Whoops, URLs don't show up. :-(

Steve Wood's bio is at "http://www.mathdittos2.com/who.html".

Send feedback to "swood@mathdittos2.com".

Old Windows programs run fine while old Mac ones don't? Excuse, but where do you buy your hallucinogens? I still have every program I've ever owned (I'm such a packrat), and nearly everything (other than games) from my 14-year-old Mac II runs fine in Classic under Mac OS X on a G4. If you can get anything from the pre-Windows 95 era to run on a modern Windows machine, it's a complete miracle. Windows upgrades break far more software than Mac OS upgrades.

thanks for the link, it proves you are wrong.

I guess you didn't read it to the end...

"Conclusion: Pentium 4 Comes It Strong

The Pentium 4 has a lot of potential. It becomes dangerous for the G4 especially in its domain, the graphic- and 3D-sector. The G4-processor can compensate for a considerable part the high clock rates of the Pentium 4 because of its RISC-architecture. But the Pentium 4 has an enormous bandwidth in the processor and the systembus. The advantage: It reaches good results especially then, when huge amounts of data has to be transferred from the memory to the cache and the processor."

I'm a professor in a major university (business school) and I can tell you that Apple has completely lost the higher education market. None of my colleagues (covering almost all major institutions) use Macs. None of my students use Macs. Until recently, I was the only professor in my school using a Mac.

Apple is dead in higher ed. Sad, but true.

This guy doesn't know what the real world is like.
He doesn;t realize the ton of money the school will save over the long haul in support alone!
Here you have someone that teaches our children who hasn't a clue to how think something through.
Dell could GIVE them computers for free and the Apples would still cost the school less in the long run.

The facts speak for themselves. I am surprised to see so many people supporting the argument that Apple's have lower costs of ownership, when this argument is - while relevant - totally unnecessary: We already know that Macs, the new ones, are cheaper to buy too!

Woods has already defeated his own argument by saying that PCs are cheaper; this is simply false with the iBooks new violently aggresive pricing.

As a straight platform rant, we mac-o-philes should get a chuckle/told-you-so out of the following story. From a pure educational budget standpoint, you have to feel awfully sorry for the school district and taxpayer experience I'm about to describe....

A friend of mine (I'm 48) is a teacher in a nearby school district. Our sons play college soccer together. At a recent match, we got on the subject of technology, and my friend blurted out 'Jesus C****, my school district just spent $3 million dollars on 'new' computers (some Wintel variety- he wasn't sure which brand). Turns out, they're like 2-3 years old and the suckers can't run most of the software we have. It's an unbelievable nightmare....I can't believe they (the technology dept) did this!"

Hmmmm.....and I think they were already using Wintel before the purchase, so take this as at least some real-world commentary on backward compatibility and useful life....

----

Unfortunately, my own school district went totally Wintel (Compaq, I think) at the H.S. a year ago as part of a $40 million renovation. At least one computer in every classroom, plus a couple of labs and a bunch in the library. Two of my sons in H.S. (Sr/Jr) tell me that most of the teachers rarely ever turn them on, much less use them.

Kind of sad, isn't it? Tools for education that are so unattractive and unfriendly that they don't even get turned on?

I'd bet anything if they were colorful iMacs and iBooks, they'd at least fire them up...

Previously, our high school had a mix of Macs and PC's (but the Mac's were mostly pre-G3). Only the physics lab now has Mac's (wireless iBooks), and just recently, the video department got two DP533's. My son's senior project was teaching the video instructor how to use Final Cut Pro....They freaked out when they saw what cool things could be done with iMovie, much less FCP.....

Slowly, but surely.....I can hope the good word spreads. It's about using the tools to educate and create, not educating about the tools. Any price for computers is awfully steep if they never get turned on....

Jeff

Obviously you don't have a clue, and your students, if you actually have any, are probably as sorry as you are.

Your at mathdittos.com well do your math one sale 23,000 iBooks at $1,199 equal $27,577,000
Actual cost of sale to that one county $18,500,00

Real cost of those iBooks $805

Compaq Presario 800t-700
whose spec read as follows
P-III 700mhz
12.1 TFT display
10 gb Drive
128mb RAM
24x CD-ROM
ATI Rage Mobility 4 mb Ram
56k Modem
10/100 ethernet
USB (one Port)
Firewire port
unknown battery life Since Compaq won't claim anything.

Cost of this "feature laden" portable

$1799

add a DVD player for only $100 more

Strange except for memory this machine cost $500 than the standard iBook cost with the same features and $1000 dollars
more than what Apple actually sold them.

Lets try Dell

Inspirion 2100

P-III 700mhz
12.1 TFT display
10 gb Drive
128mb RAM (not user upgradeable)
24x CD-ROM
ATI Rage Mobility 4 mb Ram
56k Modem
10/100 ethernet
USB (one Port)
N O Firewire not even an option
2.5 battery an extra $49


Cost of this "feature laden" portable

add a DVD player for only $100 more

Strange except for memory this machine cost $550 than the standard iBook cost with the same features and $1050 dollars
more than what Apple actually sold them.


All for only $1848

Volume pricing for Apple iMac order in excess of 2000 units drop $200 off list price plus no shipping

You argument is garbage Apple delivered exactly what schools want a small portable kid rugged computer that the kids can
take home with them schools don't want massive 17 CRT displays with large towers that have to be pulled apart by a
technician for every little change and upgrade. Schools want simplicity ease of use and ease of a maintenance.
If your schools Macs of date in the OS department then I send you OS 8.1 and you can up grade them all in a few hours.
Hell where are you I am sure there is a Mac user group that will come over and do it for nothing in an afternoon or a weekend
Since your tech people are too mentally deficient do it themselves.

Next time get a life and know what you are talking about before you slam a company and a person without the facts.

Macnn... please do not print troll articles. If you think it's going to get more page views for your advertisers, forget about it... iCab pretty much takes care of those banners.

If the guy knew what he was talking about he wouldn't be a grade school teacher.

New iBook seems like a bargain to me... what can you get in a PC that is supposed to be so much better for that price? PC laptops under $2000 continue to suck, as they have done for a long time. 'Sides, you can't run Mac OS on them.

that has airport, USB, firewire, and the best OS in the universe now and tomorrow.

Here's a Gateway PC for education:

http://www.gatewayatwork.com/prod/ed_e1600_Matrix.shtml

Where's the CD-RW? What size is the drive? How much memory is in it? What bloated OS is it running by Micro$oft? When the ethernet card in this Gateway breaks, do schools consider it will cost $50 for the card + $100 - $300 for someone to install it (reinstalling the OS and apps if plug&play; doesn't plug&play;)? It's computers like these that drive kids to shoot each other!

How about the software migration from Macintosh to Windows? I realize most schools don't pay for their software anyway, but that could still be significant, especially for legacy apps.

For the first time, I actually think Apple is priced LOWER than the competition.