My university forced me to switch back to PC!

[40167]

You could just bypass the uni network entirely. Thats what I did, got tired of logging into their bull and what not; and their wifi coverage isn't to fabulous. So I shelled out $4.99 a month (officialy its $19.99 but you can get around the "no-thethering" stuff on the 4.99 plan) to t-mobile and got myself a bluetooth adapter so I could just go online trough my cellphone. No more messing with their network, no more finding wifi; and the speed isnt all to bad since being in Los Angeles (or a few other cities) they got EDGE running, if im out further than their EDGE coverage it goes on GPRS at about 80kbps which is enough for most my work.

Admittingly you shouldn't have to go this route, but unless your doing bandwidth hungry stuff all the time it may be an option for you. Not to mention having internet anywhere theres a cell connection is just plain cool when your like stuck in traffic and have your passenger look up a traffic map or get some streaming music to listen to.

 

[Koodauw]

2 days later, im walking by, and theres brand new g5 imacs in it. then, the other day my teacher emailed us to tell us that we would meet in writing lab to work on some paper....so i get there and i really dread the class because its awful, but theres about 30 brand new imac g5s in it...feel the mac invasion

Our lab here just got new 20'' iMac G5's, bout 25 of them so far. Seeing all of them really is beautiful. I think ill be spending more time at the lab

I feel like I could have 8 million browser windows open! Coming form a 12'' PB this thing is huuge!

 

[Chrispy]

Our lab here just got new 20'' iMac G5's, bout 25 of them so far. Seeing all of them really is beautiful. I think ill be spending more time at the lab

I feel like I could have 8 million browser windows open! Coming form a 12'' PB this thing is huuge!

 

[BBFCFM]

This is sick. So here is how it all went down. I go to a small school in Indiana and since I have been going here they have started to slowly eleminate macs from use at the school. When I asked the computer admin staff why they were doing this they told me "macs are a threat to the network becuase they can so easily get viruses and other malicious software without people even knowing" HAHA. I almost died from laughing in the guys face and just walked away.

So, last year they installed wireless networking around campus... YAY! However, they used a cisco VPN to allow for access AND made it so you had to download the school's version with the settings hidden behind a password. I tired downloading the same client for mac but without access to the settings I can't use it. So, I bring my computer to the support people and ask them to just please input the settings for me and then they can feel free to slap up the password so I can't see them. They refuse and tell me they did it the way they did on purpose to block mac and linux users from accessing the wireless network I tired and tried but there is simply no way around it.

So, this year when I return to school I find out they started using a windows 2000/XP specific access client called "cisco clean access". This means that you have to download the clean access software and connect using that. You can only get on the network if your computer has all the windows updates and virus definitions installed. If you don't have anti-virus software you can download some from the university... but too bad you can't get online if you don't have the anti-virus software to being with lol. Nice catch 22 there. Worst of all tho, this officially blocks the macs from any reliable connection to the internet in the dorms. My school has won and I am now using a cheap refurb Dell Dimension 5100C.... and when the powerbook updates come I will be so tempted too

There is a setting on that switch "Allows All" "Allows Windows" "Allows Mac" etc. There's nothing you can do. They did install it at my school, but, unlike your university, they allow all. Sorry about the bad luck.

 

[wdlove]

That is very sad Chrispy. Nice letter. Wishing you luck in your quest. At least you are a senior. I agree, no recommendations or donations.

 

[FFTT]

This just shows you how some supposedly " professional " IT administrators

have no business, in the business.

This is nothing more than ignorance compounded by someone attempting to justify their worth in the industry.

It's shameful.

Cisco probably has a Mac OS X staff that could have gotten everything straightened out with no problem.

 

[Chrispy]

This just shows you how some supposedly " professional " IT administrators

have no business, in the business.

This is nothing more than ignorance compounded by someone attempting to justify their worth in the industry.

It's shameful.

Cisco probably has a Mac OS X staff that could have gotten everything straightened out with no problem.

Amen to that! My university is just so cheap that they refuse to spend money on anything even if it could help the students. Give me a manual and a few hours and I'm sure I would have it all figured out

 

[easymac800g4]

almost the same happening at university of alabama

the university of alabama is using a math website to teach all courses under 125. this site requires that you download a plugin so that you can do your homework from..well... home! these plugins are not mac compatible so therefore we are forced to spend time in an overcrowded mathlab that takes two hours to do 15 simple algebra problems. this is caused by a mix of slow computers and overloading of the servers. also we must rely upon instructors who cannot communicate in english to help us with these problems. is anybody else using the blackboard system at their university? if so, is it this bad there?

