Re:Here we go again
Saturday, February 18 2012 @ 10:28 AM CST

We were lucky enough to get a large technology grant from NY State RESO A funding for my school(s). It's our third and I can't even begin to say how wonderful it's been for the students and teachers.

The choices, regarding the desktops and laptops we ordered, were Lenovo Desktops/Laptops or iMacs/MacBook Pros (they'd just removed the older MacBooks from the list).

The NYC Dept of Ed is primarily Mac oriented for the kids...but I've worked on some sweet PCs, so I did a lot of homework on which to order. The Lenovos are really nice and much less expensive. But in terms of what you get with included and pre-installed software, it pretty much equals out in the end, pricewise. And, as much as it's "cliche", the fact is that, especially for young students, the Mac's a more creative instrument. It's especially good for children with disabilities. Universal Access, for example, comes standard and it's a powerful package.

So we got iMacs and MacBook Pros. Wish we could've gotten iPads. The kids LOVE them. Talk about incentive. But they're so easily stolen that they were left off the list of options.

Something to keep in mind with Lion and, I'm sure, Mountain Lion: you NEED 4GB of Memory to run it effectively. My wife has a 3-4 year old MacBook Pro. 2GB Memory. All KINDS of problems when she installed Lion. The computer's a big part of her small business, so she got a new MacBook Pro, with Lion installed (comes with 4GB memory) and it's running beautifully. (I know there are still problems with the video/music programs, but from all I hear at our tech meetings, they're being ironed out with upgrades). We cleaned out the hard drive on her old unit, re-installed Snow Leopard, and gave it to Ava (our daughter) and she's got a GREAT computer, now.

Apple's big business. I definitely don't like some of their practices...but they put out great stuff, consistently. The main question in my mind is how to keep a significant portion of people's minds in the here and now of their immediate physical reality. I suppose it might sound naive, but I worry about that as I walk down the street and see everybody's noses buried in a mobile device.