Espada Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 SLT have in their infinite wisdom agreed to allow our media dept have a MAc network which we know nothing about and have stated already that we will be unable to support it. What specs should we be looking at though to use iMovie and Quark Express. They are looking to get 10 Macs and a Mini.
GrumbleDook Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 Sounds good. the 10 iMacs will be fine and the Mac Mini can run OSX Server. If you are unsure you can alsways speak to an Apple Solutions Expert near you, read back through some of the threads on this forum or ask about on the ICT Register for help setting it up. If you are using Quark then you get what you pay for when it comes to machines. The better the machine (and definitely the more memory) the better the performance.
Espada Posted May 22, 2007 Author Posted May 22, 2007 Sorry I meant server not mini, trying to teach year 8s whilst posting is a bad combination.
Mr_T Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 SLT have in their infinite wisdom agreed to allow our media dept have a MAc network which we know nothing about and have stated already that we will be unable to support it. What specs should we be looking at though to use iMovie and Quark Express. They are looking to get 10 Macs and a Mini. From experiance The Mac thing seems pretty scarey. My advice get one on loan from the apple centre/dealer try using them takes about 3 days but you will be converted. I certainly was. Bought myself a Mac book pro on the back of it. parralels is a must for running the odd windows app. I would go with a few IMacs. I uses a mac mini as my media centre now too.
GrumbleDook Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 I was not joking when I said the Mac Mini as a server. Put more RAM in it and it will cope as long as you are only doing workstation lock downs and authentication. We have our server 2003 boxes doing the file serving.
u8dmtm Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 Also remember that the current Mac OS can very comfortably join your Windows domain and map to windows shares on login. With Mac OS X Server you can control your Mac's software, restrictions and customisations and with Apple Remote Desktop perform remote management. If you've never used a Mac before then remember that it is all possible and all the information is available via previous Edugeek posts, so don't give up or be phased about integration with you current network.
Domino Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 Also, if they're not desperate for them, it might be worth waiting for Leopard - but its now not out till october. So depends how antsy they're getting
Halfmad Posted May 22, 2007 Posted May 22, 2007 That's a lot of work for just 10 macs ! I don't mind them, we have about 40 in the school although we no longer have a mac server and are phasing them out. Quite like the OS. I miss Network assistant though, shame MS never came out with something similar instead of letting Ranger etc do it.
Espada Posted May 22, 2007 Author Posted May 22, 2007 The server part will need to act as a file server as we will not be supporting it and don't want to worry about if it is locked down fully.
Roberto Posted May 31, 2007 Posted May 31, 2007 Why not move towards supporting Macs? I appreciate it's something new and difficult to learn if you've got not ready starting place, but either they'll come to you anyway like it or not or your organisation might as well pour coins down the drain and set light to £50 notes now to get a head start on wasting the money the macs will end up costing your organisation if they're "unsupported" and they end up having to call out an engineer from the nearest apple centre each time someone's mouse is 'a bit funny' or they can't find the any key. I'd second Tony's suggestion for a Mac Mini as a server. With a RAM upgrade, this really is all you need to allow basic authentication and workstation lockdown. If you're not going to let them use the Windows network for storage however, then you're looking at buying lots of firewire/USB hard drives or a xserve server and xserve RAID storage box. Expensive and troublesome to setup for just 10 clients.
Nij.UK Posted June 1, 2007 Posted June 1, 2007 I have just started using Mac's as i need to try and learn the security side of things. OSX Server will happily sit on a mini mac, i have one set up in the office... I would say after using it for a few weeks its really growing on me, and i would def give it a shot... I managed to set up most things just from the manuals that are provided on the apple site....
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