a senior did an OS X presentation decked out in Jobs wear and my teacher still doesn't get the point! HELP ME WITH ARGUMENTS!

[Misha]

Welcome to reality. Do a search in the Lounge or on MacNN itself, and you will see that this isn't a unique case. Apple simply cannot compete on price for purchasing systems (forget support, where Apple wins but where school boards don't care).

Couple that with the fact that it's more of a Windows world than ever, and that Windows has been steadily improving in terms of usability, and you will see the cards are stacked heavily against Apple.

I wouldn't be surprised if they lose more market share in EDU this year.

[juanvaldes]

Macintosh:
My brother who's is a senior did an OS X presentation decked out in Jobs wear and my teacher still doesn't get the point! HELP ME WITH ARGUMENTS!

Well, what did he say? 'This is the best OS ever...'? X isn't ready for prime time yet.If we knew what your brother said and forgot to mention then we can help you out with ideas.

Like Misha said, things arent' looking so good right now. I wish I stil had the address of this guys website, it is full of reasons why to use Mac instead of windows. You can find it in here witha a search, I believe it was in S. Carolina.

------------------
"Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under its own name...without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art."
- Bill Gates, 1983 (New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, p. F2)

[Macintosh]

Misha,that is all well and good but the fact is my school board could afford like 50 to 250 G4 machines with the works! We have money but no desire to go mac,WHY? I argue so much with the computer teacher he kicks me out and tells me to shut my mouth almost constantly,though I always redouble my efforts.

[Macintosh]

My brother did an exact replica of a Jobs keynote,even with as much charisma,still no new Macs! My brother said almost exactly what Jobs says about OS X, you know. The teacher was more aw-struck by the cube we brought in to demonstrate! Quoting him he said, "the Cube is nice but what if somebody spills coffee in the vent?" I want help with this!

[Macintosh]

Oh yeah,and to top if the presentation I acted as the Phil schiller guy cause I'm kind'a fat. i was a sidekick but we didnt do a Photoshop test,that would have been too much. LOL.

[Misha]

Is the CompSci teacher at all familiar with Macs? If he's not, you're not going to get him to change his mind.

Go to the school board...

[juanvaldes]

Macintosh, first can you just edit your posts? it's alot easier. second, what did you tell them about X? why are they going with cheap windows? What do they use the machines for? you mentioned auto-cad and graphics.

You are goign to need facts. not charisma. Sorry but teachers are unable to convince school boards to change how much impact do you think students will make? Also, adults HATE it when students are right. So that is going against you...

------------------
"Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under its own name...without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art."
- Bill Gates, 1983 (New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, p. F2)

[Macintosh]

He is as familiar with macs as blind our to seeing!

[typoon]

Originally posted by juanvaldes:
Macintosh, first can you just edit your posts? it's alot easier. second, what did you tell them about X? why are they going with cheap windows? What do they use the machines for? you mentioned auto-cad and graphics.

You are goign to need facts. not charisma. Sorry but teachers are unable to convince school boards to change how much impact do you think students will make? Also, adults HATE it when students are right. So that is going against you...

You do have to give him one thing though his Youthful enthusiam. It is definately a tough Battle where ever you go. I work in an All PC environment at work and it is like fighting guerilla warfare with them. I have to make my remarks then stop then make some more. Well accroding to Jobs "The War is Over and Microsoft has won." Maybe to him but not me. Macintosh, You need to use facts in your arguement. If you don't you will lose every time. For Example, when people at work are trying to get a PC up and running and go "I need a such and such boot disk. I sometimes come out with I don't need a boot disk on my Mac." That is a bad example but it is what I go through at work, If people say " there is no software for the Mac" then you tell them yes there is jsut about every major title is on the Mac. Macintosh, I say keep the Battle going. You should stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets you thrown out of class.

[Macintosh]

I am only 15. But i try my ass off to get people to take notice. For example,In math class my teacher hates macs, i said, "I will get up on that chair and stand their until class is over until you recognize that Macs have their own advantages." I was told to stop being foolish,I stood up on that chair for 50 minutes. In Computer graphics i create iMacs and any Macs that I wish to make in 3d studio. My efforts get noticed though,kids know that I know something but they are not sure what,the avoid talking to me about computers because of it. Even my teacher who has an Ego the size of Texas pokes fun at me. He belittles my knowledge, saying that I don't GET IT. I really get him made when I prove him wrong with cold,hard facts,he backs off. THAT'S WHAT I WANT FROM YOU ALL.FACTS!

