OneAndOneIs2

Wed, Sep 12, 2007

Software vs. hardware

My university evidently had to consider this question recently. With regret, I must inform you they got it wrong.

Instead of saying "Hey, our machines are slow and the monitor resolutions are pitiful, let's upgrade the hardware", they appear to have instead opted to invest the money on putting the most bloated MS office software yet released onto already-struggling machines.

Ah well.

On the plus side, their decrepit PCs have USB ports. So their lousy choice of software and their draconian firewall can both be laughed at with disdain, courtesy of portable apps and a blog post I made on using them a while ago.

Besides, I won't have to spend too much time using them: Most of the course is school-based and I found out today where I'll be starting on the first of October. Happily, it's a school just a few miles away - no more hour-long voyages!

So I came home and checked their website, as you do. And I see that it's a "day and boarding school" for girls aged 4 to 18.

Bloody hell...

6 comments • Categories: Omni, My Life

Comments:

Comment from: Chloé [Visitor]

· http://chloesbubbles.blogspot.com/

It seems so typical of universities, doesn't it?

Here, they do little fixes here and there and spend the day sitting in their office hoping that nothing will fail.

And obviously, once in a while, things fail, and pretty badly so. Leaving the whole campus or the whole department without resources for half a day or more, and I'm not even talking about going back and fix everything that broke when the whole system failed.

Permalink 12/09/07 @ 18:37

Comment from: Kiraa [Visitor]

· http://exeverything.blogspot.com

Seems about usual for universities. It seems like even the best ones have 'draconian firewalls' and bloated programs. Which, by the way, I'm now in complete love with the term 'draconian firewalls'.

Permalink 12/09/07 @ 18:50

Comment from: oneandoneis2 [Member] · http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/

Chloé: Yep, I'm very glad I don't have to spend much time at university on their computers, really..

Kiraa: Thank you, I thought it up myself :) It's not as good an experience as it is a term, tho...

Permalink 12/09/07 @ 20:44

Comment from: ray [Visitor]

· http://lostaddress.org

So you're working at St Trinians then? :)

As a geek I bet you had to be physically restrained from going to the IT dept and beating some sense into them! This is the problem with budgets though, they may have been given money to use purely for software upgrades despite the reality of the situation.

Permalink 13/09/07 @ 11:20

Comment from: oneandoneis2 [Member] · http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/

Close enough!

I restrained myself by remembering I could bypass the whole sorry mess and connect to home. It helped :)

Permalink 13/09/07 @ 17:16

Comment from: oneandoneis2 [Member] · http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/

Newsflash: They changed their minds, I'm now assigned to a school that's a 45-min drive away. Hey-ho..

Permalink 13/09/07 @ 20:56