I see a lot of "Use linux, its the way to go" type responses. However, you're going to lock down the systems a bunch anyway - its a school. If they're programming, big freaking deal, they can always use cygwin, they aren't going to be doing kernel hacking or something on school computers unless if its in a virtual machine type setup. What do your tools which your users are already comfortable run on? Windows? Then run windows - theres no reason to screw people over with a switch unless if it will improve something. Students will have to learn different interfaces anyway at some point, so its not going to kill them - they may as well get some concepts down beforehand rather than presenting some specifics. If you want to teach them about linux, you can always setup virtual machines or ssh into some boxes setup for this purpose explicitly. The users are probably comfortable for the most part in windows as it is, and frankly, they're probably going to be sitting around in gnome or kde on linux anyway, which really, theres about a 15 minute transition time tops, aside from keyboard shortcuts which, really arent important.
Editors like vi(m) & emacs clones run on windows, so thats not a big issue either. And most of the software has alternatives anyway that can coexist with the ones you're using right now, i.e. visual studio and eclipse for some cases, scilab and matlab (though matlab is far preferred in my experience), etc.
And what about solidworks? doesn't run on mac os x natively. gotta bootcamp/parallels it. These kids are probably going to college anyway where they'll see more appropriate tools of the trade anyway. Their coursework shouldnt really be about the OS they're using, but what they can do cross OS. ie. even if you're on a windows machine, you can teach them shell scripting through cygwin, and the concepts will carry over to windows powershell or with some simplifications to cmd. Or, you can teach them how to code in C++ using visual studio as an ide, do a lesson on makefiles and they can move to g++ when they want - its more important that they know good C++ though (i guess people are using java here now though).
they'll eventually be dropped in an unfamiliar environment anyway... may as well teach things that are more general than what OS they're using specifically. And a lot of things can be done that make sense cross OS anyway thanks to virtualization and things like cygwin. And you don't really want to make students unhappy by switching them off something they're pretty comfortable with already for no good reason - you have wonders like X forwarding and what not which can help.
From my experience, companies like Dell have better support for large deployments than Apple (and more modern experience with this sort of thing). So the hardware would dictate windows (or linux, but im against that unless if its virtualized or dual booted). You can get all 3 with mac mini's or other mac hardware, but a recent OS shouldnt make too much of a difference in a high school setting (ie. win xp, vista, 7, a recent fedora/ubuntu/centos/slackware/etc., os x 10.3 or above, etc.).
Just because they use the same BLAS/ATLAS backend doesn't mean that they'll perform to the same speed - BLAS calls dont have to be done at the same efficiency, or certain common operations which are a chain of calls be implemented in the same manner. A lot of good functions are prewritten for Matlab. It is like saying if I put a Ferrari engine in a Chevy Suburban, it will perform as well as if i put it in a Ferrari.
The . in matlab is very helpful for doing things like [1 2 3].* [4 5 6] = [4 10 18], and cos([1 2]) will be [cos(1) cos(2)] - it isn't always context evident when.* versus * is desired. Symbolic is horrible since the switch to MuPad, but who uses it, really?
you're going to probably need to virtualize win 98 at this point anyway - i cant even get it to boot on my MSI K8MM-V + Sempron machine - you'll probably need to try something newer for it anyway.
VMWare works nicely for this as does virtualbox. Plus if seamless virtualization actually works on your host OS, its pretty smooth.
" The faithful audience of young males has been joined by new demographics brought in by the Wii, PC casual games, and now the iPhone. Many of these people may be vaguely aware of long-running game brands, but won't have a clue about the key characters, sign post events and basic gameplay mechanisms."
Great, but would the new demographics want to play these games anyway? Probably not. And by rebooting these established series, all you're going to do is fuck over the faithful audience by screwing with their series.
Autoplay? Please don't. Atleast beating a game used to be an accomplishment.
I don't think I'd reboot any game series - there would probably be some uncomfortable modifications for political correctness or widening the audience, eg. Duke Nukem without strippers, or no terrorists in Tom Clancy games, etc.
However, I would like to get the hours of my life back from Devil May Cry 2 - the characters don't make any sense relative to the other games.
DDF is a standard for this stuff, and you might be able to migrate within a brand - I 'm not quite sure how much DDF is used but i've seen it specified for some Arcea and Adaptec.
Anyhow, Id go with backing up to more HD's, and moving them to safe places (fireproof safe) with periodic testing.
Also, I'd put multiple copies of the most important data to say optical media or what not, and move some stuff offsite, and maybe grab some space online for some more backups.
Not to mention that you get a good digitizer on the Dell Latitude XT (ntrig) , and other tablets have wacom/finepoint digitizers instead of whatever cheap crap is on the T91.
