Running Windows on Mac

by Chris Christensen Posted on January 23, 2012

I’m not afraid to admit that I love my new Mac. I got lucky in that we had to purchase the Mac to support our iPad labs at school. What a great piece of technology. I like it so much I don’t want to use my Windows laptop anymore. The problem is that I support a Windows based network and doing so on a Mac is a bit cumbersome. I thought.

My first stop was boot camp. Great idea but dual booting is old news on PCs. I’ve been dual booting to Linux since I started seriously using computers. I gave this a try and setup was quite easy. You create a disk in the boot camp wizard and then load the Windows OS. After it loads you use that same disk to get the Mac drivers working on Windows. This is a solution, kind of, but it still does not make it easy. In fact, going this method I still had two laptops open on my desk so I could support our network. I don’t know about you but when you are in the middle of something it is not easy to shut everything down and reboot.

My next stop was VirtualBox. I like Virtualbox a lot and best of all it is free. VirtualBox was not all that straightforward and I’m pretty sure someone without my tinkering abilities would struggle a little bit to get things going. It isn’t THAT hard but it isn’t seamless either. I did get Windows 7 running just fine on the Mac and I would be able to support the network without having to reboot.

At this point I was pretty set but I happened to see a web ad for a free 14 day trial of Parallels for Mac and thought “what the heck!” The $80 price tag is not so much that I would say no, but it is enough that it better be darn good. It is better than that. Coherence is what they call the integration mode that basically integrates Windows 7 into your Mac like “Unity” integrates for VMWare. I love that! I need to use Windows for three things. To be able to launch them without launching a whole virtual machine window is worth more than the $80 I’ll be shelling out for this software.

Parallels is my choice but VirtualBox would have worked too. In my opinion, the $80 is a worthwhile investment. It makes my job easier and makes me more efficient.

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5 (Real World) Reasons Why the OLPC Tablet Will Not Replace Classroom iPads

by Chris Christensen Posted on January 19, 2012

I believe that the OLPC XO-3 is an impressive device. It includes technologies that I look forward to in the mainstream devices like the iPad and the Android tablets. The flexible display is a precursor to Nokia’s flexible displays and the screens ability to shift in sunlight is what it will take to make the e-reader obsolete. Great features do not make an item a suitable replacement.  Jeff Dunn’s post “Five Reasons the OLPC Could Replace Classroom iPads” gave decent, albeit naïve, reasons. I am the Technology Director for a school district in a small, rural, financially challenged area. The theory behind the OLPC tablet makes perfect sense for us. On average our students have fewer technology choices in their home and providing them a laptop to take home is logical. This product does not fulfill the requirements that our students need and here is why:

Read the rest of my post on Edudemic!

 

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BYOD or Not to BYOD

by Chris Christensen Posted on January 12, 2012

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is something that I embraced as the Technology Director at Addison long ago. I didn’t approach it haphazardly but rather embraced it because the conditions of our network and the logic of BYOD fit for our district. It started with one student asking if it would be OK to bring their laptop to school and grew from there. I was able to stay within CIPA compliance because our web filter (Barracuda Networks) blocked all unauthenticated traffic and presented them with a login page that forced them to use their school login. This enabled us to apply filtering rules and monitor usage.

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Restricting Access to Email on iPad

by Chris Christensen Posted on January 6, 2012

This post is one of those “I found a trick I want to share!” kind of posts. Short and sweet.

I had a teacher ask me today if there was a way to restrict access to the email app on her iPad. Unfortunately there is not a way to individually restrict access to most apps. The exception would be those apps under General->Restrictions but the only setting for email is to restrict changing accounts.

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No More Nick Burns!

by Chris Christensen Posted on January 4, 2012

Believe it or not I was once a Nick Burns. I had made it my mission to never be “that” tech guy. The one that makes everyone feel like an idiot. It is funny to watch Jimmy Fallon but I’m going to venture to say that it is not funny to be the person that is on the receiving end of this in real life.

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Only Apple Can Disrupt the TV

by Chris Christensen Posted on December 28, 2011

When you need something done you usually go to a pro to have it done. Experience and expertise separate the good from the great and that is exactly what separates Apple from others that have tried to “disrupt” the television. Google has tried with GoogleTV. Boxee and Roku have tried with their own variations of which I have used all of them. Unfortunately the navigation is confusing for normal users and the CONTENT is lacking. I bought the Roku looking for a way to “cut the cable” but returned it within an hour because I could do the same thing with my laptop connected to my TV but at a savings of $80. These devices offer access to YouTube, NetFlix, Hulu, etc which gives you some content but the content is not available in a way that you are use to. Plus the content is still lacking.

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BYOD and the Evolution of 1:1

by Chris Christensen Posted on December 23, 2011

I have been working in educational technology for 3 short years and over that time 1:1 computing has undergone several evolutionary changes. When I started my job at Addison Community Schools 1:1 computing was hot. The question wasn’t if but how we were going to implement a 1:1 program. Everyone from Intel to HP were pushing 1:1 and how it was going to revolutionize educational technology. Easy for multi-billion dollar companies to talk about, not so easy for low school districts to implement.

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Posted in edtech, Internet, ipad, mobile, Open Source Software | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments