Rydra

If you recieved no email to the affect, then someone has registered an itunes account against your credit card number, or they are going into stores and buying the gift cards with your stolen card. Still the banks job to do this not yours.

I went into Upper school (3 tier system) in 98, and ICT was offered for the first time as a GCSE only the year before. At middle school (94-98), I used a computer maybe 4 hours a term, in the 2nd 2 years... before that was even less, barely a couple of hours. Lower school age, we had I think 2 computers in the whole school (outside of admin)! Considering they released win 95, which was a complete revamp/rework compared to Win 3.11... Most schools didn't leave win3.1 till win 98SE was released, though a few had 95 machines, they were rarely networked at this point. Internet didn't really hit schools till the late 90's, as most teachers didn't know what it was, let alone what to do with it. The internet boom was 98-2000 really, when it really started kicking off. The school's network in 98 was Win3.11 based. The NM/technician was an antiquated old woman who really didn't know what she was doing... likely a librarian who got stuck with a computer, and inherited it. One ICT teacher who was a domain admin used to not have a password, and logged in students as herself occasionally. The other was just an idiot, and used to ask the STUDENTS questions on how to do things.... And if you ever did something you shouldn't he'd get you to show him what you did, and he'd take notes on it!!! By the time i got to A levels, I had our newly trained and appointed ICT teacher exclaim "wow I didn't know you could do that!" when I opened Windows explorer in Windows 2000 by right clicking on the start menu... I literally picked up my bag and walked out of that lesson, and never went back after that (it was "Key Skills ICT" and was clear that I knew more than the teacher did before entering the classroom) So yes, I comfortably say that 10 years ago, as far as education is concerned, ICT was in it's infancy. but 10 years ago was windows 2k release, and windows and it's core features/usage hasn't changed in methods in 10 years, just added new ones and tweaked old ones. The WAY we access computers changes all the time, and as such teaching will always be something that the teacher has to retrain for. You never stop learning.

Hardware firewall on my router, AV software turned off by default. I run an AV scan periodically, but no regular timings, just when I think about it. Otherwise I turn all the rest off. On a daily basis I visit the same sites, all of them either official or I'm an admin on it. It's exceedingly rare that i go anywhere else. I use web based email mostly, with outlook for long term storage/contacts management, so email viruses aren't an issue. And I don't use stupid things like Limewire etc, I tend to wait till most TV comes out on DVD/blueray, and i watch movies on blue ray. I occasionally grab the odd album, but maybe 2-3 per year. The way I see it, if some hacker REALLY wants access to my system, they will get in no matter how many bits of software I run. Since I'm not idiotic to click on links I don't know/trust, I dont get the accidental/sneaky stuff, so why do I need to run software that takes up resources I can better use elsewhere? Though I have to say, since I got my new I7 machine, I haven't managed to put the CPU about 50-60% yet, and that was running 2 EvE game clients on max detail in windowed mode with media player, mIRC, TS, and a couple of web browsers running. I'm not too afraid of my AV hogging resources anymore, so might start turning on some of it.

I'd point out blank discs are available from the office by request, and that every laptop made in the last 4 odd years has come with a DVD-RW drive, while pointing out due to copyright you are unable to assist them in anyway. Then pop down to the SMT office to have a note added to briefing about copyright infringement....

10 years ago, ICT was a young subject, and the people who taught it had either not had the time to get acquanted with 'modern' computers, or were dinosaurs who used to read ticker-tape. ICT principles, though the tech has improved, hasn't CHANGED a lot in 10 years, and as such the teachers we have now had 10 years of relative stability to learn how to use the stuff themselves. I never took any IT subject at school out of choice; I learnt more on my own than I ever would have from the incompetent idiots who were teaching it then, and i proved it repeatedly by running rings round them in terms of (lack of) network security, completing their work in a fraction of the time alloted, and the main reason, proving that at the age of 14 and no previous IT experience I understood more about the basic operation of a computer than they did. Had I been given current IT teaching back then, I would probably have gone onto a masters or PHD in computing, and be a VERY different person.

Put an RM logo on it and rubberise the outside, and you'd have something higher tech than any RM system. But they'd still cost £500 each with a £50/year support cost.

