seawolf

The only real way you can solve this problem is by using a Wiki or DMS (Sharepoint, Alfresco, KTDMS, Mindtouch, Confluence), structuring it well at the start, having an agreed upon document management strategy that is adhered to, and training staff. I managed to accomplish this at a previous company and it worked extremely well, but the COO spearheaded adoption of it and would admonish people for not using it (and properly). Full support and use of anything such as this at the exec level is essential. Failing that, the best you can do is implement a good and easy to use Wiki or DMS, and slowly start forcing users to move their data to it. You may still have a disorganised mass of documents, but at least they can be structured using tags, labels, and easily searched. It will still be important to get the idea across of one file, multiple versions (versioning) and not saving multiple,copies of the same document in different locations and names.

I agree on the 5206zl being a very good option for you. We installed a 8206zl in December, and it was a close decision between this model and the 5406zl. The full redundancy of the 8206zl (management controller and switching fabric) is the main difference between the two switches and why we ultimately went with the more expensive model. But, if the 8206zl had been over budget for us, I would have happily settled for a 5406zl. And when I say would have "settled" for it, I mean in the way one would settle for a Boss 302 Mustang instead of a GT350 Shelby. Both switches perform fabulously and are exceptionally expandable.

I meant the rMBP and MBA. You would need to have knowledge in Micro/Miniature Solder Repair and the right equipment to replace the RAM in these. The Mac Mini takes seconds to change RAM.

Yes, the lack of an easy* RAM upgrade on the MBA and rMBP is annoying. At least the upgrade cost for RAM is more reasonable than it used to be. The Mac Mini is a great little unit. You can upgrade the drive and even install a second drive in them with a bit of patience and skill - I've upgraded over 30 myself. *The RAM can actually be upgraded, but only with great skill and some definite risk. Not recommended.

Yes, Mac Pros have always been expensive, but there are a few reasons for that and a few things that make this (VERY dated, Circa 2010 at best) analysis overly simplistic and actually pointless. 1. The Mac Pro has one of the best designed and solidly built cases of any desktop computer ever made. It's a tank with very nice drive caddies, easy to add extra cards, drives, and RAM and a very effective, very quiet fan. It's also very nice looking. 2. ECC RAM is server-grade and not cheap. Xeon processors aren't cheap, especially when the Nehelem was just released. Who ever upgrades RAM from the manufacturer anyway when it's as easy to upgrade as it is in the Mac Pro? 3. Who buys 4 HDDs from the computer manufacturer unless it's for a server, SAN, or high-end NAS? It's always cheaper somewhere else. And it only takes a few minutes to install drives in the drive caddies in a Mac Pro. 4. Complaining about a small price premium over the best retail price available (or vs used GPUs no less) for GPUs, on a $3,000+ computer - give me a break. But, hey the author of this comparison is in luck now because they can save $2,000 off the retail price for the 2 GPUs offered in the new Mac Pro... 5. The Mac Pro lasts for eons, as it should for the price. The build quality is absolutely outstanding on them and I (or companies I have managed them for) have owned 12 PowerMac G5s and Intel Mac Pros since 2006. Each one lasted 8-9 years before I sold them or gave them away in the end. Only one had a hardware failure of any kind and that was in a G5 model that had the power supply go after 5 years. Repaired it and sold it 3 years later still going string. I have two early 2010 models that have not had a single problem and I expect they won't until I retire them in 2 years or so. So, yes you do pay a premium for a Mac Pro, but this is one case where you do get what you pay for. The new Mac Pro appears to make that case more than any Mac Pro before it too.

I still don't get the use case for a touchscreen on a laptop and desktop. It works great for a kiosk, but otherwise I've found it somewhat useless.

My apologies. I obviously misread what your were trying to say. A word of advice - minimising run on sentences would convey your point more clearly and make misunderstandings less likely.

That probably wouldn't work very well. It would be like using Terminal Services to play Crysis 3 on a Windows Server. Better not to even bother IMHO.

I agree that nothing should be purchased for the wrong reasons or based on misinformation. However, I think your frustrations with a single person at your school have resulted in some over the top conclusions. For one, there is no way a $400 PC is going to be equivalent in specs and quality to a $1,200 iMac. Or, a $220 PC is going to be equivalent to a $660 Mac Mini. That would be feeding your management as much misinformation as you're complaining of. Now, a $400 PC might in fact solve the problem at hand and a $660 Mac Mini or $1,200 iMac isn't needed in any way, but that's a different argument. As for Premiere Pro, it does in fact have its own problems even on Macs, and I consider it to be absolute rubbish compared to FCPX. We stopped using Premier Pro two years ago in favour of FCPX in fact and our media teacher and students have never been happier. If the argument were to get Macs so they could use iMovie, FCPX, Motion, and Logic Pro - I would be right there fighting in that corner. But, not just because they thought Premier Pro would magically work better on a Mac.

