Today I started orientation, so I guess I am officially a “One L”. Since I work in an academic environment, I understand a little bit about the hurdles that have to be overcome in order to roll technology out in a campus environment.
However, is there really an excuse to be paying tens upon tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and “technology fees” and not have wireless access.
Actually, there is wireless access, I’m picking up a number of networks in the area, but of course, they all require keys, keys that I don’t have. Grrr.
Honestly, there isn’t much of an excuse for not having wireless in the classroom at a major law school these days.
Update: I just flagged down one of our “trainers” and he informed me that the infrastructure is in place, it just hasn’t been “rolled out” yet. I suppose that makes me feel a little better. Well, not really, but maybe a touch.
Update: I wonder how many copies of Windows XP Professional the bookstore sold today. There were a number of people who had XP Home, or Windows 2000, and they were sent down to the bookstore to purchase XP Pro.
Thankfully, I not only had it, but I’m already running Service Pack 2. Of course, that means that for basically the first hour, I’m sitting here blogging, while they are walking everyone else through the SP2 installation. On an interesting hardware note, I see exactly 2 Compaq notebooks, 1 IBM, and the rest are entirely Dell.
Final Analysis: That was a complete waste of my time. I do completely understand the need for making sure everyone is on the same page and has the correct technology, but they should have allowed people to “test out” or something. Or they could have said “You need to come with Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 and Office 2003 installed, if you need assistance installing these, make an appointment beforehand” It would have shaved 2-3 hours off the orientation, easily.
Howdy Dave! Just wanted to add my congrats for starting law school! How about dedicating your legal career to the eradication of spam?
Seriously (well, I was sort of being serious), I think it’s awesome and whichever direction you go you are going to do fantastic. Some things are just so freak’n obvious. I should have hung out more with you guys in B-town so I could glom the free legal advice in the future. 😉
You should start journaling the whole law school experience for your next novel.
Good luck with everything!
Hey, we completed orientation yesterday, so we’re a bit ahead of you.
I’m curious: did they actually explain the differences between XP Home and Pro? Even my friends at Microsoft admit that most people can get by just fine with Home. Our school did, however, demand that we purchase and use some sort of Virus protection if we expect to have any support on the network.
Regarding wireless, our system requires that we register a MAC address, which would be trivially simple if I could get the information to log onto the system and add it. Also, they’ve only got it in the library and study areas, although they’ll have wireless to go with the wired in the main classrooms within a few months, so I don’t grump.
And last, it looks like my University is about half Apple and half Dell, with a few HPs around. We’re only 40 miles from Cupertino, though.
No, they didn’t bother to explain the differences, although I’m sure they require XP Professional because they authenticate users against school domain, and the networking support in XP Home is limited.
I work at a university too, and for wireless there, we do have to register MAC addresses, but once that’s done, it’s pretty easy to get on wireless just about anywhere. It was mostly frustrating because the law school I am attending touts itself on being a technology leader, yet, in this area they are now distinctly behind the times. 🙂