Unbelievable! My school had G5's the whole time

[Mav451]

I believe in one of my previous posts yesterday that i said that my university doesn't have any Macs, minus this one that was running 9.2

I couldn't be more wrong. When i entered the main library, McKeldin, I went to check out the WAM Lab. Last year i recall this place only had 2.4Ghz P4 dells...but with nice Sony 21" on some.

Well, today, i decided to waltz into the library--unfortunately the first time in the first 2 weeks of this semester...lol

Lo and behold, there are 8 Dual 2ghz G5's in the lab! Too bad i got screwed with one of the smaller studio displays...ah oh well.

I don't remember seeing G4's anywhere on campus, but it is quite a sight to see 8 G5's sitting next to the dells.

All the G5's are in heavy steal cases, that are double bolted and BOAT anchored to the table here...guess they can't ever be too safe haha.

They are all running 10.3.2 as well...while all the dells were being used, 2/8 of the G5's were left open and waiting...puahah i took one next to the window.

very interesting indeed...

[wrldwzrd89]

Originally posted by Mav451
I believe in one of my previous posts yesterday that i said that my university doesn't have any Macs, minus this one that was running 9.2

I couldn't be more wrong. When i entered the main library, McKeldin, I went to check out the WAM Lab. Last year i recall this place only had 2.4Ghz P4 dells...but with nice Sony 21" on some.

Well, today, i decided to waltz into the library--unfortunately the first time in the first 2 weeks of this semester...lol

Lo and behold, there are 8 Dual 2ghz G5's in the lab! Too bad i got screwed with one of the smaller studio displays...ah oh well.

I don't remember seeing G4's anywhere on campus, but it is quite a sight to see 8 G5's sitting next to the dells.

All the G5's are in heavy steal cases, that are double bolted and BOAT anchored to the table here...guess they can't ever be too safe haha.

They are all running 10.3.2 as well...while all the dells were being used, 2/8 of the G5's were left open and waiting...puahah i took one next to the window.

very interesting indeed...

This is good news! I'm interested in seeing Apple get better established in education - reports like this only help Apple's cause. I wish there were Macs at my college (Lakeland Community College - Kirtland, OH).

[Mav451]

tehehe, i don't know why i'm so happy about this. I got tons of engineering hw to do, but i'm sitting here fiddling around with the G5.

All of them also have Kensington 2button/scroll mice, which is nice (no 1 buttons to be found lol).

Yeah wrldwzrd89: I'm amazed to find these here as my state, MD, is in a budget crisis. At this public U, they have already cut funding for food, services, among other things...but somehow these G5's must have gotten through.

Using Safari's pretty nice too, it's pretty much like FireFox with the "Ctrl T" new tab but in Mac's case, the "clover T" is the same command. I guess it's intuitive coming from FireFox for sure. This thing is only running 1.1.1 though.

[lazyboy922]

we have been using some old g3 imacs in our lab. the whole time we had 17 inch powerbooks locked up in a case. finally when we were about to unveil them, some jerk tried stealing them one night and was caught. so now the cops have them for evidence!
:-(

oh well, i bought my 15 inch so i dont care now :-)

[Mav451]

Sorry correction, there are 14 not 8 Dual 2.0G5's...

Apparently almost half of the dells have been replaced.

[Rower_CPU]

So, what's your take on the machines, Mav451, coming from your PC background?

There's nothing like some hands-on experience to give you a perspective beyond the benchmarks. ;)

[Mav451]

heh i only spent about 30mins playing with Safari and using iChat (basically the PC equivalent of using Mozilla Firefox and AIM)...pretty basic stuff really.

I could manage with either, though OSX is ridiculously preferred in the looks category ...it felt really easy.

Safari's controls were intuitive only b/c they follow right with Mozilla. New tab = Ctrl T or Command T in OSX's case. Close tab? Ctrl W or Command W.

One of the biggest thing I have always liked about Mac OS's is that the bar on the top (can i call it taskbar) is DYNAMIC, and changes respectively with EACH APPLICATION.

This simplifies the application window itself to the point that it is not overclogged with your "File, Edit, View, etc." kind of menu--those are all conveniently located at the top, and change with the current application.

Oh, and of course, i played around with Expose--so fun. I almost forgot the keys so i mashed the F Keys...lo and behold F9-F11 (or wuz it F8-F10) did the magic :)

Very fun making things fly out//spread out//or be singled out. Very very effective indeed.

[kuyu]

At the Uni. of Kentucky, we have tons of mac's, but they're all dualie 500's if I recall (or imac's with superdrive's). I asked the lady who runs the mac labs about the G5's, and she told me it would be another year before we* see a G5.

*Prof's in the chem/phys building already have them. Undergrads aren't so lucky

Apparantly, they lease from Apple, with a three year turnaround. I think it would have made more sense to buy the mac's in tiers. That way 1/3 of the mac's get replaced with the top-o-the-line every year.