Its essentially a gimmicky touchscreen - about as useful as the XPS one or something and much in the same manner. Maybe as a slideshow viewer or a movie viewer, but not good one to write with id guess.
Except for the fact that this preview was announced in May [http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2009/05/12/microsoft-office-2010-technical-preview.aspx] and Microsoft has had sharepoint and other things. And ChromeOS being a little netbook OS to just browse the internets when people do so much more with Windows.
They do allow plugins. It is extendable. People write plugins (such as the old style menu plugin, PDF plugin, etc.).
They add more features trying to get a better product, people start using them, they might not all succeed, but if they pull it, people will cry.
It seems to be one of the banes of another popular microsoft product (windows) where people use undocumented features, expect stuff to work, and cry when it doesnt. I think Raymond Chen goes over some of this in his book.
Also, remember that Microsoft wants people to move to a newer version. Maybe Ribbon was the wrong way to go, but now that you have users on it, switching back to the old style will either be forgotten, or people will have to get the option of using the new and old styles lest you have people crying (casual users).
It seems like Alice, except on a console [ http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice ].
I suppose if you want to teach to kids though, you have to show them something cool, which is where Kodu succeeds. Kids like to be cool, and making it look cool helps.
Also, it looks like it can be a bit of fun on the xbox.
Slashdot Mirror
and a good portion of science and engineering graduates don't end up in science and engineering.
I see a lot of "Use linux, its the way to go" type responses. However, you're going to lock down the systems a bunch anyway - its a school. If they're programming, big freaking deal, they can always use cygwin, they aren't going to be doing kernel hacking or something on school computers unless if its in a virtual machine type setup. What do your tools which your users are already comfortable run on? Windows? Then run windows - theres no reason to screw people over with a switch unless if it will improve something. Students will have to learn different interfaces anyway at some point, so its not going to kill them - they may as well get some concepts down beforehand rather than presenting some specifics. If you want to teach them about linux, you can always setup virtual machines or ssh into some boxes setup for this purpose explicitly. The users are probably comfortable for the most part in windows as it is, and frankly, they're probably going to be sitting around in gnome or kde on linux anyway, which really, theres about a 15 minute transition time tops, aside from keyboard shortcuts which, really arent important.
Editors like vi(m) & emacs clones run on windows, so thats not a big issue either. And most of the software has alternatives anyway that can coexist with the ones you're using right now, i.e. visual studio and eclipse for some cases, scilab and matlab (though matlab is far preferred in my experience), etc.
And what about solidworks? doesn't run on mac os x natively. gotta bootcamp/parallels it.
These kids are probably going to college anyway where they'll see more appropriate tools of the trade anyway. Their coursework shouldnt really be about the OS they're using, but what they can do cross OS. ie. even if you're on a windows machine, you can teach them shell scripting through cygwin, and the concepts will carry over to windows powershell or with some simplifications to cmd. Or, you can teach them how to code in C++ using visual studio as an ide, do a lesson on makefiles and they can move to g++ when they want - its more important that they know good C++ though (i guess people are using java here now though).
they'll eventually be dropped in an unfamiliar environment anyway... may as well teach things that are more general than what OS they're using specifically. And a lot of things can be done that make sense cross OS anyway thanks to virtualization and things like cygwin. And you don't really want to make students unhappy by switching them off something they're pretty comfortable with already for no good reason - you have wonders like X forwarding and what not which can help.
From my experience, companies like Dell have better support for large deployments than Apple (and more modern experience with this sort of thing). So the hardware would dictate windows (or linux, but im against that unless if its virtualized or dual booted). You can get all 3 with mac mini's or other mac hardware, but a recent OS shouldnt make too much of a difference in a high school setting (ie. win xp, vista, 7, a recent fedora/ubuntu/centos/slackware/etc., os x 10.3 or above, etc.).
Just because they use the same BLAS/ATLAS backend doesn't mean that they'll perform to the same speed - BLAS calls dont have to be done at the same efficiency, or certain common operations which are a chain of calls be implemented in the same manner. A lot of good functions are prewritten for Matlab. It is like saying if I put a Ferrari engine in a Chevy Suburban, it will perform as well as if i put it in a Ferrari.
The . in matlab is very helpful for doing things like [1 2 3] .* [4 5 6] = [4 10 18], and cos([1 2]) will be [cos(1) cos(2)] - it isn't always context evident when .* versus * is desired. Symbolic is horrible since the switch to MuPad, but who uses it, really?
You can run the following to find what it supports:
>> methods int64
>> methods uint64
Compare to
>> methods int32
>> methods uint32
Though floating point is very common for matlab use, i think this was fairly common knowledge.