[Jsnuff1]

get the student body to stop goin to school untill your school switches to macs or better get get them to march around the school wiht signs saying WE WANT MAC'S WE WANT MAC'S

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by typoon:
You do have to give him one thing though his Youthful enthusiam. It is definately a tough Battle where ever you go. I work in an All PC environment at work and it is like fighting guerilla warfare with them. I have to make my remarks then stop then make some more. Well accroding to Jobs "The War is Over and Microsoft has won." Maybe to him but not me. Macintosh, You need to use facts in your arguement. If you don't you will lose every time. For Example, when people at work are trying to get a PC up and running and go "I need a such and such boot disk. I sometimes come out with I don't need a boot disk on my Mac." That is a bad example but it is what I go through at work, If people say " there is no software for the Mac" then you tell them yes there is jsut about every major title is on the Mac. Macintosh, I say keep the Battle going. You should stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets you thrown out of class.

Oh, I do. Sorry if I didn't post it. I do.

I also, disagree with Jobs on the war is over. It will not be over until apple is out of buisness. I have fought too many battles over my time. I have run out of energy. So, I pick and choose my fights now. Amazinly I seem to have had better results without even trying.. :-/

Well good luck to you Macintosh. you'll need it. I hope that you can being them around. Consider it a victory if they will even LOOK at macs. Sometimes that is half the battle. If you can dig it up, try to get the Sep. 2000 issue of macaddict. They have a whole story about mac advocacy.

------------------
"Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under its own name...without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art."
- Bill Gates, 1983 (New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, p. F2)

[MacmanX]

Well, all this sensible advice about going to the school-board may be the logical solution, but it isn't fun. No, it doesn't matter how good your presentation is, they just won't listen (I have no idea why.) However, I would encourage you not to follow my advice. You see, this is how people who don't like their jobs do it.

I work in accounting for a large natural foods store. They replaced our great unix system with some IBM crap (and hauled off the last Mac from the store.) Latter, after they had set everything up, I noticed that one of my computers, which acts as a server for the registers, was wedged into a very small place. Remembering how poorly PeeCees do with heat, I thought, "That was stupid of them." But, being resentful about this stupid new system, I kept my mouth shut. Suddenly, after a lifetime of diligently dusting computers with compressed air, I felt no urge to dust my computers. I also developed this bad habit of blocking the few non-blocked air vents (oops, how did all that get crammed back there?) While, all of this hasn't gotten me a Mac, it has proven my hypothesis, "PeeCees are cheap peaces of crap." Or, at least, that's what I keep telling IS when I call about my dead server. But, do not do as I do (breaking other people's stuff is really wrong, unless your lashing out at a heartless, capitalist entity who has finally pushed you too far.)

Cheers!

------------------
10:00 conoc� a Apple. 10:30 trabaj� con Apple. Apple Computer�

[Macintosh]

Thanks for al the help. I am more encouraged than ever now! i want to take the school by storm and demonstrate MAC ADVOCACY at its finest. I will be updating the situation daily so look for my post called SCHOOLS OUT every day. I may need pointers along the way,of course depending on what happens tomorrow!

THANKS!

[Eskimo]

There is a fine line between advocacy and zealotry. If you are going to argue with the administration or the school board you should be aware that generally people in positions like this are not that fond of zealotry. As typoon mentioned earlier you need to use facts. Not only facts though but rational arguments. These people understand time and they understand money. Convince them that they will save both and you might very well get some new Macs. However, if you come across as a reactionary zealot who is acting 'foolish' they likely won't listen to your position or take you very seriously at all. So if you go before them I would lay off the grand standing and disruptive behavior and simply debate based on the strengths of the platform. Good luck with your endeavor.

[zeebe]

Macintosh, if you REALLY have this fight, why are you so agianst me and my fight: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/002740.html
(his post is near the bottom)

I was not asking for your money, just ideas. So if you are REALLY fighting this fight, why did you cut down mine.......

[This message has been edited by zeebe (edited 05-13-2001).]

[Macintosh]

1. ESKIMO, I will use facts and be very rational. I will accomplish my mission though it may seem to be impossible.

2.zeebe,I was joking,WISH YOU WELL,BAKE SALES WORK!