I've got an interesting problem going on here for the last ~6 months, that has mostly gone away now, but crops up every now and then. All our new laptops (running Win 7) have a minor issue of when you plugin a VGA cable BEFORE you turn on the laptop, they would output to that and NOT the laptop's screen. So teachers were coming in, connecting everything up, turn on the laptop and go about other things.... But not the projector. Cue them a couple minutes later coming back, and pressing power buttons and other buttons and all sorts because the screen is black, causing the laptop to be forceably restarted, go into repair mode, and the laptop become unuseable for 30 minutes. I had this happen every morning for nearly 6 weeks, and of course every time it happened half an hour or more before i got in. When I asked them not to power up in the morning and wait till I got in, it of course worked perfectly because they had in fact already used the laptop, turned on the projector or a dozen other reasons. There's also the regular, every half term/ or new term or the occassional monday morning, someone would come in "My internet/wireless isn't working." And it's either turn the wireless on, or switch the proxy on. I'd understand the new teacher, but when it's the guy who has been here for 10+ years.....

Discreet IT NEEDS to be taught, and from an early age if current trends are anything to go by. When you have 1 hour to teach your students your subject, you really don't need to be teaching them the fundamentals of how to operate devices; You wouldn't expect a Yr 11 GCSE student to be learning how to use excel for the first time in their maths lesson, you'd get nothing done. They need to be taught the basics, in a structured manner from an early age (read primary), teaching about ways to operate and intelligent thinking on use of formating, fonts, layout and formula's. They then use the skills in their other subjects, building on them each year. You don't expect someone to rebuild a car engine before you've taught them not to put the round peg in the square hole!

Made it myself

I have a fair bit of experience with the OU, and I loved it, but it can be VERY demanding of your time. To work full time, and to do the degree in 6 years, you are going to have to put in a lot of time, and if you have a social life currently outside of work, you can kiss that goodbye for a good part of the time your doing it unless you can get support from your employer for it. I have 80 points at lvl 1, 100 points at lvl 2. I decided to take 9 months off this year, as I was finding my social life had become non existent. I've been studying with them all of last year, i stopped for 2 years previous to that to do the whole getting married/buying a house thing, and had studied for 2 years prior to that. IT courses: If you've got a head for maths, logic and interested in programming.... M263: Building Blocks of Software. I found this course really challenging, as I have no background in programming at all. It really pushes your understanding of programming, and is little to do with actual coding, and more to do with understanding principles in good code writing. It's not a good starter course, but could make a good 2nd year course. CCNA (T216): Exactly as it says on the tin! It's the CCNA course, the material provided by cisco. I'm planning to pick this up next start time. TM128: Microsoft Server Technologies - New from October 2010, looks promising and sold out instantly on release. With a little extra study this will be enough to get a Microsoft cert on the outside. I want to do this one next year too, hence why i took this year off, to have a break before i try and do 2 courses at once, which can be tough work. T155: Linux- An Introduction - Good fun, short 10 week/10 point course for anyone who's never worked with linux before. You wont be building your own linux server cluster from this, it's a very basic course, and i pretty much did the whole course in 2 weeks, with the main project being done in one weekend/2 late evenings of work. There are lots of courses dedicated to web development, and especially Java with the OU, and about as many dedicated to working around the business side of ICT, and newer courses around new tech and telecomms based stuff. I'm struggling to pick my lvl 3 courses myself, as I can't really see which one will actually benefit me and my current line of work! Just for noting, my first 2 years of OU study was in Chemistry, I have a certificate in Natural Sciences already, and I've done S103 (now S104), S205 and the 2 residential courses that go with them SXR103 and SXR205. I also attempted the do the astronomy course (S282), and many said it was a good course, but I found it absolutely awful and boring. It was a level 2 course, and mostly covered work i did in my first year of A-level physics, and i gave up after the 3rd assignment.

I asked a friend of mine/my family to do the photography for my wedding, he has it as a hobby/side job with aim of doing it after he retires/leaves his main job. He was fantastic, and never got in the way of the main cerimony, in fact I barely saw him for the day, beyond the staged photo's. What I didn't know at the time, was his wife, who helps him a lot in this, had a video camera, and video'd the whole ceremony, the speeches, and I believe the first dance too. We found out when they presented it as a wedding present. He only charged us the cost of 2 meals (him and his wife) for the day's work, then a cost per photo that we got printed afterwards, but he made DVD's for all my family and a catalog to order them from him, and the dvd had 6x4 quality prints. A wedding i went to recently, they paid a lot of money for a photographer, and video etc. I found them to be intrusive, pretty much putting a camera wherever they liked, and I found the people rude when they were setting up staged photo's. I've looked through the photo's once or twice, but never watched the video. The wife clammered to watch it when we got back from honeymoon, but i simply pointed out, "I remember the day well enough still, I don't need to watch it again now." I'll watch it someday, and it'll be good for future kids/generations/family to be able to see it. It's not just boasting, as I was told by pretty much everyone who was at it, that my wedding was one of the best weddings they'd ever been to!

I did farmville once. It was a condition of adding a friend from work. I spent about 20 minutes on it over 2-3 days. the first day was at least 10 minutes working out how to not do it. I haven't been to my "farm" in 18 months or more. I must have blocked the app at some point, as I haven't seen any spam from it in over a year.