Desktop Connect works better than MS Remote Desktop. It supports both RDP and VNC and just has more functionality. I use it all of the time. iVMScontrol works great for managing vSphere environments on an iPad and works better than the iPad client from VMware. Prompt is a great tool for connecting via SSH to servers. Ookla Speedtest is a great little app for testing WAN network speeds. Fing is great for discovering devices on a WiFi network.

You could check out some of the lower end units from Xi3 Xi3 Corporation | Modular Computers | PISTON Gaming Console | Green Computing I've been testing these and they are excellent build quality (made in USA) and use a modular design that can be upgraded fairly easily. They are so designed to have an 8-10 year life span. They are also tiny and quiet with lots of USB ports and support for two monitors.

There's a difference between crap hard drives and slow hard drives. The drives are slow 5400rpm drives, but they are not cheap crap drives. They are usually better quality Hitachi, Samsung, and Fujitsu 2.5" drives. I've only had one of these drives fail in my 8 years of supporting 1,000 + Macs. I have had only a handful fail in the thousands of PCs I've supported over the past 12 years either because I've always spec'd them with good quality components.

You misunderstand how the Retina Display resolutions work. The retina display on the MBR emulates a 1440 x 900 resolution, but at 4X the pixel density so that all windows, icons and text are normal size. That means 4 pixels for every 1 on a normal 1440 x 900 resolution so the result is a very crisp, sharp display. The retina display is of course capable of much higher resolutions while still maintaining high pixel density. These are intended for large external monitors where the windows, icons, and fonts won't end up requiring eyes like a hawk to see them. MacBook Pro: Frequently asked questions about using a Retina display | Ernies Flores Blog

The only problem I've ever had out of the 50 or so Mac Minis I've had were the DVD drives on the 2010 models. DVD drives in those models died like chooks in a hot aussie summer. I suspect that's one reason the DVD drive disappeared in the subsequent model. Otherwise, they've been faultless and the first two Mac Minis I bought in early 2008 still chugging along. So, build quality is certainly good for the cost. The reason for 5,400rpm drives has more to do with the physics of minimising heat in a very small internal space. If 7,200rpm drives are used they generate more heat that must be dealt with. This would require larger fans or increasing the rpm of the fans, which would either increase the size of the computer or make it noisier. SSDs solve that problem, but large SSDs are expensive and replacing a 1TB HDD with a 128GB SSD in the base model wouldn't suit a lot of people. As the price comes down, I expect that's what you'll see. As for RAM, that's the cheapest and easiest upgrade, I wish I could order one without any RAM and reduce the cost rather than Apple putting 16GB as the default.

Actually, C would be a more appropriate answer if the question were "Why do people buy an Android or Windows product?" Given the market share of the Mac, if you're just buying what "everyone else" is buying it wouldn't be a Mac. I'll give you my alternative list of reasons why a rational person would buy Apple products: 1) High build quality combined with great industrial style. 2) OS X is a Unix-based OS with a very good GUI and excellent software (iLife, iWork, FCPX, Logic Pro, etc.) 3) Ease of visiting a local Apple Store (or Apple Care centre) for purchasing and support 4) Apple makes their product line easy to understand for the non-technical person making purchasing decisions less confusing 5) Full vertical integration of Apple products For quite a few people any or all of the first four are enough reason for them. For me, it is the the 5th reason that seals the deal. Good build quality and industrial styling can be found from some other manufacturers or product lines besides Apple. Microsoft and Samsung both have stores you can visit now for support, and many Linux distros have great GUIs and some great software (not as wide a selection as OSX of course). But, most manufacturers fail in comparison to Apple for number four, although there are a few smaller companies that do get it. However, none of them provide the level of vertical integration that Apple do, and this does make a difference. Microsoft are starting to get this, and Samsung are now doing their best to copy Apple in this regard too. If you can't beat them, join them...

