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Law School doesn't support Macs!

P

PolySciSurfer

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 9, 2009
378
0
California
Straight from the schools website...

"Your laptop will be shipped directly to the TJSL IT Department. The IT Department staff will inspect your laptop for proper functioning and notify you when it is available for pick-up. If you are coming from out of town, we will hold your laptop for you until you arrive in San Diego. If you decide to go with another brand of computer, that’s okay. TJSL will still provide you with a copy of Symantec Anti-Virus software for your Windows based laptops and will help you diagnose and solve problems with your laptop.

We do not recommend purchasing an Apple Macintosh, for a variety of reasons. The TJSL IT Department will not be able to provide you much support for your Mac, as it’s difficult to maintain a support infrastructure for both.

Additionally, ExamSoft, which is the software used to take your exams on a computer, is not compatible with Apple Macintosh computers. ExamSoft is used by TJSL and many other law schools nationwide, including many states’ bar examiners. The developers of ExamSoft have stated that they have no intention of ever developing a Mac compatible version of their software."

I'm pissed. :mad:
 
Wirelessly posted (BB 8900: Opera/9.60 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.13918/448; U; en) Presto/2.2.0)

Bootcamp, baby.

And maintaining a mac without your school,s help is NOT difficult.
 
Yeah, it sucks when schools, IT departments, etc. act that way
The arrogance and ignorance can be overwhelming at times

But, with Boot Camp, you can still have the best of both worlds

jackiecanev2 said:
And maintaining a mac without your school,s help is NOT difficult.
Click to expand...

Actually, the Mac will probably not need any maintaining
And if it does, I'd rather a school not do it for me! ;)


Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
Duff-Man says....so, you run this ExamSoft thing under Bootcamp or Parallels or Fusion...seems like an easy solution to me as they have not said you *can't* have a Mac....oh yeah!
 
They are ret*rded.

I would cover the apple logo with a temporary Dell logo. Bring your mac with windows as the start up disk.
 
Where are you going to school? My uncle bought the original Mac back in the 80's to get through law school. I know things have changed, but I think that most quality schools should support macs. I would just run windows in a VM. BTW I'm only in HS so I'm just wondering.
 
My sons college said the same thing about macs. It has nothing to do with a mac not being able to run the software or a conspiracy on the schools behalf not to support mac. The school just doesn't want to be responsible for students having potental issues with a non-pc based computer. Not everyone is as comuter savy as MR peeps.
Yes there are people running macs in his class.
 
It's most likely not the end of the world. When I did my degree we had to use some Windows-only software, such as System Architect and Microsoft Project. I got by with Virtual PC, which was available for free from the IT department. You guys are certainly spoiled with VMware these days! :p
 
MacDawg said:
Yeah, it sucks when schools, IT departments, etc. act that way
The arrogance and ignorance can be overwhelming at times

But, with Boot Camp, you can still have the best of both worlds



Actually, the Mac will probably not need any maintaining
And if it does, I'd rather a school not do it for me! ;)


Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
Click to expand...

Umm, arrogance and ignorance is a bit harsh. I can understand their reasoning to do so. They did not BAN Macs, they just can't support it as most schools are usually Windows AD integrated which lacks support for Macs. AD is very powerful and is useful most of the time. Apple does not care much about the enterprise market and therefore they are not doing anything help Macs integrate with Windows world. It often requires third party solutions to do so and that costs money and training for many IT departments. So it is easier and costs saving just to not support Macs at all.

It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with arrogance or ignorance, that's not to say that on some cases yes, there are people or departments that just don't like macs at all and totally ban them.
 
PolySciSurfer said:
Straight from the schools website...

"Your laptop will be shipped directly to the TJSL IT Department. The IT Department staff will inspect your laptop for proper functioning and notify you when it is available for pick-up. If you are coming from out of town, we will hold your laptop for you until you arrive in San Diego. If you decide to go with another brand of computer, that’s okay. TJSL will still provide you with a copy of Symantec Anti-Virus software for your Windows based laptops and will help you diagnose and solve problems with your laptop.

