“About five years ago, my wife and I sat in the library at Sarasota High School listening to a presentation about the school’s math, science and technology program. Like most of the parents there, we were proud that we had a freshman who had chosen to attend the school’s demanding magnet program. Through my job, we even arranged to buy a new computer for him. Equipped with Microsoft Windows and other programs, the new computer would make it easier to work on his school projects at home,” Rich Brooks writes for The Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
“We figured he could work on the school computers, transfer the projects to a disk and use the disk at his home computer. That process of copying projects and files to a floppy disk and using the stored files at home and work is similar to what happens millions of times a day at offices throughout the world. But those office workers have an advantage that many students do not have: The computers at their offices run on the same software as their home computers,” Brooks writes.
“There are two basic home computer operating systems. Apple makes one system for its Macintosh computers. The other is called a PC system. They have similarities, but are not compatible. Macintoshes — or Macs — use different programs and different disks. In other words, files and work created on a Mac are not easily transferred to a PC. And although each system started on similar footing dozens of years ago, PCs now hold 97 percent of the home computer market, compared to 3 percent for Macs,” Brooks writes.
MacDailyNews Note: Confusing “current quarterly market share” with “installed base” is a common mistake, yet it seems so easy to understand. See Apple users ‘still account for 10% of the world’s computer users’ for more info.
“So I was surprised when a teacher suggested five years ago that we purchase a Macintosh computer so our son could work at home and school. The computers at school, the teacher explained, were Macs. We didn’t buy a Mac. Dropping another $900 on another computer was never given serious thought. There were times when our oldest son, now a freshman at the University of Florida, needed to stay after school to work on the Macs. If the school had compatible software, the assignments could have been put on a disk and used at home and school. So you’ll have to excuse my lack of sympathy for teachers who are complaining about the plan to replace all the district’s Macintosh computers with PCs,” Brooks writes.
“Thinking back to that initial meeting in the high school library, I see now that for all their postulating about technology, the teachers really didn’t understand its applications in the educational environment. Sure, they could write programs, create Web sites and surf the Internet, but they didn’t realize that computer technology is a tool to use at home and school. And if teachers find that the new PCs at school aren’t compatible with the Macs they have at home, they can always go out and buy a PC for home,” Brooks writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Brooks is a brave writer to admit in print that he was too cheap to supply his son with the proper educational equipment and also too ignorant to understand basic Mac to Windows compatibility. Does Mr. Brooks know that applications such as Microsoft Office, Photoshop, etc. run natively on Macs (in fact, started as Mac-only programs) that read and write files that work on both Windows PCs and Macs? This is a remarkable piece to read near the end of 2004, as dinosaur thinking this old is, thankfully, extremely rare. Letters to the paper’s editor can be submitted here and Mr. Brooks email address is: . This techno-illiterate hack really needs to forget about floppy disks (Brooks would be surprised to find out that Apple brought floppies to the world and also took them out when their time had passed) and brush up on his outdated and just plain wrong information before scribbling his next mess. We suggest this link would be a great place to start: Mac vs. PC.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Windows XP Service Pack 2 causing major headaches on college campuses – August 24, 2004
Pennsylvania school district’s PCs infected with virus; their Macs unaffected – October 01, 2003
Montana school district’s Windows computers offline due to worm; Macintosh computers unaffected – September 03, 2003
More schools experience Windows virus, worm problems while Macs just keep working – August 22, 2003
A tale of two school systems: Windows schools crippled while Mac schools unaffected – August 21, 2003
What his son was unable to do was put his work on a floppy and take it home, poor fella obviously hasn’t heard of a new space age technology called email, it allows you to attach documents and send ‘electronically’ to other computers.
“About five years ago”….
…the school was running OS8.6 and Word 6.
You may as well say the PC is rubbish because it only supports 3 colours on screen at once.
If he had his way and the school was all Winblows, what should all the Mac owning students do? Go buy a Winblows machine or Virtual PC? That’s not fair either. His argument would be that there are more Windows computers at home but so what. The best computer to learn on and use throughout life is a Mac as we all know.
It sounds like he is saying that everybody should conform to his tastes. He says the schools should buy new PC’s and teachers should buy new PC’s so he doesn’t have to buy a Mac? He shoots down his own credibility with that one statement.
I guess I should buy his brand of toilet paper in case he comes to my house. F*ck him.
