Text 58593, 76 rader
Skriven 2009-11-29 19:39:16 av Alan Zisman (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 58592 av Jean Parrot (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Simili Taskbar.
=======================
Jean Parrot -> Alan Zisman wrote:


 AZ>> In Vancouver, this past year, the IT department followed up on a small
 AZ>> number of Downadup virus infections - on some of their servers and on
 AZ>> some workstations - to shut down all computer use on the District for
 AZ>> 2-3 weeks to allow them to check every (Windows) system for infection
 AZ>> and install antivirus software.

 JP>     Are you in a detached way, part of this ? I do not think so, I think
 JP> that the problems might fall on your doorsteps.

The virus-shutdown was this past February; my response was to set my systems to
dual-boot to Ubuntu, and I obeyed instructions from the top to not take Windows
systems online by telling students/teachers that they could only go online when
booted to Ubuntu.

 AZ>> .. then went to the school board claiming
 AZ>> that they'd found a real mess that was impossible to keep updated (at
 AZ>> least partially true!); they proposed the mass purchase, and claimed
 AZ>> that it could be made 'budget neutral' by shifting money from various
 AZ>> other computer-related programs, cancelling the District's MS Office
 AZ>> license (which was costing $100,000/yr) and other sleight-of-hand.

 JP>     I have said it above.... dreamers.  For $100,000/year, I would vote
 JP> for OO.

And that's what they've done - cancelled the MS Office license, and moving
(nearly) the whole school district to OO.org.

 AZ>> The result- nearly 7,000 Dell systems: Celeron-based with 17" LCD
 AZ>> screens for students at a cost of about CDN$550/ea, and Core 2
 JP> Duo-based
 AZ>> systems w. 19" LCD screens for teachers at a cost of about CDN$650/ea.

 JP>     Yeark, good machines but what is going on in the school systems.
 JP> Are they really trying to paint everybody the same colours. I know that
 JP> some kids could not afford a machine, is this why the Board goes to this
 JP> extreme ? What a quandary !

Not given to kids - or teachers - each teacher got a standardized system on
their desk, each elementary school (like mine) got 30 standardized systems for
student use in a lab, library, etc. Secondary schools got 60 systems (2 labs).
Most schools have additional systems, which will get the standard software
image installed onto them over time.


 AZ>> The claim is that the long-term costs will decrease to support these
 AZ>> standardized systems, running a standardized, mostly free or
 JP> open-source
 AZ>> software package that can updated centrally... what wasn't
 JP> accounted for
 AZ>> was the need to upgrade network bandwidth significantly to allow all
 AZ>> these new systems to make more use of the network than was formerly
 JP> the
 AZ>> case.

 JP>     What OS are these Dells running ?  Is there not a foolproof way to
 JP> protect these ? Maybe I am the dreamer here. How can you control
 JP> zillions of young users and prevent them from doing "evils" things ?
 JP> I have not been bitten but I am disciplined. Now this is another story.


XP SP3... they are 'protected' with Deep Freeze - a software package (from a
Vancouver developer, Faronics) which prevents changes to the hard drive... they
have to be 'unfrozen' to enable updates, etc... but the zillions of youngsters
can't do any permanent harm. It general, it works pretty well.

 JP>     Your dedication is awesome, totally out of tune with any salary that
 JP> you might get for this. Hat off.

Nah... I'm getting pretty cynical and ready to retire. Thanks for the kind
words, though!

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