Hi all, The private school that my daughter attends just bought a new "Snow" iMac to compose their yearbook with, and also to let the students run educational CDs on, learn page layout, word processing, etc. Since I run a Mac at home (G4 733), and nobody at the school is familiar with Macs, I have been asked to unpack this new iMac and set it up for the school's use. So I have it at home right now.
Since the CDs that the kids will run on this iMac are a few years old (Carmen Sandiego, Math Blasters, Reader Rabbit, etc.) I've set it to boot into OS 9.2 instead of X, figuring that the older CDs probably won't run under OS X (they seem to run fine under 9.2), and anyway my own G4 is running 9.2 and I know how to troubleshoot that OS, whereas Im not familiar with X. So my questions for the group here are: is there anything I should do to this iMac to make it more difficult for grade school students to foul it up? It will be sitting in a classroom under a teacher's supervision most of the time, but I've noticed that the students use the three Windows machines they have to play games on before and after class, and during the lunch hour, and their teacher isn't always around to see what they're doing with them. And he isn't too savvy with computers anyway, especially Macs, though I'll try to acquaint him with the Mac OS as much as I can, and I'll also check out the iMac from time to time for problems. I have TechTool Pro and DiskWarrior should anything go wrong, and of course the backup software if necessary. The three old Windows machines that the students have right now are donations from other parents, that I have been told give the kids a lot of trouble (perhaps of their own making), hence when the principal asked my advice on buying a new machine for this class, I suggested a Mac. I hope the iMac lives up to our expectations. He also asked if it would be possible to network this new Mac with the old Windows boxes, but there he has me, because my experience there is very limited. I'm not sure why we'd want to do it anyway. I will talk to the dad who is maintaining the Windows machines for the class and see what he thinks about it, but any advice I can get here would be useful. Also, I've noticed that the students aren't too careful about handling their CD's, and I wonder if it's possible to make working copies of the ones they'll be using a lot, so that I can set the originals safely aside, out of harm's way. That way if they ruin one, I can always make a replacement. On my own G4 I've burned a lot of custom music CDs using Toast Deluxe 4.1.2, as well as other CD-Rs with backup data or digital photographs on them, but I've never tried to copy a commercial game CD. Is it possible? Any advice on setting up a Mac for use in a gradeschool would be most appreciated. Thanks, Tom -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:g-list@;mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:g-list-off@;mail.maclaunch.com> For digest mode, email: <mailto:g-list-digest@;mail.maclaunch.com> Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom@;lemlists.com> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
