Slashdot Mirror
Virus Eats School District's Homework
theodp writes "Forget about 'snow days' — the kids in the Lake Washington School District could probably use a few 'virus days.' Laptops issued to each student in grades 6-12 were supposed to accelerate learning ('Schools that piloted the laptops found that students stayed engaged nad [sic] organized whiel [sic] boosting creativity,' according to the district's Success Stories), but GeekWire reports that a computer virus caused havoc for the district as it worked its way through the Windows 7 computers, disrupting class and costing the district money — five temporary IT staff members were hired to help contain the virus. Among the reasons cited for the school district's choice of PCs over Macs were the proximity to Microsoft HQ (Redmond is in the district), Microsoft's involvement in supporting local and national education, and last but not least, cost. In the past, the Lake Washington School District served as a Poster Child of sorts for Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group."
Also is it really that hard to keep a Windows machine free of viruses? All the kids installed the same crap?
It's as hard to keep a Windows machine free of viruses as it is to keep a Linux machine from shitting itself on boot.
For your average Slashdotter: It's not even a question.
For your average computer user: There is no hope.
The broken Windows fallacy?
5 hired IT staff that would have been unnecessary had the school used Linux or Mac say so.