[typoon]

Originally posted by Macintosh:
Thanks for al the help. I am more encouraged than ever now! i want to take the school by storm and demonstrate MAC ADVOCACY at its finest. I will be updating the situation daily so look for my post called SCHOOLS OUT every day. I may need pointers along the way,of course depending on what happens tomorrow!

THANKS!

Just to take a line from a movie "May the Force be with you"

[typoon]

Originally posted by juanvaldes:
Oh, I do. Sorry if I didn't post it. I do.

I also, disagree with Jobs on the war is over. It will not be over until apple is out of buisness. I have fought too many battles over my time. I have run out of energy. So, I pick and choose my fights now. Amazinly I seem to have had better results without even trying.. :-/

Well good luck to you Macintosh. you'll need it. I hope that you can being them around. Consider it a victory if they will even LOOK at macs. Sometimes that is half the battle. If you can dig it up, try to get the Sep. 2000 issue of macaddict. They have a whole story about mac advocacy.

I have the same results as well. I have noticed better results when I pick my battles, that is what I mean guerilla warfare.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by Macintosh:
My brother did an exact replica of a Jobs keynote,even with as much charisma,still no new Macs! My brother said almost exactly what Jobs says about OS X, you know. The teacher was more aw-struck by the cube we brought in to demonstrate! Quoting him he said, "the Cube is nice but what if somebody spills coffee in the vent?" I want help with this!

What if someone spilled coffee on a Dell?

JEEZ...

PC people are afraid of the unknown. Macs are the unknown.

Around here the IS people try to say that having Macs in our department would make support HARDER for them because the system would no longer be homogenous... it's all a joke.

They just know that if we got Macs and never called them, their budget would shrink and MORE departments would want Macs...



------------------
Dave Simon
----------
Windows are easily broken.

[Nimisys]

being the only PC person here i guess i got to defend the school on this one. last year i was on the other side of the fence getting the lab from mac to PC. luckily my arguments made some sence.

first off no matter how much money a school has, they will ALWAYS be tight with it. how else can the football team get new jerseys every year?

Second a school will always try to utalize the resources they have with in, before looking outside for help.

Thirdly schools will always use what they are most comfortable with.

with that said lets look at your argument.

replacing all the computers in the lab is a big expence. i will figure on 40 computers which is reasonable. now you want Macs to go in, correct. Obviuosly they won't be iMacs, since they will get chewed up in 3dsMax, so they had better be G4's. what does that leave, the Cube or a tower setup, either way your looking at an average cost of 1600$ for a 433-466mhz range setup (figure rage 128 grapics, 128mb ram) without a monitor. accross 40 macs that would be 64,000$ blus an aditonal 8000$ if you have to get a 200$ monitor for each one. for 1600$ i could get an t-bird setup with 256mb ram, gf2mx or better, zip drives, firewire and a monitor. from that perspective you have cheaper/faster (even an 800mhz duron would rip apart a 500mhz g4) pc solution. What ever gains the g4 would give you in altevec Photoshop would be erased by the higher mhz of the duron/t-bird. Being a school shop, i doubt any of you are going to be doing anything that really requires the colorsync of a Mac. t-birds/durons rip through 3d stuffs like there is no tomorraw also, so they would be idealy suited for this. PLUS you can configure the PC to do graphics in a school enviroment easier than for a mac (internal zip drives, student save HDD, lack of sound cards if neccesary)

as for support, i am also inclined to give the PC an edge here. there are FAR more people out there that can troubleshoot a PC than there are people who can for a mac. PC hardware is reliable with most problems stemming from an old driver causing problems. If your mac has problems and needs outside repair, you have to either goto an apple repair shop or send it back to apple for work, as with a PC most districts do there own work anyways, so turn around time will be faster. furthermore more people are comfortable on a PC than a mac and can do there own limited troubleshooting if neccessary (i.e is the disk write protected). furthermore there are few problems that can't be fixed with a format and a reinstall. this can be done on site in an hour.

Software wise there are more options to choose from for a PC lab. while 3dsmax might be one you sighted, the instructor will have a larger selection to choose from, so if a superior product is found (such as Rhino for 3d modeling,CAD) it will be availabe immediatlly not 6 months later. as for maya as you stated, it too can be run on a PC, as i have it on my machine now, along with lightwave, Rhino and Renderman.

