Shortly before Thanksgiving, my laptop bit the big one. I noticed it had been getting very slow and applications were not responding. I opened it up last week and immediately got the "blue screen of death" and then tried to recover and it would not boot. So I figured since it was 7 years old and running Vista, it was time for a new one and since Christmas is just around the corner... I was kind of afraid of using the new operating system because all I had seen of it was the tiled user interface that I see on the TV ads. However, I gathered up my courage and went PC shopping right before the mad rush for Black Friday.
I found a great little Lenovo Ideabook PC at Office Max for a good price with slightly more powerful configuration that I was looking for. I ended up buying it online and the picked it up at the store on Wednesday night. I have been playing with it over the Thanksgiving holiday and found that Windows 8 is really not that bad. Of course Google searches on how to do things help tremendously, and I found one blog site which has a whole bunch of information on it. For example I found that the tiled screen is called the Metro UI, so now I will be able to sound at least as if I somewhat know what I am talking about.
So if you are new Windows 8 user, give the site a try. If you are like me and just kind of jump right in and try stuff without reading the instructions, this can help reduce a great deal of the learning curve frustrations about using a new operating system. Of course, there is still some degree of frustration in using computers just due to the fact that generally Microsoft tends to think they know how you use a computer rather than leaving those decisions up to you. But that is fodder for another blog entry.
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Monday, December 2, 2013
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Computer Snooping
I have been reading a lot about the computer-snooping issue going on in Lower Merion. The school was using a technology that was inappropriate for the use they supposedly intended. It is my opinion, shared by others that the school fully meant to catch students committing crimes and tried to pass it off as anti-theft. As a comment posted to one article stated on NPR, a simple, inexpensive GPS unit installed in the laptops would have been able to locate a stolen computer if needed. There is no question in my mind that the school was attempting to pry into the student's private lives in a misguided effort to thwart criminal behavior.
That being said, the real issue here is the line where a student's school lives cross over into their private lives. I remember a situation when my son was in the 5th grade and was admonished for putting something on his MySpace page. He made some reference to illegal activities and it was found by the school and he was disciplined for it. Needless to say he was incensed that the school would interfere with his personal life. His feeling was that he was not in school, it was not the school’s page, and he was not using school property to post that missive. He felt that the school had no right to question anything he did after school hours.
It was the school’s opinion, and ours as well, that as a student of that school, he was a representative of the school even outside of school hours.
I believe that Lower Merion School District was trying to prevent their students from putting the school in a bad light. They deliberately employed the use of the webcams to do accomplish that goal, and then they tried to cover it up by saying they were trying to locate stolen laptops. They probably assumed the average person would be clueless enough to believe them.
In whatever role we play, we represent others as well as ourselves. We represent our parents, our children, our employers, or even our home city. Over the centuries people have been sensitive to criticism from others that tarnish our “good name”. People do care whether they admit it or not, what others say about them and it’s very important that they are accepted. Young teens are very sensitive to how the world views them and always looking for approval of their peers. It subsides a little when we mature, but not by much, in my opinion.
Is there a line crossed or not? That is a difficult question to answer. I think the school definitely went over the line in the manner in which they tried to save their reputation. Ironically, their actions to maintain their status have caused the biggest stain on their name ever.
That being said, the real issue here is the line where a student's school lives cross over into their private lives. I remember a situation when my son was in the 5th grade and was admonished for putting something on his MySpace page. He made some reference to illegal activities and it was found by the school and he was disciplined for it. Needless to say he was incensed that the school would interfere with his personal life. His feeling was that he was not in school, it was not the school’s page, and he was not using school property to post that missive. He felt that the school had no right to question anything he did after school hours.
It was the school’s opinion, and ours as well, that as a student of that school, he was a representative of the school even outside of school hours.
I believe that Lower Merion School District was trying to prevent their students from putting the school in a bad light. They deliberately employed the use of the webcams to do accomplish that goal, and then they tried to cover it up by saying they were trying to locate stolen laptops. They probably assumed the average person would be clueless enough to believe them.
In whatever role we play, we represent others as well as ourselves. We represent our parents, our children, our employers, or even our home city. Over the centuries people have been sensitive to criticism from others that tarnish our “good name”. People do care whether they admit it or not, what others say about them and it’s very important that they are accepted. Young teens are very sensitive to how the world views them and always looking for approval of their peers. It subsides a little when we mature, but not by much, in my opinion.
Is there a line crossed or not? That is a difficult question to answer. I think the school definitely went over the line in the manner in which they tried to save their reputation. Ironically, their actions to maintain their status have caused the biggest stain on their name ever.
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