We do not recommend purchasing an Apple Macintosh, for a variety of reasons. The TJSL IT Department will not be able to provide you much support for your Mac, as it’s difficult to maintain a support infrastructure for both.

Additionally, ExamSoft, which is the software used to take your exams on a computer, is not compatible with Apple Macintosh computers. ExamSoft is used by TJSL and many other law schools nationwide, including many states’ bar examiners. The developers of ExamSoft have stated that they have no intention of ever developing a Mac compatible version of their software."

I'm pissed. :mad:
Click to expand...

Not a problem. You won't need their support, because it's NOT Windows. As the many other posters here have said, bootcamp or a virtual machine will give you all the compatibility you will need.
 
Apparently the locking software and testing software probably doesn't support Mac. This is pretty common at a lot of law schools, put Windows on it, you'll be fine.
 
You can run ExamSoft under Boot Camp. You cannot run it in VMware or Parallels because it defeats the purpose of the software. It's to lock down the computer so you cannot log onto the internet or any computer application other than ExamSoft's blank word pad when you're taking your exam.

For more information on this and other law students who use macs, you should visit Mac Law Students
 
Just send them a note.

"Thanks for your concern about my computer, but a Macintosh does not require IT support, (something you might consider in these tough financial times ).

However, as your policy will require me to install Windows on my Mac, and as Windows almost always requires IT support, may I assume that your burgeoning IT staff will be able to supply support for the Windows OS regardless of the hardware?"
 
K3mp said:
It is not hard to join and login on an windows AD domain.
Click to expand...

It may be easy for seasoned Windows/Mac sysadmins but for Windows only admins and inexperienced sysadmins, they are not that easy. it often requires extra work and time to configure the AD to work with the old SMB clients that Macs use and so on. Also different versions of Windows Servers introduced more stuff that would be compatible with the old versions of SMB/AD utility on Macs. Not to mention that there's a lot of complains about printing, file sharing and so on.

I was bought on one time to work with Windows/Mac integration solution since they were having a lot of issues and couldn't figure out how to make it work but I left the company before the majority of the overhaul started.
 
dsnort said:
Just send them a note.

"Thanks for your concern about my computer, but a Macintosh does not require IT support, (something you might consider in these tough financial times ).

However, as your policy will require me to install Windows on my Mac, and as Windows almost always requires IT support, may I assume that your burgeoning IT staff will be able to supply support for the Windows OS regardless of the hardware?"
Click to expand...

You never worked in IT support before, have you?

We get a lot of mac users who doesn't have a clue what they're doing on their Macs.

Macs, or any other OS on the planet, will not eliminate the inexperienced users and especially the stubborn ones.
 
MikhailT said:
Macs, or any other OS on the planet, will not eliminate the inexperienced users and especially the stubborn ones.
Click to expand...
I sort of agree with that. That is why at my school any certain people can put their MAC address on the server to get internet. Macs are much more forgiving for the inexperienced though, and if a virus can't execute it makes it really hard to spread.
 
Duff-Man said:
Duff-Man says....so, you run this ExamSoft thing under Bootcamp or Parallels or Fusion...seems like an easy solution to me as they have not said you *can't* have a Mac....oh yeah!
Click to expand...

ButtUglyJeff said:
There has to be an Apple Store in San Diego, right?

And I would Bootcamp over Parallels or VMFusion, in this case. That way you could show them a Windows desktop.........
Click to expand...

Bootcamp would work, but unfortunately Parallels or Fusion would not because the software shutsdown everything but itself and the operating system.

For any upcoming law school students, I'm sure Vista will be easier on the wallet once 7 comes out, and it can't be too difficult to simply purchase a copy off of Ebay.

Or, as I might do, one could simply purchase an old HP/Dell notebook, buy a new battery (if necessary), and use it only for tests. Either way there are many options and one shouldn't be too worried about using a Mac in law school.
Consultant said:
They are ret*rded.
Click to expand...

It's really the fault of ExamSoft for not writing an OS X version. The only other choice law schools really have is to go back to hand-written tests, which is far worse than suffering a PC or Windows for a few hours every semester.
 
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