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Schools OS 9 to OS X

Originally posted by pgwalsh
I'm a little surprised that your school jumped in at X.1. I would have waited until I heard that the OS was up to snuff. I imagine OS X.2 would solve many issues, but I'm not sure if it does or not.
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Even with Mac OS X 10.1, we were eventually able to set it up so each student logged into a home directory on the server, to automate the creation of user IDs for students using shell scripts, to get two network printers working, and to get about 10 major applications installed and running.

Because we didn't have Jaguar, we could not do netbooting - booting each iMac off the server so it gets a fresh machine image each time. We plan to switch to netbooting once we upgrade to Jaguar, but we have to wait for a school break (probably winter break at the end of the year) since the upgrade is not going to be a one-evening effort.
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh


System Admin - Maybe not the proper term for the technical person at your location.
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old school terminology:

network technician...client side and LAN person sometimes

network administrator...everything...in other words, GOD

new school terminology:

network engineer...once called a network technician

network administrator...still GOD

systems administrator and systems engineer are rarely used terms and he or she eventually end up being called the network administrator anyways...even if they are only a network engineer

i call myself a network engineer since i have tons of stuff to learn before i can be the captain of my ship...some say being the head of a network for two or three years in a pdc/bdc network gives one the right to call themselves a network administrator...not just having a server and a single client at home...but that's always a good way to learn the super basics

learn to deal with overly important secretaries and overly important office people on some world changing deadline and then you become a network administrator...you have to have the god label to be feared as well as hated

if you want to be liked, do not be a network person or computer desktop support person since it does not go with the territory...unlike us on this techie forum, 99.99% percent of the rest of the computer using population do not consider cpu's and networks the least bit fun

i use a toilet because i need to but i don't spend time on forums about it rumoring about the next great model

i have a client who got one of those squirting toilets and that is all she talks about...she is in love with the darn thing:p
 
Originally posted by crazy_will
My school is presently switching from Macs to PCs. When I asked the head tech guy why they were doing such a thing, he said that no one can use OS 9, and half the machines can't run OS X. Then he said that they could have spent the money on new Macs that can run OS X, but "UNIX isn't secure", he called it grbage compared to WinXP Pro.

One month later, they still can't get half the Dells that they bought to print to the right printer. Plus, it takes between 5 and 15 minutes to log on to the machines, and just as much time to log off. That leaves between 30 and 10 mins per period to do work.
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Where is your "head tech guy"'s brain located???? In his ass??? and he sure has been sitting on it for too long!! "UNIX isn't secure" well thats why they use it everywhere where security is a top priority and "WinXP" well does anybody use if for anything serious at all???
 
learn to deal with overly important secretaries and overly important office people on some world changing deadline and then you become a network administrator...you have to have the god label to be feared as well as hated

Oh yes, Those overworked secretaries can really hate you:D

Especially when their HD takes a dump, and they haven't done a backup in 6 months (if at all):D. BTW, It's always the techs fault it they forget to do a backup.

Then they totally freak if you tell them it's going to be a few days before it's fixed.:D

After all, we are merely their servants:rolleyes:
 
My school hasn't yet

My prep high school just got about a dozen new iMacs, low end, and they're forced to run them in OS 9 since the network runs Novell Netware, and that hasn't been made (beyond beta) for OS X yet. Though, me and a friend still run a few in OS X, which all the kids love.
 
Speaking of my districts SA, I haven't really spoken to him since our one encounter. We have had a few issues with each other (I needed to use my digital camera for a presentaation, one machine installed the driver, and then stopped working. He said I could, but noooooo. It was all my fault.) I assume he is still sitting on his ass, though.
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh It would be great if someone in LA with OSX experience and very technical minded could offer their expertise. How would you find such a person? Maybe ask for volunteers through a school newsletter or the paper. If my child were at a school that had computer issues, I'd gladly lend my services.
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Skilled volunteers are great for one-time events (like planning/brainstorming meetings, computer setup days, installing network wiring, or holding bake sales so schools can afford lots of Macs), but a school's computers also need ongoing support/supervision/maintenance for both software and hardware. That requires expertise on a continuous basis over many years.

In my experience, it is rare for a K-12 school to get consistent long-term volunteer help, especially during school hours, so existing or specially hired members of the school staff must be given responsibility over school computers. Volunteers and the school district might provide support, but somebody at the school has to be in charge.

