if they will first remember to fix the various internal and third party sites that didn't work with Firefox (as late as mid 2009) this could be good. Even if they make firefox default, and install it in lots of places, it's moot if you still need to use IE for certain sites. My 'favorites' were ones which were actually just running javascript / java applets and nothing else which had absolutely no reason to be restricted to windows but had browser agent checks abound in them..

Yes you can change the browser agent you report... but if I do that, I'll start misrepresenting the browser usage internally now won't I? A fact whose impact makes me rather curious about results published about browser usage from many internet sites and on the web as a whole.

Probably because when they send the email they don't know (and shouldn't need to know) what device every person will access the email from. If someone is drafting a document, are they going to send you an ms word file of it, or a pdf? Neither, They are going to send you it in whatever format they were working on it in. And since you can't edit a PDF directly I'm going to venture they didn't send out a PDF just for the 2 people who might look at the email on a blackberry or an iphone at some point in time; they are going to send it out as a word document since most people are going to at somepoint open it on a computer that can open word documents... imagine that.

And meanwhile the rest of us think you are insane for carrying four seperate phones to do the job of one. Do you have four seperate computers to connect to each of the different servers too?

It's not a matter of money its a matter of efficiency and stupidy. Just because you don't know HOW to accomplish your goal of having four separate views in an intelligent manner and found a truly shoddy workaround doesn't mean you know what you are doing.

You are a hardware salesman, unless your specialty is communication management hardware, and happen to be his manager, I'd say you are generally in the wrong here. The sysadmin's job is to afford with means to manage your communication within the companies acceptable standards (performance, reliability, security, etc, etc). Whether or not you like the company policies isn't his issue; take it up with someone who sets the policies, not enforces them.

Sounds more like you hate when an admin says you can't have something you want but don't need and he doesn't see a financial reason to maintain the cost for you compared to actually using techonology.

Honestly If you are carrying around 4 phones, each tracking the same email address it really seems like you are doing something wrong. Is the email separation really the only reason you have separate phones? I'm curious as to why you couldn't just set up three folders in your IMAP server one for each company and have emails go to the appropriate place.

And since someone said you need to talk to more than one person at once... I call slight bs on that. Unless you are literally holding one phone to your ear and mouth and the other two you rear and holding two unrelated conversations you just don't know how to work with technology.
They have these things called conference calls, three-way calling, and call-waiting if you are bouncing from conversation to conversation. And if you are truly having THAT many different lines going at once, maybe it makes more sense to call from a LANDLINE (shock) on a business phone setup with several different lines and the features you need.

I'm not a salesperson, but I know well enough to not conduct important business on a cellphone if a landline is available.. Nothing like dropping an important call right?

I don't have 4 phones, but having a smartphone and a laptop I feel like its already close enough... Any pop-mail I delete on my phone because I don't want it there in my inbox has to be deleted again on my laptop.. Otherwise I can't remove it from my inbox until my laptop had a chance to read the message and grab a copy. Another reason I hate POP? when you create a new account you have to download EVERY MESSAGE EVER that's still on the server, and they are all unread... lame.

server side mail is the way of the future, and its the only viable mechanism to deal with the bulk of synchronization of devices, there's this phenomenal pattern in software called model-view-controller. You might have heard of it.. The important bit is that you don't have to physically create multiple copies of a MODEL to see different VIEWS of the same data or filtration of the same date. amazing.

I will still stand by my statement, 4 phones is asinine.

I'm not a sysadmin, but its people like you who make me feel sorry for mine.

the problem is that if you could prove what the mod could do, you could also prove software to be bug free... and sadly thats simply not really possible... although frankly I'm inclined to believe that you shouldn't be able to do anything from software alone that should "brick the device" to the point where they couldn't restore it... Sorta like how your warranty on a desktop or a laptop isn't contingent upon you leaving windows installed on it... or even a macbook where you are free to remove OS X and install something else, the warranty doesn't go out the window.

How does this go out the window for phones in general all of the sudden?

Apparently you have no idea how the stock market works. There's this glorious thing called REG-NMS not to mention liquidity and publication of quotes. I can see what the best offers to buy and sell X are market wide. I can then place a market order to get the best execution price at that moment, or I can place a limit order.
    I can quickly look and see that either you are indeed offering or matching the best offer or that you are full of it and take my business elsewhere.
    In either scenario it is pure supply and demand. This whole dance-off / negotiation thing you are infatuated with is non-existent. Not to mention it is wholly an attempt to subvert supply and demand by masking with emotion. In other words the entire BS part of the whole thing is gone. We have a transparent open market. I've never heard of negotiation on the floor of the exchange. That or some of the fastest dancers ever are working there to deal with high frequency traders. LOL do they do the microsecond mambo?

"That is why most large software purchases go through a huge dance of evaluations, bake-offs, and other meaningless activities."

