School + Computers = *waste*!

mm3 · 07-11-2008

Alright, let's see. The common laptop here at my school this is a Dell Latitude, models from early 2008.

3GB RAM, 667MHz
Core 2 Duo ~2.2GHz, 667MHz FSB, 4MB L2 cache
80GB SATA 7,200RPM Hard Drive
14" 1440x900 screen w/gloss
Windows XP Professional (SP1?!)

Some features of said laptop? An Ambient Light sensor, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n.

First of all, my school doesn't have WiFi. AND, most features on the computer are disabled and locked through the BIOS. So WTF? Why spend all the money for these features if they're just going to be locked away? 802.11n? Why? Why all the RAM? A freshman 'round here won't use a quarter of that. 80GB HDD? Why, when all you need is around 10GB for the Operating System -- because everything is on a single server in the building for student's personal storage.

14" High-Def widescreen? WHY?! Especially if they're going to set it to 1024x768 and lock it there!?

A 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo? What for? They aren't going to be playing Call of Duty on the thing, they're going to do webbrowsing and proxying into facebook FFS!

Now let's move onto Desktops. This year, guess what we got.

Dell Optiplexs:
4GB RAM, 1066MHz
3.2GHz AMD Phenom Processors, insane FSB, insane L2 cache.
DVD Writers
250GB 7,200RPM SATA Hard Drives
17" - 19" Dell flat panels

Now, WHY?! Student's will *never* use any of that potential, even with classes that use AutoCAD, etc!

Now the school wonders why we have such a big budget problem, because we're blowing off money on needless items. It's sickening. Our BOCES IT wannabes know less than my 5 year old sister does. You know, two-finger clacking for typing, and can't tell the difference between DVI and VGA. Yeah, they're *that* nooby. What makes it worse, is that they think that they know it all because "they're the tech guys!". They get all pissed off when they get corrected by me or one of my comrades who also know a decent amount of IT things, and the comeback they always give is "well, this is just how it is." PSSHT!!

You know the grand finaly? Every year, we get *new* machines, while the ones that were new the year before, are decommished and thrown in the trash. Yeah, you read that correctly. Expensive $2000+ computers just tossed aside to get melted down. (Oh, and for those who don't know, I'm still on probation for Grand Larceny for taking 4 of said "junked" computers -- me and a former friend of mine).

Now, instead of paying $2000 for each machine (we're talking 500+ computers here thoughout the whole school), we should pay $300 for a simple Dell Vostro -- 512MB RAM, decent Celeron M processor -- you know, keep it simple! There's no reason to have to spend so much on needless things and throw the school district into so much debt that we need to cut *varsity sports*, after school programs and clubs, and extra help sessions for something as foolish as this.

So what are me, friends of mine, and a few teachers putting together? A petition to fire the wannabe IT guys from our district, hire new ones, and get a recycling plan going for used computers and drastically lowering the budget. Right now, what we're doing is using an official of the superintendent who supports what we're trying to put together, is that in our Naval ROTC program that I'm in, me and my appointed team (I am the lead IT manager for the ROTC program) go down and get our hands dirty, finding what machines are working, salvagable, usable, etc, and taking them up into our ROTC storage room so that they aren't going to waste.

We'll see what happens with that. But who agrees with me? There needs to be change, especially with the economy being the way it is nowadays.

Pojo · 07-11-2008

They get them just to make people like you confused beyond hell

**InnocenceAlone** · 07-11-2008

We used to have dino computers last year, then they changed them to Macs that are absolutly amazing. All we have are Macs and Macbooks. Well there are a few Dells but those are only for teachers.

Fire2box · 08-11-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by InnocenceAlone

We used to have dino computers last year, then they changed them to Macs that are absolutly amazing. All we have are Macs and Macbooks. Well there are a few Dells but those are only for teachers.