Schools that start with a few computers here and there and gradually build up their collection sometimes don't notice when they have reached this point.
 
Well I goto henrico county public schools, where we all have iBooks. We all use OS9. Last year, they had OSX.0 on them, and they were extremely slow. This year they have been blocked (along with everything else) from going into OSX.0. To even think these things could go Jag would be laughable. These things are slow enough running OS9. The biggest problem would be the teachers, as they have already had to learn to make websites, grade exporting, internet worksheets, and then they would have to learn a new OS? They would probly strike or something.

Anyway, hope this adds to the discussion. bye
 
The school district that I work for--I'm a tech guy--has steadily been moving to OS X, with three or four labs of eMacs running OS X only. While many of the teachers will use OS 9 until more software is converted (specifically our grading software), no switch to OS X will be made. However, all other machines (libraries, etc.) will be making the switch the moment new machines are purchased--each purchase that we make stays with OS X.
 
Originally posted by rice_web
The school district that I work for--I'm a tech guy--has steadily been moving to OS X, with three or four labs of eMacs running OS X only. While many of the teachers will use OS 9 until more software is converted (specifically our grading software), no switch to OS X will be made. However, all other machines (libraries, etc.) will be making the switch the moment new machines are purchased--each purchase that we make stays with OS X.
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Must be nice in North Dakota. Here we are near Apple headquarters and nothing a doing. Ha ha.
 
Originally posted by rice_web
The school district that I work for--I'm a tech guy--has steadily been moving to OS X, with three or four labs of eMacs running OS X only. While many of the teachers will use OS 9 until more software is converted (specifically our grading software), no switch to OS X will be made. However, all other machines (libraries, etc.) will be making the switch the moment new machines are purchased--each purchase that we make stays with OS X.
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which part of north dakota? minot?
up here in western mb only a few schools are using macs, half the schools in our division are using pcs, and our half the division are using macs, since there's 2 different sets of computer admin people for the division (since it was formerly 2 school divisions)
 
my school doesn't even use macs but at the university of sydney i think it was, I went to some science department for a music gig to open some garden or something and they had a lab of powermacs running X which was pretty cool...
 
guys you are lucky. i want to move to america where there is a chance of seeing an apple ad on tv. in aussie, the only apple advertising we get nowa days is from people like me who just today (2002/11/29) convinced a person to buy a mac.

ps. he was truly suprised to here macs ran MS office. come on apple aussie, give us something we are sinking here.
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh


Thanks for clearing that up for me, thread highjacker.
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i guess i got off the thread's topic;)

sorry 'bout that one...but i just had to take a jab against secretaries

when i go to this one large corporation that is a client of mine, the IT secretary forgets who i am (computer repair guy) and sees that i am a minority carrying around expensive equipment and calls the cops/security on me:p :eek: :confused: :p
 
re: hijacking

i invented hijacking on this website back when there were just a few hundred members

and now that i have confessed that sin, i also invented double posting;)
 
OSX in Schools

Here (www.mchs.net) or (www.mchs.net/technology/tech.html) or (laptops.mchs.net) I planted the seed by introducing a few machines with Jaguar in one lab and letting the students have at it. (And giving laptops to the superintendent and school board with Jag) They love it. I know migration will be easy for the syudents. The faculty? I suppose I'll have the same number of power-users, and the same number of computer-challenged, so it's a wash. I will up the training hours though! Almost all of my 23 servers are OSX, and we are ready. As far as apps go, I'm not worried. MS Office is great, but viruses are tiring for everyone, so we'll go over to the free Appleworks and keep the 800 licenses for Office and just use Powerpoint for all the old documents. Actually iMovie is quickly supplanting Powerpoint anyway. As for specialty software, well, we have to make the decision to upgrade, but all of what we use has a pretty good price schedule for OSX upgrades... like GoLive and Photoshop, that the financial hit will be somewhat small. However, my mantra is "Got Web?", and I am doing EVERYTHING possible to go to web-based apps where ever we can. We're working on laptops for every student next year, and they WILL be Jag. Older machines that are Jag-challenged will be sold back to Apple and replaced where needed... not a big deal as laptops are going to impact a few labs!
My only big concern? I make my own disk images, and I can't in X... yet. (Or you can but I don't know how!) Imaging has been my biggest time-saver.
 
