Re: [H] machine update plans

[Harry McGregor]

Christopher Klein wrote: Harry, I think from your previous discussions you didn't attend college...or maybe you went to a community college? I don't remember now. Yes, I went to community college, and at some point will work on my BA (tuition benefits are nice, $80/semester for me to go to U of A).  My wife just finished her BA in Music at the University of Arizona. Anyway, students entering the corporate world or most areas of IT need to learn MS office. I deal with corporate, education, and government settings all the time.  My current position is as computing manager for a joint research institute between the University of Arizona and the US Geological Survey. Knowing MS Office is a part of life right now.  Most of the people I run into in the corporate and governmental world don't even know the basics of word processing, let alone how to use MS Office. We recently were forced by the Department of Interior to upgrade all systems to Microsoft Office 2003 Pro (Enterprise license agreement).  You can only imagine the screaming from people used to Office 2000 or Office XP. Not open office...but the actual MS office. MS office is used by the majority of fortune 500 companies today. Hell...I was consulting at goodyear/dunlop a few weeks ago and their hardware was ancient. They were running windows 95 and novell on some units, however, all machines had office. Granted some were only office 97, but they had office. I don't think I'd consider going to different university because they used open office. In my case I would have avoided the university that did not have/teach office as it would have hurt me in the business/IT world. I would not consider going to a different university because they used OpenOffice.  I would consider going to a different university if they or the program tried to dictate my hardware and software.  Dictating specialized software such as AutoCad is acceptable.  Dictating formats that can be used to turn in assignments (though it should include a page format such as Adobe PDF), is acceptable.  Dictating that I must have Office 2003 Pro install on my laptop is not. Office 2003 Professional was a requirement of the school of Architecture for incoming students this year.  If you did not have it installed (and licensed properly of course), they implied that they would kick you out of the program.                                                        Harry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Harry McGregor Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 12:02 PM To: The Hardware List Subject: Re: [H] machine update plans Anthony Q. Martin wrote: Greg Sevart wrote: If the University isn't using Open Office already, then it's time they start (or look at another, more forward thinking, university.) Most of the universities around here are standardizing on Open Office (and I'm in Canada, which is about five years behind the US.) Are you seriously advocating that a university's document processing software is valid decision criteria for selection of a school to obtain a degree? There are about 14,000 other criteria sets that are far more important than something so minor as that. I had this same thought..... It's not the choice of document processing software, it's the concepts behind it. If the University is so closed minded that they will only deal with MS formats, you are going to find that they are close minded in other areas both technical and administrative, such as newer programming languages (ie Java only at U of A here), etc. The Architecture program at U of A just mandated at all incoming students have a laptop that is so overkill it's not even funny. They tried to say that it was to protect the investment and make it last the 4-5 year program. The average student in the program would be better off with two laptop purchases over the course of the degree. They speced an Intel Core Duo 2500, 2GB memory, 80GB 7200 RPM drive, ATI x1400 or better, 15" screen or better (though they did not say to go for the high resolution screen, which will suck for the students that cheaped out on that), etc. I wound up specing a MacBook Pro for a client that needed this, as it was available in town quickly. Then I installed XP Pro on it as a dual boot. The students were worried that if they did not have the laptop when they walked in for orientation, that they would get kicked out of the program. Harry Harry