Yeah since they are cheaper then dells that have the same specs. <_>

If you don't get it I am joking those macs and macbooks cost more then Dell's or anything else aside Ailenware computer or some crap like that. Why people want to pay more for exactly the same that can't nearly run as much different programs confuses the hell out of me.

miles · 08-11-2008

At my Technical College we get to use laptops.
They have everything frozen, but nothing is blocked, you can change all the settings and go anywhere online, but as soon as you reboot the PC loads an image from the hard drive, so none of your cookies are saved or anything.
Sadly, the laptops there are better than my home PC.

dogboy · 08-11-2008

Since I work IT for our school, I'm guessing your downtown ITs persons were made a deal by Dell that they couldn't refuse. All of this stuff goes out to bidding, and then they weigh best price against reliability. Probably Dell is building a million of these things with these exact specs, and so they are cheap to make. I understand all of the computers, all brands, are made in the same factory in China. They just grind them out for next to nothing. Anyway, that's my guess.

Incomplete Dude · 08-11-2008

At my college they recently upgraded the IT computer labs our program uses at our behest. I'm in a Game Programming program, so obviously we need some decent machines. Now for the most part they are fine, Core 2 quad, 3GB of RAM, 320GB HD. They didn't buy new monitors because the old ones are fine, and they didn't splurge on fancy cases or any useless junk. However, they made one major mistake.

Obviously, the main component of concern to a game programmer is the video card. However, the administration was somehow conned into thinking that game development requires professional video cards. So now we have a whole room of $500 Quadro 1700s when we could have gotten Radeon 4870X2s for almost the same price! I'm not saying the Quadros are terrible, they are DX10 and they are passable in performance. It's just not needed and we could have gotten far far more value for the same price with a consumer GPU.

Still, compared to the stories I hear this isn't too bad, but then I haven't told you their other gaffes. For example, they have a $150,000 mo-cap system sitting in a closet and us game guys are not allowed to use it because it's owned by a different department. This is despite the fact that the other department has given us permission, because they rarely use it themselves. It takes a lot of space to set up, and they only need it for one of their advanced animation courses. Oh yeah, did I mention the animation/digital arts students are in another department, and the game developers are not allowed to work with them! This is all because our department's administration is extremely egotistical and insists of maintaining absolute independence from any of the other departments on campus. This would be fine if they weren't idiots too, whose boss keeps our PS3 dev kit at his house, because us game programming students aren't allowed to use it before he's figured out how to program it. However, it's proven beyond his extremely limited abilities, so now it's his kid's new multi-$10,000 toy. By the time we get it, it'll either be broken or filled with porn. Fucking tool.

Ben · 08-11-2008

Meh my school goes on a 3 year computer cycle where basically all computers are replaced every 3 years. They get pretty good computers though tbh you almost need them to be that good to last 3 years and not be considered ancient. On the other hand i doubt if they are ever really used to their full potential, but then again there are game development courses which at least could potentially need the power though in all reality the kids in that course probably use their laptops for everything. (I'm in university so we are talking somewhat higher levels of use than a HS would use).

If they're gonna keep the computers for 3-4 years then by all means go with the more expensive one because trying to buy a $500 computer and replace it every year has considerable costs to set up all the new computers etc that may make getting a more powerful computer initially and keeping if for a while better in the long run.

Kams · 08-11-2008

Our whole school district runs on iMacs and eMacs. The iMacs are pretty decent, but I hate the eMacs ._. And last year, each school got brand new MacBooks (some of which) are better than the iMacs.

jayschares · 08-11-2008

Consider yourself lucky. IT at my university "upgraded" all of the computers to vista. I really don't mind vista but these computers were not made for it. some of them take over two minutes just to log on, not start, but just log on. It's ridiculous, there was nothing wrong with XP except for the fact that M$ only sells the cheap licenses to the university for one year. oh well i only use them to print from, so it's not to bad for me.