Internal resources also support the PC choice, if the school already has a CAD/Artist that knows PCs then going with a PC will be a better choice since you don't have to bring in an outside source. Just so you know, 95% of all AutoCAD (what a clumsy program by the way) users run it on a PC, so chances are your AutoCAD intructor knows PCs. if you were to goto MAcs you would be forcing the teacher to work in an enviroment they are no familiar with. this is detramental to the students also.

Comfort factor is also an important issue. i can garuntee you that many students who will be using the lab will have PCs at home with the software on it. in that case it also makes more since to run with the PC since your students will have a similar enviroment at home as they do in schools. for those students who have macs, their work can still be done on the mac as it reads pc disks. in this case using a PC platform would enable ALL students to work on projects at home, not just the minority of them with an Apple computor. the school computer lab would also be a similar enviroment to the one thay have at home making it for most students an easy place to work in.

with all that said, i got to agree with your schools decision as it will benefit more students than the alternative, but like i said earlier cost will be the most important factor, and when that is the bottom line a PC will win anyday.

[MacAgent]

Last year some idiot (administrator) at my school decided it was his job to wipe out all the Macs on campus. He babbled on about how he checked Apple's stock every day and how they were going to go out of business or be bought out within a year, etc.

Anyway, half of the faculty are Mac users and they rose up against him until he finally gave up. Sort of. He's still trying to get all the Macs out of the computer labs (except for the art department, thank God) and just letting the faculty keep Macs.

------------------
d

[Macintosh]

The school board and teachers are all complete dumbasses when it comes to computers. I can make the difference here!

[typoon]

Originally posted by Nimisys:
being the only PC person here i guess i got to defend the school on this one. last year i was on the other side of the fence getting the lab from mac to PC. luckily my arguments made some sence.

first off no matter how much money a school has, they will ALWAYS be tight with it. how else can the football team get new jerseys every year?

Second a school will always try to utalize the resources they have with in, before looking outside for help.

Thirdly schools will always use what they are most comfortable with.

with that said lets look at your argument.

replacing all the computers in the lab is a big expence. i will figure on 40 computers which is reasonable. now you want Macs to go in, correct. Obviuosly they won't be iMacs, since they will get chewed up in 3dsMax, so they had better be G4's. what does that leave, the Cube or a tower setup, either way your looking at an average cost of 1600$ for a 433-466mhz range setup (figure rage 128 grapics, 128mb ram) without a monitor. accross 40 macs that would be 64,000$ blus an aditonal 8000$ if you have to get a 200$ monitor for each one. for 1600$ i could get an t-bird setup with 256mb ram, gf2mx or better, zip drives, firewire and a monitor. from that perspective you have cheaper/faster (even an 800mhz duron would rip apart a 500mhz g4) pc solution. What ever gains the g4 would give you in altevec Photoshop would be erased by the higher mhz of the duron/t-bird. Being a school shop, i doubt any of you are going to be doing anything that really requires the colorsync of a Mac. t-birds/durons rip through 3d stuffs like there is no tomorraw also, so they would be idealy suited for this. PLUS you can configure the PC to do graphics in a school enviroment easier than for a mac (internal zip drives, student save HDD, lack of sound cards if neccesary)

as for support, i am also inclined to give the PC an edge here. there are FAR more people out there that can troubleshoot a PC than there are people who can for a mac. PC hardware is reliable with most problems stemming from an old driver causing problems. If your mac has problems and needs outside repair, you have to either goto an apple repair shop or send it back to apple for work, as with a PC most districts do there own work anyways, so turn around time will be faster. furthermore more people are comfortable on a PC than a mac and can do there own limited troubleshooting if neccessary (i.e is the disk write protected). furthermore there are few problems that can't be fixed with a format and a reinstall. this can be done on site in an hour.

Software wise there are more options to choose from for a PC lab. while 3dsmax might be one you sighted, the instructor will have a larger selection to choose from, so if a superior product is found (such as Rhino for 3d modeling,CAD) it will be availabe immediatlly not 6 months later. as for maya as you stated, it too can be run on a PC, as i have it on my machine now, along with lightwave, Rhino and Renderman.