Yeah you see this is the whole reason nothing gets done efficiently, quickly, or effectively anymore. Billions of dollars (in both time and money) are wasted every year on efforts that produce no value in and of themselves. (Yes I'm making that number up but it seems reasonable enough). Sounds a lot like corporate back scratching, and the whole lobbyist game.

Back to my point... If our financial markets worked anything like that do you honestly think they would still exist?
And we wonder why it takes so long for anything to actually get done and why things are never on budget lol.

The small db company doesn't start out by selling their product to the US government perhaps?

how does it lower the barrier of entry for the giants though?

ok so this is the second most insightful post in years...

preferred customer status is bullshit... everyone should be paying the same price for the same product (at the same time)....
treat it like the equity markets handle things.

that said, they could also argue they can't do the job for the government for a better price. They are only able to offer some small company a break because they can afford to eat that loss in exchange for service contracts and future sales... the government case is the future sale.

doesn't this mean the government shouldn't be able to 'buy' or have a GSA with anyone who at any point in times gives anything away for free?

where's my mod points when i need them? probably the most timely 'insightful' post i've ever read on /. in 6+ years

having grown up in relatively nearby Andover, I'm not exactly surprised that such a dumb move would come down from an out of touch principal with good intentions. That said, at least in our town the parents have themselves to blaim because the Parent Teachers Association and SuperIntendant were clearly both asleep at the wheel. And not that it matters, but I tend to doubt the money will be a big problem for that high schools population not that its an excuse.

The irony is that at my high school at least there are/were only classrooms that had macs. The music studio class room (used by music theory classes and likely others) and the desktop publishing class for obvious reasons.

Elsewhere it was some form of generic wintel's.

Personally I think that it's horribly irresponsible for a high school principal to have any say what-so-ever about which platform should ultimately be selected; leave that to someone with actual background in technology.... But I would like to point out before stating my preference, that most correctly there is no answer. Saying they should all use windows is wrong, all use mac is wrong, all use linux is wrong. You should be learning how to use technology, not a specific program. I.E. Learn word processing, not microsoft word. So no matter what platform he says they should all be on, he is wrong.

That said it would make infinitely more sense (and cents) to use an open platform like Linux (such as ubuntu or edubuntu) because of the cost component. It is absolutely free and everyone could use it. That said I still think it is preposterious and absolutely a waste of time and money to equip them all with laptops. Most classes simply are not condusive to it, and they end up being a distraction. I had one throughout college and that's mostly what it tended to be.

Other than using it for reading articles (which desktops solves) in humantities classes I just don't see the usage. In math class trying to take notes on a laptop is next to impossible unless you are an absolute master in Latex... and even then its probably a bad idea. Writing out the notes and doing the work is important.

Maybe they are going to redo the whole program, but I tried using a laptop on my own for a year in high school (self provided for a pilot program trial) and it was completely useless. There was no means to "hand in" my assignments, even in college most of my non CS courses wanted printouts of work. (Even when it was a matlab / mathematica assignment). Other than a note taking device its pretty hindered unless you regear the whole curriculum to make use of it. Are they going to have wifi everywhere? No more handouts everything as PDF's? Where are they going to be plugging in all of these laptops? most batteries can't last the 8 hour school day of high school.

This strikes me far more as a we want to use technology for the sake of using techonology, then for an actual meaningful reason. And the same can be said about their mac decision. How much did Apple pay them to do this? Was an open solution submitted and considered?

man sucks to be in Beverly right now.

You make one major oversight. People, or at least myself, want zero tolerance for actually valid and reasonable rules that happen to coincide with laws. The school has no business telling any kid what they may or may not eat. They can choose what they make available for purchase, but that's it. Can they tell me what brand of mustards are allowed? Its about as meaningful as this 'policy'

Zero tolerance is for things like, violence, gun possesion, possesion of drugs, harassment, cheating, etc, etc.

This isn't a case of people not wanting zero-tolerance its a case of a couple morons trying to legislate what they deem to be proper behavior through policy through the guise of "We are looking out for the children". You are not looking out for the children, you are taking a knee jerk reaction of a moron. (aside what is non zero tolerance on this, you either have a forbidden item or you don't)

What next, outlawing non-mechanical pencils because of splinters and accidents with sharpeners? Telling me which brand of notebook I have to buy?

I love when a principal says something as apathetic as "whether or not I agree with the guidelines". If you are principal and you don't agree with the guidelines you should be taking steps to change them! Either state that you agree with them, or state that you disagree and are or have tried to take steps to make a change in the policy. If you don't have an opinion as the principal who the heck does? Aren't you supposed to be looking out for the well being of your students?

Does this excuse the third grader? In my opinion absolutely, in less you can demonstrate that they clearly understood that having that candy would land him detention (really detention in 3rd grade for that? you really don't have any larger problems in your school to solve?) Are the parents of candy providers to blaim? Yes, they should have known the policy, and if they disagreed they should get together with other parents and file a complaint.