Until someone makes an alternative with all the toolboxes i use, im not switching.
In a few years we'll have http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycM844Bfzsk , though imo this is quite silly.
strange. maybe you should try it on a newer version - vmware does it beautifully.
you're going to probably need to virtualize win 98 at this point anyway - i cant even get it to boot on my MSI K8MM-V + Sempron machine - you'll probably need to try something newer for it anyway.
VMWare works nicely for this as does virtualbox. Plus if seamless virtualization actually works on your host OS, its pretty smooth.
I believe the TILP project has x64 drivers. [ tilp.info ] (or atleast Romain Liévin (author of tilp) has some on ticalc.org )
You think that's a tough GB? There is/was one on display at nintendo world in NYC from the gulf war.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59136485@N00/2785641084
Seriously, we should start sending our soldiers out covered in gameboys.
they've been reasonably close for the core 2 space and the AM2 space for quite a while.
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/introcs/home/
sedgewick has some stuff there.
you can also look through a place like lulu.com - a lot of authors who print there also have free copies of their books online.
for those in the non-us, how do they handle it there? i've heard that students in europe were having cell phones far earlier than those in the US.
" The faithful audience of young males has been joined by new demographics brought in by the Wii, PC casual games, and now the iPhone. Many of these people may be vaguely aware of long-running game brands, but won't have a clue about the key characters, sign post events and basic gameplay mechanisms."
Great, but would the new demographics want to play these games anyway? Probably not. And by rebooting these established series, all you're going to do is fuck over the faithful audience by screwing with their series.
I link to two appropriate web comics:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=282
Sounds elitist maybe, but they probably are only concerned with games like bejewled on those platforms or the sims or something like wii fit.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/9/7/new-from-squareenix/
Autoplay? Please don't. Atleast beating a game used to be an accomplishment.
I don't think I'd reboot any game series - there would probably be some uncomfortable modifications for political correctness or widening the audience, eg. Duke Nukem without strippers, or no terrorists in Tom Clancy games, etc.
However, I would like to get the hours of my life back from Devil May Cry 2 - the characters don't make any sense relative to the other games.
Or you can always scale down the effects.
I had Vista running on a Sempron box with S3 integrated video - no problems. I just didn't have every damn piece of eye candy on.
Dr. House!
http://www.snia.org/tech_activities/standards/curr_standards/ddf/SNIA-DDFv1.2.pdf
DDF is a standard for this stuff, and you might be able to migrate within a brand - I 'm not quite sure how much DDF is used but i've seen it specified for some Arcea and Adaptec.
Anyhow, Id go with backing up to more HD's, and moving them to safe places (fireproof safe) with periodic testing.
Also, I'd put multiple copies of the most important data to say optical media or what not, and move some stuff offsite, and maybe grab some space online for some more backups.
Not to mention that you get a good digitizer on the Dell Latitude XT (ntrig) , and other tablets have wacom/finepoint digitizers instead of whatever cheap crap is on the T91.
Its essentially a gimmicky touchscreen - about as useful as the XPS one or something and much in the same manner. Maybe as a slideshow viewer or a movie viewer, but not good one to write with id guess.
Is in TFA but not in summary.
Article doesn't state how the NX client from NoMachine is either, which is probably important for people trying it.
They run pretty well and sync up with software people use fairly easily, such as Outlook, etc. ?
Except for the fact that this preview was announced in May [http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2009/05/12/microsoft-office-2010-technical-preview.aspx] and Microsoft has had sharepoint and other things. And ChromeOS being a little netbook OS to just browse the internets when people do so much more with Windows.
They do allow plugins. It is extendable. People write plugins (such as the old style menu plugin, PDF plugin, etc.).
They add more features trying to get a better product, people start using them, they might not all succeed, but if they pull it, people will cry.
It seems to be one of the banes of another popular microsoft product (windows) where people use undocumented features, expect stuff to work, and cry when it doesnt. I think Raymond Chen goes over some of this in his book.
Also, remember that Microsoft wants people to move to a newer version. Maybe Ribbon was the wrong way to go, but now that you have users on it, switching back to the old style will either be forgotten, or people will have to get the option of using the new and old styles lest you have people crying (casual users).
It seems like Alice, except on a console [ http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice ]. I suppose if you want to teach to kids though, you have to show them something cool, which is where Kodu succeeds. Kids like to be cool, and making it look cool helps. Also, it looks like it can be a bit of fun on the xbox.
It's an internet hate machine, you know. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY ]
its 0.99 / month, not a one time fee. Still, id pay it.