Maybe to him email is Rocket Science. Or worse….his son thinks it is.
feeze..
Good point…
I think DropZip was available back then… which would have made the emailed document more cross platform compatible…
Silly that most people focus on the differences between the two platforms, instead of doing a little “homework” to find out how things can be done between Macs and PeeCees
So this guy goes out and buys a Widows computer for his son to do his school work before consulting with the school on what kind would be best. Then he thinks the school should switch all their computers to accomodate his stupidity. What an idiot! This guy is truely brave to write like this in public.
Wait! This guy is from southwest Florida. That explains everything.
He obviously has never been in a local Mac store since they opened. Has no clue how much things have changed. I sent him the link that MacDaily suggested to both his email and the opinions page of the newspaper.
I just told him PDF’s are the great leveler. Doesn’t matter who uses what OS where. Send the assignment in as a PDF. No problem.
Well OK,let them experience the PC virus/worms etc. misbehaviors.
Some cannot live without a chaos to clean up. Others buy a MAC..
The schools are only trying to be efficient since using the Mac today prepares you for what the PC will be doing in 5+ years.
Florida is chock full of mean ignorant rednecks who think they know everything. My parents retired there and I when I go to visit I am scared for my life. Basically, there are a lot of people in Florida who hate anything they don’t understand (which is almost everything). They are narrow-minded bunch, perfectly understand why they would want to get rid of macs. They also want to get rid of blacks, hispanics, gays, muslims, democracy, freedom, books, words…
He is confusing market share figures with consumer market share figures.
In any case, this reminds me of an experience about 15 years ago. My mom was a elementary school librarian involved in recommending computer purchases for her school. She recommended Macs.
The school district over-ruled her recommendation. Why? Because businesses use MS-DOS, and we don’t want our kids going out into the world without the appropriate preparation and computer training. After all, they need to know that the “dir” command will list files, and a Mac won’t teach them that. Ridiculous!
Thee Mac would have taught them more of the skills they need for today’s computers. To a lesser extent, I still believe this today. Apple creates the next generation of computing, and students will be best prepared if they’ve learned the Mac.
Harry, don’t capitalize all the letters in Mac, or it becomes MAC (Media Access Control – part of networking protocols).
Common mistake…
good point Al.
Except on Windows, you’ve got to pay to make PDF’s…
Another win for the Mac!
Forget e-mail, try a USB drive.
OT: I just read “The Perfect Chocolate” – a very nice parable which explains the Mac platform and the iPod’s importance in a unique and memorable way. If you haven’t read it, yet:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments_opinion/4367/
Chomper, the problem with using a USB drive…
is that Windows systems don’t necessarily support all of them (they need a special driver for each one).
The thing is if you teach kids on Macs they will learn how to do much more because it is easier, fun, and more intuitive. THEN if they have to switch to PC later in life it is just a matter of figuring out what the complicated Windoze way of doing the same thing is.
I know this is true because it happens to me whenever I have anything to do with a friend’s or colleague’s PC. Something will come up and I say, well, this is how I would do it on a Mac, lets figure out how to do the same thing on this. Almost always we can find the way to do it using help, etc but it is very complicated and hidden while on the Mac it was obvious.
Sent a letter to editor … join the campaign to stop mindless journalism
Perhaps he needs to be reminded of the tax increase he’s going to see due to the increase in IT staff required to keep the computers running. A teacher friend of mine was told by the district’s IT staffer that the computers would run much better if they wouldn’t let the kids use them. The saddest part of all is that he was totally serious.
of course.. tons of files from windows will work flawlessly on the mac, but the reverse is not true..
that’s what happens when you have a small market share.. you tend to work hard at compatibility with the bigger share..
the same cannot be said for windows.. they don’t give a shit if sth works on a mac.. so the mac can read anything you give it.. but er.. windows.. maybe not..
that’s not really a priority… security is their biggest priority and they’re busy perpetuating the obscurity myth.. how irresponsible and dishonest..
I wouldn’t want to be this guy right now. He called down the wrath of the Mac faithful with that ignorant diatribe!
Well, who knows? Maybe he’ll become one of the converted after he digs himself out of the mountain of e-mail he’s surely receiving right now. It’s happened before.
Unfortunatly-
A lot of the K – 12 schools are 3 to 5 years behind in hardware (except perhaps thier art, G/D classes).
Many schools still run sub- OS X on old Mac II LC or Performas.
Very sad.