I helped students set up wireless and antivirus on their computers this weekend. Several observations:
- I worked with 16 of the self-proclaimed “worst people ever with computers”. They all could turn the machine on, thus disqualifying them from this dubious distinction.
- Students are buying Macs. BIGTIME. Last year there were maybe two or three; this year about one in three had a Mac. I kid you not. I wonder what the Mac adoption rates are at other colleges. Most of them were using the Mac for the first time, too, and they liked it. Not only that, I could turn a Mac person around in five minutes (wireless and antivirus), versus the 20 minutes for Windows, wading through a maze of preinstalled software.
- Wow, PC makers really love to lump a bunch of software no one will EVER use on a new machine now. Hell, I love sports and have not once ever used ESPN Motion, but yet it was preinstalled on every Toshiba I saw. So much for Microsoft’s vision in 2001 of a “clean, uncluttered Windows XP desktop.”
- If the number of people getting their computers set up was any indication, the out-of-balance girl to guy ratio at CofC is as out of balance as ever.
I’m off for one more day and then — yes — classes start tomorrow. It’s kind of scary, really. I haven’t done this in over a year. Should be fun though.
Discussion of I worked the weekend. is now closed
Not sure why you were “not attending classes” for a year but good luck on returning.
Will the “planet” continue? Will your insightful comments still appear? Don’t just disappear!
I took a year off to rethink what I wanted to do — we’ll find out just how good of a decision that was in the coming weeks.
The Planet is automatically generated — it’ll go on for as long as I instruct it to. No worries there. And I most definitely do not plan on disappearing — it’s pretty likely that as time goes on the number of posts will actually increase.
Being in that college environment with that ratio does have its’ benefits though, so don’t bemoan the percentages!
I will never complain about the ratio. EVER.
Unless, of course, it tips the other way, which I don’t see happening for a while yet. 
First thing I do with pre-installed systems is dump them and do my own installations. The Toshiba CDs are nothing but a modified Norton Ghost image.
2k & Linux FTW!