In the case of things like the CPU or RAM, they don't. But, many if the components in an Apple computer are tailor made for the product. Pull apart a Mac Pro or MBPr and you will see the parts have been specifically engineered and are not simply off the shelf components. The dual FirePro GPUs in the new Mac Pro are offered as an upgrade for less than half the equivalent GPUs at retail. And take a look at the specs of the SSDs including the read/write speeds - they aren't standard. Not many workstations offer ECC RAM either. So, there are some observable differences. I challenge you to actually physically touch, use, take apart one of the new Mac Pros and tell me there is no difference in build quality and design. Pictures do not do it justice. The Brilliant Insanity Behind The New Mac Pro's Design | Gizmodo Australia I think you've overlooked the reality of the Retina display. When it came out, nothing was close to the resolution and quality (i.e. - it was innovative when it was introduced). It was declared an "engineering marvel" on Gizmodo and it really was. Yes, Apple is very good at marketing and vastly overplayed the "Retina" marketing imagery. That didn't diminish the actual fact that the Retina display was very good and still is. It has now been equalled and beaten for pure resolution, but find the Retina display to be more colour accurate than many of the competitive displays. There are some very widely used software products that are only available on the Mac (Final Cut Pro, Motion, Logic Pro), so if you're using those Windows isn't going to cut it. Many others just prefer OSX because it is easier to maintain for reasons we've gone over previously. For people who have not used a computer before, OSX also tends to be more intuitive to pick up (not talking switchers with previous Windows experience). Finally, I think the reason why Macs are being recommended to people more often these days is the simple fact that Apple has made it simple and easy to buy a computer. People become easily confused at the vast array of difficult to understand (for the avg person) options and plethora of models of PCs on the market from other manufacturers. It's a bad idea to give most people more than three choices or they have analysis paralysis. Apple gets that. Many other manufacturers haven't yet and continue to confuse their main customer base (and, that's not you and me) by offering 20 models x 100 configurations in a shotgun approach.

Try this - Push Diagnostics or this APN Tester by Xenia Hertzenberg - App Info

Apple’s new ‘overpriced’ $10,000 Mac Pro is $2,000 cheaper than the equivalent Windows PC | ExtremeTech

I could be wrong, but I do suspect that this has something to do with the LEA (shared WAN IP) or some other aspect of this arrangement. Network or DNS issues will definitely cause problems with APN, OTA app installs, etc. Many of the people with these sorts of issues I see appear to be using shared WAN services. Good advice this part. Yes, that's advisable. These sort of network setups could definitely cause problem when you don't truly control your own network. Absolutely.

No, It was a point worth pointing out, and no criticism taken. I've recommended having one Apple ID per trolley on this thread and others, which I think is a good way to do it (for most situations anyway). It's also good to spread out the apps a bit when pushing them out and use QoS as well. I shouldn't assume people will realise they need to do these things as standard practice.

Only if someone were silly enough to either place 100 iPads onto a single Apple ID (we limit it to 32, or 1 full trolley) AND they didn't use QoS/Bandwidth Shaping on App Store downloads to prevent this very thing from occurring (which we do).

I would NOT setup every iPad with its own Apple ID, not for iPads you are managing in trolley/class set that is. It will cause you headaches. I would recommend having one Apple ID per trolley/class set though as this allows you to push different apps to different sets of iPads depending on need. If you're talking 1:1 iPads, then they need to have individual Apple IDs and each user will need to accept the MDM invite before apps can be pushed OTA.

+1 on this. There is an article on using AirWatch for silently pushing apps (free and paid), but these steps apply to any MDM that supports OTA. One thing to note is that it is not necessary to actually assign the user in MDM to every iPad you want to push apps to, but you can just have them signed into the same Apple ID and have the automatic install of apps turned on for all of the iPads. Accepting the invitation on the single iPad associated with the user in the MDM and installing an App will install it on all of them. Either way works though. How to silently push free apps using VPP, Managed Distribution, Supervision and AirWatch | Enterprise iOS

Here's the info on migrating redemption codes (which can be used both in Configurator and most MDMs, but require "gifting" of the license to the Apple ID it's redeemed on) and managed distribution (which can't be used with Configurator, but allow you to reclaim app licenses and to easily do OTA silent installs). Volume Purchase Program: Migrating from redemption codes to managed distribution

Inform management that because of the security risks of running Windows XP on these laptops after the 8th of April that you will need to install Ubuntu on them until they can be replaced. Make them aware of the problems this may cause in accessing some service or the learning curve that may be required for students, etc. It may turn out some money magically appears; or, at least you don't have a zero day threat waiting to blow up in your face (which it probably will because XP is going to be the big malware target now since it will be a sitting duck with a large swath of machines still using it). Unless you can access these updates the govt is paying MS for. If you can do that, then you have some time.