07-11-2008	#1 (permalink)
mm3 Metal Militia Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: New York Age: 17 Posts: 1,011 Threads: 62 Gallery Uploads: 3 Wiki Edits: 3	*School + Computers = waste!* Alright, let's see. The common laptop here at my school this is a Dell Latitude, models from early 2008. 3GB RAM, 667MHz Core 2 Duo ~2.2GHz, 667MHz FSB, 4MB L2 cache 80GB SATA 7,200RPM Hard Drive 14" 1440x900 screen w/gloss Windows XP Professional (SP1?!) Some features of said laptop? An Ambient Light sensor, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n. First of all, my school doesn't have WiFi. AND, most features on the computer are disabled and locked through the BIOS. So WTF? Why spend all the money for these features if they're just going to be locked away? 802.11n? Why? Why all the RAM? A freshman 'round here won't use a quarter of that. 80GB HDD? Why, when all you need is around 10GB for the Operating System -- because everything is on a single server in the building for student's personal storage. 14" High-Def widescreen? WHY?! Especially if they're going to set it to 1024x768 and lock it there!? A 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo? What for? They aren't going to be playing Call of Duty on the thing, they're going to do webbrowsing and proxying into facebook FFS! Now let's move onto Desktops. This year, guess what we got. Dell Optiplexs: 4GB RAM, 1066MHz 3.2GHz AMD Phenom Processors, insane FSB, insane L2 cache. DVD Writers 250GB 7,200RPM SATA Hard Drives 17" - 19" Dell flat panels Now, WHY?! Student's will never use any of that potential, even with classes that use AutoCAD, etc! Now the school wonders why we have such a big budget problem, because we're blowing off money on needless items. It's sickening. Our BOCES IT wannabes know less than my 5 year old sister does. You know, two-finger clacking for typing, and can't tell the difference between DVI and VGA. Yeah, they're that nooby. What makes it worse, is that they think that they know it all because "they're the tech guys!". They get all pissed off when they get corrected by me or one of my comrades who also know a decent amount of IT things, and the comeback they always give is "well, this is just how it is." PSSHT!! You know the grand finaly? Every year, we get new machines, while the ones that were new the year before, are decommished and thrown in the trash. Yeah, you read that correctly. Expensive $2000+ computers just tossed aside to get melted down. (Oh, and for those who don't know, I'm still on probation for Grand Larceny for taking 4 of said "junked" computers -- me and a former friend of mine). Now, instead of paying $2000 for each machine (we're talking 500+ computers here thoughout the whole school), we should pay $300 for a simple Dell Vostro -- 512MB RAM, decent Celeron M processor -- you know, keep it simple! There's no reason to have to spend so much on needless things and throw the school district into so much debt that we need to cut varsity sports, after school programs and clubs, and extra help sessions for something as foolish as this. So what are me, friends of mine, and a few teachers putting together? A petition to fire the wannabe IT guys from our district, hire new ones, and get a recycling plan going for used computers and drastically lowering the budget. Right now, what we're doing is using an official of the superintendent who supports what we're trying to put together, is that in our Naval ROTC program that I'm in, me and my appointed team (I am the lead IT manager for the ROTC program) go down and get our hands dirty, finding what machines are working, salvagable, usable, etc, and taking them up into our ROTC storage room so that they aren't going to waste. We'll see what happens with that. But who agrees with me? There needs to be change, especially with the economy being the way it is nowadays.

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07-11-2008	#2 (permalink)
Pojo Changed AIM for privacy Historical Donor Staff Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Cow-Land, VA Age: 18 Posts: 4,381 Threads: 73 Gallery Uploads: 6 Wiki Edits: 110 Blog Entries: 20	They get them just to make people like you confused beyond hell

07-11-2008	#3 (permalink)
InnocenceAlone Regular Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Tokyo, Japan Posts: 39 Threads: 4 Gallery Uploads: 7 Reputation: 1	We used to have dino computers last year, then they changed them to Macs that are absolutly amazing. All we have are Macs and Macbooks. Well there are a few Dells but those are only for teachers.

08-11-2008	#5 (permalink)
miles Regular Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Menasha, Wisconsin, USA Age: 18 Posts: 250 Threads: 9 Reputation: 5	At my Technical College we get to use laptops. They have everything frozen, but nothing is blocked, you can change all the settings and go anywhere online, but as soon as you reboot the PC loads an image from the hard drive, so none of your cookies are saved or anything. Sadly, the laptops there are better than my home PC.

