new comp' for youth club

[rogerw]

ok, for my sins, i am the chairman of the managment for the local youth club. we recently had a meeting where we agreed to have broadband installed and also get a new computer. I have also been put in charge of buying this new computer. at the mo, we have 2 piss poor pc's, one of which will be binned. I was thinking of getting a mac as i already have a couple and I dont mind taking the spears in the chest when everyone complains about the choice as i already have some good reasons for the switch. But i am probably the only mac user in the village. let me have your reasons to back me up, if you agree- for the kiddies who use pc's at school.
And, who wants to come with me down to the shop to buy this new mac? Cant decide what one to get.

[Blue Velvet]

ok, for my sins, i am the chairman of the managment for the local youth club. we recently had a meeting where we agreed to have broadband installed and also get a new computer. I have also been put in charge of buying this new computer. at the mo, we have 2 piss poor pc's, one of which will be binned. I was thinking of getting a mac as i already have a couple and I dont mind taking the spears in the chest when everyone complains about the choice as i already have some good reasons for the switch. But i am probably the only mac user in the village. let me have your reasons to back me up, if you agree- for the kiddies who use pc's at school.
And, who wants to come with me down to the shop to buy this new mac? Cant decide what one to get.

Get an eMac.

Robust case and screen, good value, expandable, not easily nicked...

Biggest selling point: no need to worry about viruses & other junk that kids can easily unintentionally download and install. Also: easy to set up limited-use accounts with being able sort everything from your admin account.

[rogerw]

Get an eMac.

Robust case and screen, good value, expandable, not easily nicked...

Biggest selling point: no need to worry about viruses & other junk that kids can easily unintentionally download and install. Also: easy to set up limited-use accounts with being able sort everything from your admin account.

ha ha , no easily nicked...good 1.

just wondered if there is anything they may do at school, that they couldnt do on this. i cant think of anything. anybody know diff.

[sjpetry]

ha ha , no easily nicked...good 1.

just wondered if there is anything they may do at school, that they couldnt do on this. i cant think of anything. anybody know diff.

You can do everything and more on a Mac than on a PC and the Mac does it better. :D :cool:

[CanadaRAM]

ha ha , no easily nicked...good 1.
just wondered if there is anything they may do at school, that they couldnt do on this. i cant think of anything. anybody know diff.

Well obviously there is no floppy drive, so the first kid who comes in with their writing project on a Windows floppy is going to be SOL unless you set up some way to transfer data from the remaining PC.

It won't run Windows programs, so many games, adware, spyware and P2P programs are out (good thing) but so are specific PC productivity programs.

What are you planning to install for software? Be sure to budget for MS Office Student & Teacher edition because the first question will be "Where's MS Word?" (Yes I know AppleWorks comes with it and is a capable program. Unless you, the only Mac guru in the vicinity, wants to sit beside the machine fulltime teaching the ins and outs of file conversion, it'll be a problem)

As with any publicly accessible machine, I suggest you have a plan for restoring the hard drive once it has been creatively modified by the clever li'l darlin's. A Carbon Copy Cloner image of the working drive on an external Firewire drive might be in order.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

[rogerw]

Well obviously there is no floppy drive, so the first kid who comes in with their writing project on a Windows floppy is going to be SOL unless you set up some way to transfer data from the remaining PC.

It won't run Windows programs, so many games, adware, spyware and P2P programs are out (good thing) but so are specific PC productivity programs.

What are you planning to install for software? Be sure to budget for MS Office Student & Teacher edition because the first question will be "Where's MS Word?" (Yes I know AppleWorks comes with it and is a capable program. Unless you, the only Mac guru in the vicinity, wants to sit beside the machine fulltime teaching the ins and outs of file conversion, it'll be a problem)

As with any publicly accessible machine, I suggest you have a plan for restoring the hard drive once it has been creatively modified by the clever li'l darlin's. A Carbon Copy Cloner image of the working drive on an external Firewire drive might be in order.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

ta all
ill install word etc, no probs.

i think it will be easier for me to 'restore' on a mac than on a pc?

do pcs still have floppy's? oh err

i think this lot will be more interested in trying to download music ,and sites they're not meant to, than doing homework. garage band could be good though, will the emac run this well.

[mduser63]

Well obviously there is no floppy drive, so the first kid who comes in with their writing project on a Windows floppy is going to be SOL unless you set up some way to transfer data from the remaining PC.


External USB floppy drives are cheap. Just pick one of those up, and you'll be set. Many of the Macs at the University I attend have floppy drives, because a lot of students do still use floppies to carry around Word files, etc.

[CanadaRAM]

External USB floppy drives are cheap. Just pick one of those up, and you'll be set. Many of the Macs at the University I attend have floppy drives, because a lot of students do still use floppies to carry around Word files, etc.

Just devise a way of nailing it to the table because it'll walk otherwise.

[rogerw]

You can do everything and more on a Mac than on a PC and the Mac does it better. :D :cool:

But can i connect to AOL adsl on it??

can i ?