Oh well....

[Westside guy]

One of the things the University of Washington does that's pretty great (although controversial) is tacking a "student technology fee" onto tuition bills. This money is used for various tech projects and computing hardware - and it has to be for the benefit of the students (so for example it can't be used to buy me a computer because I'm a staff person).

The old physics building got renovated a couple years back (not with tech fee money!), was renamed Mary Gates Hall (gee, who did provide the money I wonder?) and filled with lots of goodies. The tech fee funds were used to build a gigantic student computer lab in there, full of lots of Dells... and a sizeable helping of beautiful G5s with the big Cinema displays.

I'll tell ya - the Dells are good high-end Pentium systems, and I'm certain they are powerful; but they look like piles of **** next to the G5 Powermacs.

BTW the tech fee also was used to build some high-tech classrooms in that building, install wireless, etc.

[Mav451]

Yeah, at University of Maryland (if you couldn't tell already from my reference to McKeldin), I really haven't seen that many Macs.

I posted last week about this lone G3 in a chemistry computer lab that was close by to my dorm, but that was running 9.2 and was OH so slow.

And the past year I don't think I've spotted a single G4 tower anywhere in the campus's numerous computer labs/libraries. That is why the G5 "incursion" is so suprising! Obviously the crazy Comp Sci department has some serious muscle in the budge to get 14 2.0G5's into the biggest library on campus. I have no idea where the 2.4 Pentium 4 dells got shipped too, but i don't really care.

[Kingsnapped]

I got the pleasure of setting up my school's six new G-5s that now surround our eMac lab. The school sprang for the cheapest monitors (with SUPERBRIGHT MODE!!!1!!! :rolleyes: ) But we have G5s none the less. Woo.

[Westside guy]

At UW I think Macs are making headway because the computing folks are largely Unix-heads. OS X is turning a lot of Unix-heads. :D

Places with Windows folks in charge will probably have a harder time of it. That's not necessarilly a knock on them - but the ones I know just weren't exposed to much other than Windows during their education. Most of them have, over time, come to realize that there are times when Windows just isn't the best solution. :rolleyes:

Still, I sometimes have to explain at length why they just can't run Frontpage extensions on our Linux Webserver. :D

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Mav451
I believe in one of my previous posts yesterday that i said that my university doesn't have any Macs, minus this one that was running 9.2

I couldn't be more wrong. When i entered the main library, McKeldin, I went to check out the WAM Lab. Last year i recall this place only had 2.4Ghz P4 dells...but with nice Sony 21" on some.

Well, today, i decided to waltz into the library--unfortunately the first time in the first 2 weeks of this semester...lol

Lo and behold, there are 8 Dual 2ghz G5's in the lab! Too bad i got screwed with one of the smaller studio displays...ah oh well.

I don't remember seeing G4's anywhere on campus, but it is quite a sight to see 8 G5's sitting next to the dells.

All the G5's are in heavy steal cases, that are double bolted and BOAT anchored to the table here...guess they can't ever be too safe haha.

They are all running 10.3.2 as well...while all the dells were being used, 2/8 of the G5's were left open and waiting...puahah i took one next to the window.

very interesting indeed...

right on...that is great

basically any desktops (on the high end) bought from now on for schools have to be G5s, but you got the top models so that is a bonus

one lab in our school is set to be refreshed at the end of the year and this happens every five years so we will be replacing G4 450s with 256 to 384 RAM and apple crt monitors...but hey, it was state of the art in late 1999 ;)

if the school doesn't go with dells, then we will see G5s in november or december and i wonder what speeds they will be by then? there will definitely be one speed bump between now and then and perhaps two...that would be great to get in on dual 3 ghz G5 towers with adobe cs

one cool thing for the school to do would be to refresh high end machines every time there was a major processor change on the high end machines because before the G4s, the school had pre-powerPC mac 040s

so it went 040s in 94, G4s five years later in 1999, and now G5s in 2004 this november

we could have gone 040s in 94, ppc 601s in 95, G3s in 97, G4s in 99, and G5s when they first came out...that way students would never be on really old and outdated machines...but the school will forever stick to the five year plan as five years becomes more and more of an eternity in the world of computers

[Opteron]

No luck where I am, The only mac's I know of in UNI SA are a room of about 25, first Generation eMacs. Vs the pools and pools of brand new P4 2.8 bassed systems. Pitty though I would have gone with AMD:p

[Prom1]

Mav451,

One of the biggest thing I have always liked about Mac OS's is that the bar on the top (can i call it taskbar) is DYNAMIC, and changes respectively with EACH APPLICATION. Oh, and of course, i played around with Expose--so fun. I almost forgot the keys so i mashed the F Keys...lo and behold F9-F11 (or wuz it F8-F10) did the magic Uh-Oh the dude is thinking & having fun look out:D

Mav451 try playing around with Finder, especially with renaming folders if you haven't already. I played with 10.1.5 and was loving the OS although had a hard time wrapping my brain around folder/app location and renaming folders.