Internal resources also support the PC choice, if the school already has a CAD/Artist that knows PCs then going with a PC will be a better choice since you don't have to bring in an outside source. Just so you know, 95% of all AutoCAD (what a clumsy program by the way) users run it on a PC, so chances are your AutoCAD intructor knows PCs. if you were to goto MAcs you would be forcing the teacher to work in an enviroment they are no familiar with. this is detramental to the students also.

Comfort factor is also an important issue. i can garuntee you that many students who will be using the lab will have PCs at home with the software on it. in that case it also makes more since to run with the PC since your students will have a similar enviroment at home as they do in schools. for those students who have macs, their work can still be done on the mac as it reads pc disks. in this case using a PC platform would enable ALL students to work on projects at home, not just the minority of them with an Apple computor. the school computer lab would also be a similar enviroment to the one thay have at home making it for most students an easy place to work in.

with all that said, i got to agree with your schools decision as it will benefit more students than the alternative, but like i said earlier cost will be the most important factor, and when that is the bottom line a PC will win anyday.

Nimisys,
You do Make some very valid points.
"first off no matter how much money a school has, they will ALWAYS be tight with it. how else can the football team get new jerseys every year?

Second a school will always try to utalize the resources they have with in, before looking outside for help.

Thirdly schools will always use what they are most comfortable with."

Those are very good points to be made.

I give you the points you made in the second part of presenting your argument. representing Speed. Though I would LOVE to see the benchmakrs for both a T-bird and a G4. From one article I read (I'll Have to find it again) It noted that a 500 MHz G4 with the same amount of RAM was nomially faster then a 1GHz AMD and it blew away the 1GHz Intel. Not sure about the new T-brid's though that is why I would LOVE to see a benchmark done.

"as for support, i am also inclined to give the PC an edge here. there are FAR more people out there that can troubleshoot a PC than there are people who can for a mac. PC hardware is reliable with most problems stemming from an old driver causing problems. If your mac has problems and needs outside repair, you have to either goto an apple repair shop or send it back to apple for work, as with a PC most districts do there own work anyways, so turn around time will be faster. furthermore more people are comfortable on a PC than a mac and can do there own limited troubleshooting if neccessary (i.e is the disk write protected). furthermore there are few problems that can't be fixed with a format and a reinstall. this can be done on site in an hour."

ON this I would have to respectfully disagree. True there are more people who can troubleshoot a PC. But a Mac that is well setup will have far less trouble and not crash as much. PC's are know for problems with Drivers and things. Also when something goes down you need to call in a Specialist. Not all but some teachers know how to fix there Mac if it goes down. So that will save time. People on a Mac can also do there own limited troubleshooting as well. A lot of time on both a Mac and PC it jsut requires a reboot.. As well there are few problems on a Mac that can't be fixed as well. How would a teacher know if a disk is write protected anyway? Some barely know how to use there computers. Also if a teacher has something she did in Excel or Word for windows at home she can bring it in and jsut put it into her Mac at work and it will read it and MS Word for Mac will convert it nicely. As you have said above but shown differently. Macs are also easier to setup on a Network as well thus saving time when networking all your computers. There are also few problems that can't be fixed by a mac either by formatting but sometimes that jsut not an option. If you remove a file and all of a sudden you are missing some VXD or some DLL file in Windows you can't just "grab" a VXD or a DLL file from another PC and install it as you can with Extensions and Control Panels on a Mac. Thus saving time once again. This topic of Support can be debated but IMHO from working tech support everyday I would have to disagree that a PC is easier to troubleshoot.

When a student get out of school (College or HighSchool) and they get a job working for a production company and the company ONLY uses Macs wouldn't you say the student has been short changed?
I personally believe People should know both. That way if the job calls for it you don't have to say "I don't know how to use a Mac" You can just jump right in. Same can be said about a PC.

This whole debate about Whether Schools should goto Mac or PC Will go on for a long time to come. Personally though I will never buy a PC for my Personal use, even if I'm the last Mac user on the Planet. Unless I am no longer able to do my work on the Mac then I might consider it.

[Macintosh]

Macs will win here,I know that people are not so dumb as to ruin education.

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by Macintosh:
Macs will win here,I know that people are not so dumb as to ruin education.

But I don't think they see it that way. I bet they think they are making thinks easier for cheaper. A win win to a school.