Unless internet providers stop restricting bandwidth, stop putting download limits, and start providing reliable connections, these things will not take off. Very few providers yet supply a connection that can reliably stream HD/3D video consistently for hours at a time. They either hit a bandwidth cap and become unwatchable, hit a download cap and cost too much, or just don't have the STABLE speed in the first place to play them. I haven't looked in a while, but i seem to recall HD video streams at 8000kb/s on average? So you would need a 40+MB connection to stream a full blue ray movie, and most blue rays are up to 25gb in size, well beyond the limits of most home broadband at the current time. Plus i wont pay £5 every time i want to watch a movie. I like having a big bookcase full of my movie collection, I'm quite proud of it, especially my complete James Bond Movie set in a special metallic silver briefcase! I must have watched A Team at least a dozen times already, and the Harry Potter/ LOTR movies a dozen times or more each (The early HP's probably 20-30 times!)

One of the things i've set store in with all computers that i've built, and i look for in computers that i buy for school, is value for money; Can I do what is needed/wanted, for less somewhere else. The 2nd thing I look for, which has to go hand in hand with the first, is how long will this product last me doing what I want it to do? If the kit i've got will be obscelete within 2 years in not supporting something which is already on the horizon, then it will not be good value for money. The 2 big things in home media right now is Blue rays, and 3D Movies/Games. Neither of which do Apple support, though they are rarely "Pioneers" in this front of technology, so wouldn't expect to see Blue ray support for another year or so, and 3D support for 3-5 years. Personally I hope 3D flops, as I hate the idea of wearing stupid glasses in my own living room. I still have 20/20 vision, I'd like to keep it that way. But BlueRay is undeniably replacing DVD's just as DVD's did to VHS. The reluctance I think stems from the worry that internet enabled TV's and downloadable movie's will take their place before they get a chance to take hold fully. The real crunch point will be when big software/game producers release a big named title for the PC on Blue Ray, or when a movie title only releases in BlueRay.

Primary, 440 students, ~50 staff, 1 NM, 140+ pc's.

Hmmm, normally 2 things that don't go together... peace and quiet and family! It's rarely quiet when i get together with my parents/sister, and it's never quiet with just me, the wife and 2 cats in my house! Peace is something I gave up on as soon as i started working in education

For me, the advantage of iLife was integration with all the software. It worked like Adobe in that respect, but with less features/easier to use. For the level of home movie/audio work, iLife fits in perfectly. You can edit the video you recorded with your home camcorder/phone, mix in you and your mates playing drums/guitar with sick bass line, then upload it to your iphone and facebook at the same time, while downloading the latest #1 album that your mate recommended was the sickest evah! Above that, with the exception of Final Cut Pro, I found that i could do everything, and in most cases use the same software on either platform. I started the thread, although a little sarcastically as I do not especially like Apple, let alone most of their products personally (owning an iPhone 3G for 2+ years cemented feelings of dislike I had already), but I've always wanted to hold a semi-serious discussion on WHY these arguements happen, and most who i speak to will not go beyond "I <3 Apple" or "I hate Apple", and i might as well debate with my empty Pepsi Max can on the subject for the sense it makes. So for being well reasoned, dare I say it PROFESSIONALS I thank you If I could have mac OS X on a normal PC, and do all the normal gaming and other stuff I do on it, I absolutely would, at least dual boot for it. I think they've changed it now (i haven't looked at them closeup for a while now) but the Macbooks used to be just as plasticy as any normal one; the MBP came in the nice metal case, the MB's ones came in a horrible white plastic case that got dirty easily, cracked easily, and looked like a 4 year olds toy laptop/computer from ToysRUS. If apple released a macbook in the £4-600 mark, I would bet they'd see a massive takeup in education, and a big boost to home users. Hell even i'd buy one (and probably give it to the wife).

I agree to a certain extent too. I had some company 2 years ago try to sell me new guttering and facia boards (mine are the original wooden boarding with asbestos gutters that now are looking awful, it needs replacing). Cue the guy turning up 1 hour late, then giving me a full history, chemistry and mechanics lesson on how their product was better than everyone elses, that took 3-4 hours. Then he offered me an outrageous price i could replace half my roof for. 3 price changes in 10 minutes later, I just wanted this guy to get out of my house. They rang me up twice the next day, and dropped their price again each time... The final offer almost being below the cost of parts and labour... But by this point, I wouldn't have said yes if they offered to pay ME to do the work.