Re: OSX in Schools

Originally posted by Les Kern
Here (www.mchs.net) or (www.mchs.net/technology/tech.html) or (laptops.mchs.net) I planted the seed by introducing a few machines with Jaguar in one lab and letting the students have at it. (And giving laptops to the superintendent and school board with Jag) They love it. I know migration will be easy for the syudents. The faculty? I suppose I'll have the same number of power-users, and the same number of computer-challenged, so it's a wash. I will up the training hours though! Almost all of my 23 servers are OSX, and we are ready. As far as apps go, I'm not worried. MS Office is great, but viruses are tiring for everyone, so we'll go over to the free Appleworks and keep the 800 licenses for Office and just use Powerpoint for all the old documents. Actually iMovie is quickly supplanting Powerpoint anyway. As for specialty software, well, we have to make the decision to upgrade, but all of what we use has a pretty good price schedule for OSX upgrades... like GoLive and Photoshop, that the financial hit will be somewhat small. However, my mantra is "Got Web?", and I am doing EVERYTHING possible to go to web-based apps where ever we can. We're working on laptops for every student next year, and they WILL be Jag. Older machines that are Jag-challenged will be sold back to Apple and replaced where needed... not a big deal as laptops are going to impact a few labs!
My only big concern? I make my own disk images, and I can't in X... yet. (Or you can but I don't know how!) Imaging has been my biggest time-saver.
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You should be able to continue using ASR (that is, if you use it currently) and Disk Copy for OS X images.

The interesting thing will be to see what new steps we'll have to take when we can't boot into 9 anymore. There are utilities for creating OS X bootable CDs but they're not all that great in their current forms.
 
Re: Re: OSX in Schools

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


You should be able to continue using ASR (that is, if you use it currently) and Disk Copy for OS X images.

The interesting thing will be to see what new steps we'll have to take when we can't boot into 9 anymore. There are utilities for creating OS X bootable CDs but they're not all that great in their current forms.
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You're correct! My feeble mind would rather be confused before it has to. I do use ASR, and since I can boot to 9 images are not an issue. Thanks for the reality check!
 
Change is a big problem, but then again , if you don't do it , you become obsolete.

Teachers should know this and everyone involved in edu.

Apple should find a way of making some seminars and teach and give assistance.

I think that Apple should know that if they can get the kids, then they can have a big share of the future.

Kids love playing, Apple should try to hook them up with games too.

When people where pirating windows in china , that horrendous man , gates, let them kept on doing it for about 2 years, then he went to the law and started demanding actions, but then , after 2 years , why would you want to change from windows if that is what you were acostumed to?

Maybe apple should follow some kind of approach and invest in the needs of the youngsters and then they will be hooked.

It seems that people would migrate from winblows machines to macs easier than from macs to winblows.

In my thesis i work closely with 3 people,two of them are switching soon,they have already told me they will.

The 3 of them have had some kind of major problem with their pc's , to the point that 2 of them are without a machine at this point because they are not working.'
The other one has to be rebooting the thing almost every 2 to 3 hours.??? don't ask me why, i don't know.

As for the whole thesis it is been done in an iBook,with jag, no data loss no rebooting, no loosing time, just been working and doing what she is told to do all the time.
:)
 
I agree that Apple should do more to push OS X in the education market. There's the issue of educational software that hasn't been written for OS X. If they could get the eMac to price that's more appealing with schools they'd be better off.

As for educating teaches, maybe they could get the people at Total Training to put something together. I've found there video's very helpful.

I can't get my brother-in-law to buy his kids a Mac and they use it in school. Even when my mother and father offered to buy them one he told them not to. The poor kids tell me they could get more work done if they had one at home. Too bad there father is a big Windows guy. What makes me laugh more is that he works for Mark Andreesen, which you'd think he'd be anti-Microsoft.
 
I am so happy! My school finally upgraded their snow imacs to OS X over Thanksgving break! Yeah me! I hate IE already from what everyone says (right now i CANT afford to buy an ibook. well yet)
so I downloaded Chimera on a 1.7mbps DSL line (SCHWEET!), and it only crashed once on me when I went to anandtech.com. no clue as to that though. Although IE couldnt even download my email page without basically freezing! I think I will be going into my school library, a bit more now that they run a usable OS (they ahd 9.2.) I will have to ask if it's Jaguar or just OS X. :D
 
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