[virividox]

lucky you

my uni doesnt have macs for use of the general student body on in the publications department

[takao]

yeah lucky you :(

we got only 3 older powermacs (don't know what processors etc.) in the "special equipment" room where all those super-fast big printer and this giant 4 meter color-plotter are (this plotter is monster). those 3 macs and 2 sony vaios are most of the time unused and sdaly enough: "out of order" since last summer..

our tech-university uses mainly lots of pentium IV Dells or old compaq pentium 3 in the older computer rooms ... pretty fast thou . all are running red hat 9.0,windows XP pro and all have 17"dell/samsung LCDs. Those Computer labs look pretty 'hightech': automatic windows,light,climate control and glass everwhere ...i think they got a suitcase full of money last year ;-)

[Counterfit]

My school upgraded some of the 400MHz (or where they 450MHz..) G4's to G5's (duals I think) so now my PowerBook isn't faster than all the school's macs :(

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by Mav451

...
One of the biggest thing I have always liked about Mac OS's is that the bar on the top (can i call it taskbar) is DYNAMIC, and changes respectively with EACH APPLICATION.

This simplifies the application window itself to the point that it is not overclogged with your "File, Edit, View, etc." kind of menu--those are all conveniently located at the top, and change with the current application.
...


That's one of the main things I dislike when using Mac OS 9.x or Mac OS X. By the way, it's called a menu bar. NeXT had a menu bar connected to the main window of each application, but to keep the Macintosh legacy intact, they re-did things.

[wrldwzrd89]

Originally posted by bousozoku
That's one of the main things I dislike when using Mac OS 9.x or Mac OS X. By the way, it's called a menu bar. NeXT had a menu bar connected to the main window of each application, but to keep the Macintosh legacy intact, they re-did things.

Why do you dislike the Mac OS style of menubars? Is it because you used Windows when you were young and 'grew up' on that style?

[vulcan3d]

Mav451,

Also check out the media lab in the Art/Soc building. They are generally tolerant of non-art majors, especially if you just want to just play with the macs. For a while, they were the only place on campus that was like a mac haven.

I spent a lot of time there as part of an animation club, and let me tell you, they have ALL the cool equipment.

Other than that, just a couple of professors have them in their offices.

K
UMCP Alum, Terp for life :)

[Powerbook G5]

In my school, you can only gain access to the Mac labs with the dual G4s and dual G5s with the cinema displays, projectors, and every goody imaginable only if you are an art major. The rooms are locked with both card key locks and combination button locks and then each computer desk has this hood that locks over the computers when not in use and there are no less than 4 cameras in the classroom along with motion detectors that go on whenever a design class isn't in use or request to use the lab hasn't been granted. For the rest of us, there is a handful of iMac 233 Mhz with OS X 10.1 server and a few 500 MHz G4 PowerMacs. Besides that, we are stuck with Dell P4s or PIIIs running XP Pro. Another problem with the rest of the labs is the nasty smell of burning plastic and the insanely hot temperatures in the rooms. Sometimes I wish I were an art major...

[johnnyjibbs]

Looks like we may have a switcher soon, eh? ;)

As for the menu bar, I think that is one of the many advantages of Mac OS - why do you ever need more than one menu bar? You can only ever use the one on the active application anyway, so why waste the screen space? The Mac OS is far better at conserving and managing screen space than Windows is. (I realise some people don't like the differing length of the application menu, whereby, for example, the File menu does not stay in a fixed position between apps, but small price to pay I think.)

Still, I wish my uni had Macs... All our computers are about 500MHz - 1GHz Pentiums with XP Pro. :(

[Sabbath]

You are very lucky.

My uni must have over two thousand PCs but not one mac for student use. Even worse the PCs have the slowest refreshing screens you have ever seen. You get a headache after about 15mins use. Oh did I mention they are running windows 98 and you cant right click the majority of the time!

Also we have no access to any kind of networking if you take your laptop onto campus. I tried asking about wifi and they just laughed at me.

Needless to say I just head home to my powerbook and cinema display as much as possible.

[johnnyjibbs]

Ask about wifi here and they look blank! One day I will install an Airport Extreme card...

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by wrldwzrd89
Why do you dislike the Mac OS style of menubars? Is it because you used Windows when you were young and 'grew up' on that style?

Thank you so very much indeed. :D

It's partly the programmer in me and partly the designer in me. I often work where I'll have an application in the background and I'll want to open a file with it. With the Mac OS/GEM style menu, you activate the application, then select from the menu. With many other GUI systems, you click on the menu selection, the application is activated, and the menu option is selected subsequently.

My first GUI experience was with the original 128K Macintosh, but my first long term experience was with the Atari 1040ST and GEM, which could be described as a work-alike.