<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/18/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">James Mansion</b> <<a href="mailto:james@mansionfamily.plus.com">james@mansionfamily.plus.com</a>> wrote:</span><br>>The biggest problem with schools IT is training - not just for the<br> >teachers but also for<br>>the external support staff that have to help out.  We gave serious<br>>consideration to trying to</div> <div> </div> <div>Well, as I see it there are three major operating systems on the desktop at present...</div> <div> </div> <div>- Windows</div> <div>- OS-X</div> <div>- Linux</div> <div> </div> <div>...of the three, one is completely different, and obviously hard to learn for those used to the other two... long established key combinations (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-R, Shift-Tab) simply do not work... the top menu changes contextually, so how to get back to what you were just doing isn't apparent... </div> <div> </div> <div>...of course, what we're talking here is OS-X, an OS that is completely different... and, imho, very hard to use compared to the other two.</div> <div> </div> <div>...Micro$oft "borrowed" things like Ctrl-C from Unix... Linux desktops have (KDE/Gnom at least) retained key combinations common to Windows users for ease of portability... </div> <div> </div> <div>Could it be that we're talking ourselves out of the school market, because I don't actually see where this problem that James refers to is...  if location on the screen is a problem then both KDE and Gnome can be configured to look just like Windows... OpenOffice will provide all the things that MSOffice can, and don't be fooled by the "let's give them the same software as they'll use in the workplace" because software changes... a school that 5 years ago taught pupils Office 2000, is that any more relevant today than had they taught the concepts using Openoffice?!?!  Of course not... because Office 2000 is probably no less different to Microsoft's latest beast than Openoffice... it's the concepts you're teaching, not a brand...</div> <div> </div> <div>They say that once you've been conditioned into a way of thinking it is hard to break out of it... this is nowhere more present than in the "fear" of anything not Micro$oft.   When people do actually "break out" they are generally impressed by what they find... let's not put our "product" down... if people really want proprietary software there is always wine/Crossover... let's tackle the fear head on...</div> <div> </div> <div>Sean</div>