Open for Business.
Yet again, it's the start of a new academic year where I work. We've done our best to get everything lined up and ready for the return of our lecturers and students. And mostly, we've managed.
A couple of things spring to mind: Software is supposed to be about ones and zeros. Binary. It either works or it don't. Why then, does some software appear to change it's behaviour based on the phases of the moon?
Of course, that isn't really so.Software IS binary and WILL behave according to rules and the appearance of random behaviour simply means that I haven't isolated the right variables. I'm quite aware of that. What I'd like to know is why the supplier of this software apparently isn't. I can't believe some of the stuff that gets sold into education, supposedly well tested and robust enough for a classroom environment. Frankly, I'm embarassed to run some of this code, so I can't imagine the developers felt good about writing something that dodgy.
I don't want to name names. I've got better things to do than to fend off lawsuits, but I'm sure anyone working in UK education has probably narrowed it down to two or three major suppliers based on my gripe above.
On a more positive note, perhaps, hopefully most networks will have a stable bedrock this year as the major operating system suppliers haven't really done much since last summer. Right now it seems that everyone's waiting for Windows ME part 2 or for Apple's Leopard. In the meantime, the Linux developers are continuing to talk about how unique and special they are while ripping off the desktops from the two products I've already mentioned, and so it seems that this time next year, every window on every computer will be transparent, because people don't suffer enough eyestrain after spending 12 hours sat in front of a computer already.
Did I say that bit was going to be more positive? I'm such a cynic. But it isn't all bad. Apple are putting together a real nice desktop environment and I've been very impressed with their latest hardware and application releases. This year we replaced all our current Apple Macs with Intel Core Duo iMacs running the latest Final Cut Studio build, and very nice and fast it is too. We also opened up a whole new classroom set of Final Cut Studio equipped Macs, and with some fiddling the notes I've made on this blog about Apple Mac deployment also worked well for the Intel Macs.
I've also made a decision about my home computer arrangements. I've been a Microsoft MVP for servers and security for years now, and I hope they keep me around for a while longer yet, but as much as I like using the server based products, I'm becoming more and more dismayed about the direction Microsoft's home products are taking.
Therefore, once my current Windows desktop machine rolls over and dies and can't be repaired for a decent price, I'm going to replace it with an Apple, which will probably be setup to dual boot for the few things I still can't do in OS X that I can in Windows, but essentially my home will be an all Apple solution as soon as it's feasable.