I worked in a supermarket petrol station for a year when i was 18, and i can promise you at least from my experience, the prices changed very rarely, and only at the end of the day. Smaller stations may be able to do this, as they probably set their own prices etc. But the big ones, trust me when i say the people in the little shop have ABSOLUTELY no control over the prices... Could you imagine if the till operator had the ability to change the prices up or down dynamically all day? As soon as their mates comes in, drop price to 10p per litre and off you go... A pricechange will only occur during the day as an emergency, as all the pump's computers have to be updated (this i believe requires a minor reboot of the computer held in the back room), as well as the till computers. In the year i was there, this only happened once, and was actually because the petrol company had issued a price change notice after closing the previous night, and our manager hadn't got in till the 2nd shift; our prices weren't matching...

One of my minor niggles with the Apple computers over the last 2 or so years, is their awful hard drive sizes. For a brand that specialises in media, their hard drives are on the small side, though better than they were 2 years ago (i believe we bought a batch that came with just 80gb drives, 2 years ago.... compared to the then standard 250/320gb hard drives in standard PC laptops.) And of course, to go from, eg a 250gb drive to a 320gb, costs £40.... the fact i can buy a 1TB drive for that just irritates me, but all the big names do this (HP, Dell etc) so i can't slate Apple entirely for their pricing on that one. The general concensus is that we will never have a clear "X is better than Y", and it's all down to what suits your needs. But I still argue, that for "Home users" looking for "The family computer" the mac is not yet there, and needs to either come down in prices, or increase in compatibility for the gaming aspect. At the current rate it will likely be only another couple of years till a MAC can handle the same gaming out the box as a PC (aka without emulators or dual booting etc.), but the other caviat of gaming, is hardware upgrades (to keep up with the latest in gaming) and apple is going to struggle in this market always without a rethink in business strategy.

another webhelpdesk here. The one techie license basically means you've got one techie login for it. If you pay for it, you can set it up to assign work to different techies.... With the free version you can be logged into the same account more than once, so just run it as that and go for the good old NM verbally tells X to work on job 12 and Y to work on job 14 etc...

I agree with you here, that they have an appeal to those who just want something out of the box that works, and can't be easily fiddled with and broken. In fact, on those grounds alone, I could recommend one to somebody! And this is the reason I do not... I could easily suggest that everyone should drive 4x4's with estate type chassis for normal use; they are big enough to carry everything you want, and never have a problem with the weather. But if you only go 2 miles down the road with 2 kids, a corsa is more than enough for them! By the same reasoning, a Mac might be easier, and possibly more suited to a rounded family as the 'home PC'. But when you can buy 2 laptops for the price of one mac, I just can't really warrant it myself, and most people I speak to who want a home computer, don't want to spend that on a single machine for email/tesco/itunes.

I have an AV installed at home and never have it switched on, except for a full scan i run every 1-2 montohs. It's been like that for about 4 years now without incident. And I'd never suggest a normal non-IT home user goes without one regardless of the computer or OS they are using. I know what I'm downloading, i never click on stuff I don't know, and I know how to fix anything that crops up when it shouldn't. AV's offer peace of mind for those who don't know any better. Hell, you can even get AV's for your phone now because "people" are dumb and click links they shouldn't.

In general i dislike some of apple's practices. If i want to access the hard drive of the thing i've paid for, I should be able to do so. When I get an update, I want to update what I need to, not reinstall the whole damned software package. They treat most users as either imbeciles or abusers and anarchists. If it's simple they'll dress it in daisies and sunflowers. If it's complex and technical they'll make it as hard as possible to do it. Maybe i've just had bad experiences in a world of good ones, but the two things I have to go on are my own experiences and what I can discover from other's experiences. But mostly i dislike their pricing. they are more than capable of selling the items cheaper, but chose not to. There is no "Cheaper" option for Apple, it's Apple or expensive apple with extra shiny. And as yet, I've not seen a concrete reason for why a normal person SHOULD go for an apple over a PC. Some do, and they'll generally shout it's praises, but very few can give a good, technical and/or financial reason for getting one. Most of the people I know who get their first mac say either "I didn't have one and wanted to try one", or "Someone else told me they were cool". Occasionally i hear "I used one at XXX and thought it was good so i went and got one." Not once, have I heard "Well i looked at X,Y and Z, and they didn't really do what i wanted, which is AAA, and i managed to get AAA at BB special price which was as good price and spec as X,Y,Z."

Unfortunately you can flip that around.... You can buy a car that on the outside looks like a top notch car, but in reality you can buy the same thing underneath from another manufacturer, for half the price, and live with the fact that your dashboard is made out of actual plastic rather than plastic made out to look like wood. Skoda and VW are getting a little like this, except skoda still cut corners in other places than aesthetics. Same chassis and insides, different skin and shinier bits attached to it.