------------------
"Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under its own name...without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art."
- Bill Gates, 1983 (New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, p. F2)

[garrettnelson]

Gather around, kiddies, and let me recount to you a chilling story from TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION HELL:

I live in a medium-sized town in southern New Hampshire. We're in prime stupid person territory, covered in suburbia. We're just far enough from Boston to keep from being influenced by that intellectual centre. I know only a handful of people in the entire city of 70.000+ who are even familiar with Macs. We had a Computer Town, but it folded; the CompUSA people should go bury their heads.

Anyways, to get to the educational side of it. The school district is far from poor; we have wintels in most classrooms as well as a big network. Here's where the Windows mindset comes into play� students CANNOT have accounts. Students cannot even USE the computer without supervision. We're a JUNIOR HIGH, for crying out loud! The primary use of this multimillion dollar system is for the teachers to check their email and sometimes put up some revolting website with FrontPage.

Here's a few true stories�

A librarian comes up to me and asks how to make a space. Spacebar anyone?

I'm reprimanded for logging in with the libraryuser password.

The librarian puts together a webpage for me to makes, somehow expecting that people will get from place to place without links or intermediary pages. (Telepathy?)

The grading system was held up a week due to server errors.

The list goes on ... I can't count the number of unoriginal ugly documents typed in Times New Roman that have come out of that place. Our publishing lab currently has Macs (including two G4 Towers) and my publishing teacher is a vocal advocate of them. This has no effect on the administration, or the school board. Soon, they're going to be replaced by wintels. The new high school we're building will contain only wintel machines. In the publishing lab, to do tons of things, we have to transfer the file to the Mac on floppy, perform the task, take it back to the PC, and print it. (Macs aren't allowed on the network.)

It's this charachteristic ignorance that makes Windows so dominant (Oh, we can use ActiveX controls; all our users will have IE 5.5 for Windows!). It's sickening to the Mac user who sees it, but there's little you can usually do about it. Those in control have no idea about computing and have no experience outside of Windows. Wintel machines ARE the only computers to them.

Oh, well ...


� garrettnelson

------------------

[typoon]

Originally posted by garrettnelson:
Gather around, kiddies, and let me recount to you a chilling story from TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION HELL:

I live in a medium-sized town in southern New Hampshire. We're in prime stupid person territory, covered in suburbia. We're just far enough from Boston to keep from being influenced by that intellectual centre. I know only a handful of people in the entire city of 70.000+ who are even familiar with Macs. We had a Computer Town, but it folded; the CompUSA people should go bury their heads.

Anyways, to get to the educational side of it. The school district is far from poor; we have wintels in most classrooms as well as a big network. Here's where the Windows mindset comes into play� students CANNOT have accounts. Students cannot even USE the computer without supervision. We're a JUNIOR HIGH, for crying out loud! The primary use of this multimillion dollar system is for the teachers to check their email and sometimes put up some revolting website with FrontPage.

Here's a few true stories�

A librarian comes up to me and asks how to make a space. Spacebar anyone?

I'm reprimanded for logging in with the libraryuser password.

The librarian puts together a webpage for me to makes, somehow expecting that people will get from place to place without links or intermediary pages. (Telepathy?)

The grading system was held up a week due to server errors.

The list goes on ... I can't count the number of unoriginal ugly documents typed in Times New Roman that have come out of that place. Our publishing lab currently has Macs (including two G4 Towers) and my publishing teacher is a vocal advocate of them. This has no effect on the administration, or the school board. Soon, they're going to be replaced by wintels. The new high school we're building will contain only wintel machines. In the publishing lab, to do tons of things, we have to transfer the file to the Mac on floppy, perform the task, take it back to the PC, and print it. (Macs aren't allowed on the network.)

It's this charachteristic ignorance that makes Windows so dominant (Oh, we can use ActiveX controls; all our users will have IE 5.5 for Windows!). It's sickening to the Mac user who sees it, but there's little you can usually do about it. Those in control have no idea about computing and have no experience outside of Windows. Wintel machines ARE the only computers to them.

Oh, well ...


� garrettnelson

Maybe you and the Teahcer and several Students should start a technology revolt at the school. Also drop hints like Oh did you know CNN bought New Powerbook G4's for there reporting teams, Or did you know that the (Name just about ANY Newspaper) Uses Macs. If Mac Users need help in anyway with there battles let me know. I would be glad to provide tactical support for ya. I'll travel just about anywhere on the East coast