Disagree.
I've used Macs at home since 1984 - I can remember System 1.0 (the hills, the
hills...) I have to use an IBM Stinkpad at school when I teach - class rolls
are marked in class now, on the spot, wireless connection to intranet. It's a
lot slower and more difficult than a pen and printed roll but, hey, wouldn't
want to be impolite to the technology now would we?
These are rock bottom basic machines - heavens, they used to use Acers but the
cost of employing a nerd army just to keep them alive was too much. I'm fairly
sure that they are about 2/3rds the price of a basic Mac notebook and the
education dept. could cut a better deal with Apple if they tried.
1. Start-up. A class riot could start, reinforcements arrive and the ambulance
carry away the dead before you get to 'what would you like to do?'
2. Where the **** is ANYTHING? Down here at the bottom of this, around the
corner and in tiny print using a tag that only someone with low function
Asperger's would understand.
3. Explorer. Yes, they shouldn't but it's an institution and though shalt use
only the pre-ordained stuff. Hit the back arrow - nothing happens...no
indication that anything is happening...wait a bit...hit it again just in case
- disaster. You hit it twice you bad person did you not so now I'll give you a
blank screen with no clue about how to get out of it.
4. Lifespan, MTBF, virused, hacked, cyberneurosis - we still have a cohort of
nerds to keep it ticking (70 teachers and ed. admin staff, 4 bursar and office
staff, 1 nurse and five sysops! We've got less cleaners!)
At a similar school, there were four sysops. If you had a Mac, Harry in the
corner would set it up for you, while you waited, five minutes. The others
didn't know how. Harry got a bit bored because in two years, only one person
had brought in a Mac with a problem. The others were terminally bored because
they had queues of people who lost their documents, connection and mind,
usually in that order.
The only way they look similar 'cosmetically' is if you set up a Windoze
machine to look and work a bit like a Mac - and even then, it's only faking it.
Your frog is boiled.
<end rant>
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.soultheft.com
Author/Publisher: The SLR Compendium - http://www.blurb.com/books/3732813
On 08/06/2013, at 8:47 AM, Moose wrote:
> Yup. I have used recent Macs briefly. The differences seem to be largely
> cosmetic by now, although still sometimes
> confusing. System level settings are a different basket of apples, though.
--
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