08-11-2008	#6 (permalink)
dogboy VIP Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 1,100 Threads: 4	Since I work IT for our school, I'm guessing your downtown ITs persons were made a deal by Dell that they couldn't refuse. All of this stuff goes out to bidding, and then they weigh best price against reliability. Probably Dell is building a million of these things with these exact specs, and so they are cheap to make. I understand all of the computers, all brands, are made in the same factory in China. They just grind them out for next to nothing. Anyway, that's my guess.

08-11-2008	#7 (permalink)
Incomplete Dude VIPIVIPIV Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Brampton, Ontario, Canada Age: 22 Posts: 773 Threads: 37 Gallery Uploads: 16 Wiki Edits: 3 Blog Entries: 2	At my college they recently upgraded the IT computer labs our program uses at our behest. I'm in a Game Programming program, so obviously we need some decent machines. Now for the most part they are fine, Core 2 quad, 3GB of RAM, 320GB HD. They didn't buy new monitors because the old ones are fine, and they didn't splurge on fancy cases or any useless junk. However, they made one major mistake. Obviously, the main component of concern to a game programmer is the video card. However, the administration was somehow conned into thinking that game development requires professional video cards. So now we have a whole room of $500 Quadro 1700s when we could have gotten Radeon 4870X2s for almost the same price! I'm not saying the Quadros are terrible, they are DX10 and they are passable in performance. It's just not needed and we could have gotten far far more value for the same price with a consumer GPU. Still, compared to the stories I hear this isn't too bad, but then I haven't told you their other gaffes. For example, they have a $150,000 mo-cap system sitting in a closet and us game guys are not allowed to use it because it's owned by a different department. This is despite the fact that the other department has given us permission, because they rarely use it themselves. It takes a lot of space to set up, and they only need it for one of their advanced animation courses. Oh yeah, did I mention the animation/digital arts students are in another department, and the game developers are not allowed to work with them! This is all because our department's administration is extremely egotistical and insists of maintaining absolute independence from any of the other departments on campus. This would be fine if they weren't idiots too, whose boss keeps our PS3 dev kit at his house, because us game programming students aren't allowed to use it before he's figured out how to program it. However, it's proven beyond his extremely limited abilities, so now it's his kid's new multi-$10,000 toy. By the time we get it, it'll either be broken or filled with porn. Fucking tool.

08-11-2008	#8 (permalink)
Ben Regular Historical Donor Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Massachusetts, USA Posts: 263 Threads: 20 Wiki Edits: 17	Meh my school goes on a 3 year computer cycle where basically all computers are replaced every 3 years. They get pretty good computers though tbh you almost need them to be that good to last 3 years and not be considered ancient. On the other hand i doubt if they are ever really used to their full potential, but then again there are game development courses which at least could potentially need the power though in all reality the kids in that course probably use their laptops for everything. (I'm in university so we are talking somewhat higher levels of use than a HS would use). If they're gonna keep the computers for 3-4 years then by all means go with the more expensive one because trying to buy a $500 computer and replace it every year has considerable costs to set up all the new computers etc that may make getting a more powerful computer initially and keeping if for a while better in the long run.

08-11-2008	#9 (permalink)
Kams Regular Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: USA Age: 15 Posts: 357 Threads: 11 Gallery Uploads: 2 Wiki Edits: 2 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 3	Our whole school district runs on iMacs and eMacs. The iMacs are pretty decent, but I hate the eMacs ._. And last year, each school got brand new MacBooks (some of which) are better than the iMacs.

08-11-2008	#10 (permalink)
jayschares Regular Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Iowa, USA Age: 19 Posts: 99 Threads: 4 Reputation: 0	Consider yourself lucky. IT at my university "upgraded" all of the computers to vista. I really don't mind vista but these computers were not made for it. some of them take over two minutes just to log on, not start, but just log on. It's ridiculous, there was nothing wrong with XP except for the fact that M$ only sells the cheap licenses to the university for one year. oh well i only use them to print from, so it's not to bad for me.