Zhanga: February 20, 2005

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Sunday, February 20, 2005 (8 comments)

I heard rumors that the laptops being issued to teachers and students in the future will be iBooks. There are many, many things wrong with this.

First of all, I'm surely not the only one who disagrees with this laptop idea completely, whether or not they are iBooks. Whoever came up with this idea clearly hasn't been inside today's classroom. At any given time, a whopping third of the class might be paying attention. A third of the class will not have their laptops, will have broken laptops, will be out of batteries, etc. The last third will be playing games or doing other unproductive things. What a worthless idea.

Oh! But of course, there will be content control! You won't be able to play games during class! You will be limited to doing your work! There will be bulletproof restrictions!

Wanna bet? Restrictions, my ass.

They clearly haven't learned the 10 Immutable Laws of Security, especially the first three. I can't make any hard promises about iBooks because I'm not familiar with Macs, but if I were given a Windows laptop with any kind of restrictions, those restrictions would be my bitches by the end of day 3. The iBook really shouldn't take much longer. Maybe three weeks at most.

Perhaps I should talking about the past and present before thinking about the dismal future. According to the local expert on teleportation, the Walton science department has 48 laptops. They're the Pentium III's that won't work. Anyone who has tried using them (we "used" them in APES) knows how bad the network connectivity is, even though the computers themselves are quite fast. But a fast machine that doesn't let you log on is worse than no machine at all it results in negative productivity because you sit there waiting when you could instead be doing work by traditional methods.

Using Apple computers isn't going to help with this network situation. The network infrastructure at Walton isn't going to improve just because we're getting new laptops. In fact, it will get a lot worse. When you have thousands of computers attempting to connect wirelessly... ugh. It's going to be ugly. Mark my words. Teachers will be telling students, "Ok, you log on. When you're on, tell Susie to log on." I'll eat my words and a nine volt battery if I'm wrong.

So back to the subject of iBooks. Besides general arguments that could be applied to any kind of laptop, I have issues with iBooks specifically.

A brochure produced by Cobb County states that the cost of each iBook, as calculated by a four-year lease, will be $271.26. However, the next sentence said that the cost per student will be an estimated $350 annually. ANNUALLY! That's $1400, not $270, over four years. That's quite a discrepancy, I'd say.

Then I looked on the website [link removed: site no longer exists], which stated that the $271.26 is itself an annual figure. Interesting. So basically, they were being intentionally deceptive on the brochure. Anyways, $1085 to use a laptop for four years, plus $315 of unknown costs? Come on, Cobb County. You can do better than that.

They say [link removed: site no longer exists] that the entire cost will fall below the $59 million budget. Then they say elsewhere [link removed: site no longer exists] that the total cost will be $69.9 million. On another part of the Cobb County site, they say 63,000 laptops will be purchased. At $350 a year for four years, that's $88.2 million, not including additional costs (for example, servers). What the hell is going on here?

I'm sure Cobb County can find better deals on PCs. There are so many more vendors of Wintel (Windows/Intel) machines that prices are naturally lower. In addition, if you need a part, you actually have a choice of where to get it from, rather than trying to choose between Apple and Apple and Apple... and Apple. I won't even start talking about software costs.

Actually, speaking of software... this is also from the site:

Each will come fully-loaded with Mac OS X, Microsoft Office, wireless Internet connection and iLife, Apples music, photo, & movie suite. Its the most powerful learning tool theyve ever laid eyes on.

Please explain to me how the music, photo, & movie suite will help us powerfully learn. Any explanation would be appreciated. And... iLife? Are you kidding me? That name reminds me of "AP Life."

Apparently "Apple will provide a total of seven support personnel" (also from the site). Great! Seven people to support 63,000 users in Cobb County. That seems like a good ratio to me.

Let me quote something else [link removed: site no longer exists]:

Technology guru Walt Mossberg recently wrote, "The Mac is also packed with extras that Windows lacks. It has a suite of easy, free, multimedia programs that can't be matched on Windows at any price. It has a better free browser and e-mail program than Windows. It can read and create PDF files without requiring the purchase of any extra software. Apple upgrades its operating system far more often than Microsoft does...And Apple is the only computer company whose business is focused on consumers and small businesses."

Now, I haven't done any research on this guy, but from what he's said, he hasn't earned the "technology guru" title that he's given. I like how he calls everything free. Did he forget that to get the Apple computer to begin with, you have to pay WAY more than a comparable PC? What about the fact that Apple has a monopoly over everything Apple-related? Even Microsoft doesn't come close. That drives prices of anything that goes with Apple computers way up. Software, hardware, repairs... blah blah blah.

You can get free multimedia programs for Windows. You can get free browsers (ahem, Firefox), free email clients, free PDF readers and creators (yes, you can create PDFs for free), etc. And on top of that, you have a choice of what browser you want to use, what email client, what PDF reader/creator, and so on, which is a luxury you don't have with the Apple platform. And that last sentence, "the only computer company whose business is focused on consumers and small businesses," is total crap. I mean, how can you lie so blatantly and then get quoted for that? (Just as a counterexample, consider Micro Center.)

In case you're wondering, all the software I was referring to can be legally acquired for free. Obviously, you can pirate even more "free" software, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Cobb claims that there has never been a "successful virus" written for OS X. Well, in the words of Dutter, "That's because no one CARES enough to write a virus for it!" Why write a virus to target a platform that no one uses?

I don't even want to go into the fact that no one knows how to use a Mac. I agree that it is easy to learn as a beginner (though not any easier than Windows). But it certainly isn't easy to master. I'll bet that less than five people (and I'm not one of them) at our school know anything about UNIX, the operating system that OS X is built upon. I'm guessing that a maximum of one "media specialist" has any idea what UNIX is. I can see them saying "Hmmm... a type of cheese...? Oh oh oh, wait I know, it's a group of men who got their balls chopped off."

People ask me why I care, since I'm a senior. These people have forgotten that I have a sister. But if Cobb County is going to continue being stupid, I am getting my sister out of here.

This is so stupid.

UGH!

5:52PM

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