 

[FFTT]

I understand that the school does not want a bunch of infected P/C's loggin onto their servers, but preventing a user wth no infected files from accessing the server is pretty lame.

It may help to have your IT department speak with an Apple factory networking specialist to iron out the glitches, but Mac OS X is quite network friendly.

 

[vniow]

You could just bypass the uni network entirely. Thats what I did, got tired of logging into their bull and what not; and their wifi coverage isn't to fabulous. So I shelled out $4.99 a month (officialy its $19.99 but you can get around the "no-thethering" stuff on the 4.99 plan) to t-mobile and got myself a bluetooth adapter so I could just go online trough my cellphone. No more messing with their network, no more finding wifi; and the speed isnt all to bad since being in Los Angeles (or a few other cities) they got EDGE running, if im out further than their EDGE coverage it goes on GPRS at about 80kbps which is enough for most my work.

Can you link to this? I'm having trouble finding it on the T-Mobile site.

Thanx,

-Ani

Edit: Erp, didn't see this thread has been dead for a few days...

 

[admford]

Well here at the university where I go to Macs are also a minority. It's a technical institute in italy. I'm studying Aerospace Engineering and i've come across various problems with the school's choice of software.

CAD: Well it's not vector works or similar, it's mainly for the design of hardware and various mechanical elements. The University uses Solid Edge, which isn't available on any other platform than Windows. Well it took me a good while, but right now i'm using Ashram-Vellum's Cobalt CAD software, very nice and functional (hell, White Knight and SpaceShipOne were designed on this!)

Math software: Well we have a version of Mathcad available to download here at the university for students. It's Mac compatible so that's nice. What's not so nice is the fact that my course decided to depart from Mathcad to SciLab (an open source program similar to Mathcad). Well SciLab doesn't have a standard OS X binary to run. It's a lengthy processes at times to install FINK and then to install SciLab to run under X11. Only the most recent version that was released a couple weeks ago, FINALLY works on my PowerBook.

It's a shame that how ever good this university is, and how ever open it can be, they don't say anything to us Mac users about other applications that can do the same jobs the standard University software can do. It took me a couple months to find the equivalent software, and literally had no help from the staff even in a small case of just trying to install SciLab.

 

[geese]

If its of any worth- the University of Westminster is very Mac friendly. I guess its from having a big design department. And they seem to get some new mac kit every term- 20" iMacs with G5 towers- nice!

This wont be of any use of you unless you intend to study in London in the future.

 

[GoCubsGo]

If this were me going to this school I would leave. In all honesty, if they block a brand of computers based on lack of knowledge then what kind of education are you really getting?
I go to a school that is known for being a great law school and they not only allow macs they sell them at a discount! fools!

 

[moonislune]

Why no leap?

It makes no sense to me why the school would limit their technology options using a Cisco framework without leap. My school tried to do something similar last year until enough professors complained. This year we LEAP, literally. Dude, I think your school's crappy network officially makes you an APPLE REFUGEE.

 

[galstaph]

My school (University of Calgary) uses blackboard and it works fine. Our wireless network isn't confined to pc's but it is funny to watch some teachers who are clueless about macs, (let alone the projectors), use them in their lectures (the uni provides laptops to rooms for the teachers to use, they have a lot of dells and a few powerbooks), usually they ask the students how to connect to the internet and use the mac for powerpoint.
I am seeing a shift toward phasing out macs at the school though. Our info commons recently recieved a large amount of dell pcs (getting rid of the poor old red imacs in the process). One computer lab just upgraded to brand new dell pcs as well this session, nice lcd displays but...
(can you tell that our Uni is in bed with dell?)
We only have about 7 public (in teaching library of all places, 4 or 5 emacs, 3 older 667mhz powermacs) computers for the students running OSX we do have a lab running on OS9 though
I'm glad our uni isn't exclusive, my brothers school was, had to have a toshiba powerbrick er I mean satelite..
although there is still an emphasis on m$ software.. ie. word, excel, powerpoint and internet exploder

 

[yg17]

My school (University of Missouri-Rolla) isn't neccesarily Mac friendly. If you bring a Mac down to IT they'll have no problem telling you to piss off, but my Macs are just as compatible with the school network as anything else. They know there are Mac users on campus so they don't do anything special to block us. None of that clean access crap either. We just register our MAC address under our student account and we're good to go, and wireless uses 802.1x which works great on my PowerBook.

 

[FFTT]

I think it's sad to hear that schools are falling for the cheap Dell deals only to pay through the arse for Windows OS licensing fees and maintaining Windows security issues.

Of course there are too many underclued
and overpaid IT "professionals" who would
go the way of the Maytag repairman if these schools
really understood the true cost of ownership.

Just wait till they have to scrap all their gear and software in order to be Windows Vista compatible.

I've been arguing this point where I work and it simply blows my mind how clueless these "professionals" really are.

 

[tuartboy]

Up here at Taylor we finally got full-coverage wireless all over campus. It's nice to just plop down in the lacrosse field and check email on a nice day.

Well anyway, my powerbook was on the network in 1 minute, but 3 weeks in I still can't get my PC to validate through the system. And I'm no noob, mind you.

On a good note, turns out most of my CSS department is converting over to mac from various *nix distros. Some of these guys are serious developers too: glut, squirrelmail, GTK, etc... The macintosh platform is getting some serious respect around here!

I'm interested to hear what school you are at, since I'm so close. You can PM me if you care to divulge and don't want it in the clear.

Good luck.

 

[yg17]

Up here at Taylor we finally got full-coverage wireless all over campus. It's nice to just plop down in the lacrosse field and check email on a nice day.

Well anyway, my powerbook was on the network in 1 minute, but 3 weeks in I still can't get my PC to validate through the system. And I'm no noob, mind you.

On a good note, turns out most of my CSS department is converting over to mac from various *nix distros. Some of these guys are serious developers too: glut, squirrelmail, GTK, etc... The macintosh platform is getting some serious respect around here!

I'm interested to hear what school you are at, since I'm so close. You can PM me if you care to divulge and don't want it in the clear.

Good luck.

Taylor univeristy in indiana? A friend of mine from high school goes there, do you know anyone named Noah (I'll keep his last name off for his privacy, not like there are many people there with the first name Noah though)? I think he may be a Comp Sci too (if thats what CSS stands for)

 

[tuartboy]

Taylor univeristy in indiana? A friend of mine from high school goes there, do you know anyone named Noah (I'll keep his last name off for his privacy, not like there are many people there with the first name Noah though)? I think he may be a Comp Sci too (if thats what CSS stands for)

Noah M? Yeah, I know him. I'm really Computer Graphic Arts and like to consider myself in the art department, even though I'm not, so I'm not around the dungeon too much.

 

[yg17]

Noah M? Yeah, I know him. I'm really Computer Graphic Arts and like to consider myself in the art department, even though I'm not, so I'm not around the dungeon too much.

Nope, Noah S. I think he's doing computer something there, not positive.

 

[tuartboy]

Nope, Noah S. I think he's doing computer something there, not positive.

Yeah, don't know him then.

 

[Kraythe]

I am writing a letter at this very moment. I would leave the school but I am a Senior so it is in my best interest to stay here. This school has been terrible, however, and cut a large amount of my aid AND bumped up tuition and large amount for this year. The sad part is I was told I had to live on campus as a Senior or I would lose my grant... which they took away anyways! I will NOT be recommending this place to anyone else nor will I ever give a dime to this place after I graduate.

If they put it in writing that you had to move to the campus to keep your grant and then yanked the grant, you can REAM them in court for any number of varieties of fraud. Heck you might even be able to get your tuition back. Essentially that is something akin to Racketeering. You could reasonably expect at least the lost grant money and difference in housing costs.

As for causing you to not be able to use your computer on campus you could take them to court for that as well, suing them for the cost of buying a new laptop due to negligently uninformed information as well as incompetence. The beauty of that is that they would have to prove that macs are a significant virus threat over windows in court. That would be a tad hard. If you can find out that they have a financial arrangement with dell or microsoft, your case is SOOOO won.

If you go this route do it before you graduate. Because then if they try to hold up your graduation in revenge you have another lawsuit, one that will pay for your whole education.