My god, it's Full of Macs!

There is a lingering mythology about Macs being expensive and Windows PCs being more affordable – which is easily debunked if you look at the specs of a new Mac vs. a Dell & compare all the software included with OS X.  This extends into the realm of servers as well.  Have a look at this great chart from AppleInsider comparing the cost of a Windows Server with an OS X Server.

Read the whole article here.

I’m pleased to announce that after months of work our first Mac classroom has opened at the Graduate Center.  We had previously set up dual boot MacBooks for our Audio Visual department and have dual boot MacBooks available for loan from the Help Desk in the library.  Although this classroom has 15 computers facing forward, a configuration that doesn’t seem necessary under any circumstance today, it opens up new possibilities for faculty and students at the school – and that’s a good thing…

The classroom image was built as a team effort.  A Windows technician built the Windows image on a 24″ iMac, I built the Mac image, including Boot Picker for OS selection – and used my new installation of DeployStudio to capture the images, create a workflow and deploy them to the classroom.  The workflow partitions the drive and installs the OS on each side.  We had used a similar workflow previously in NetRestore but DeployStudio is much easier to set up (and much faster all around).

After a bit of tweaking on the Windows side (pesky XP) – the Macs are set up and we can manage them (both sides) from Apple Remote Desktop.  You can visit the new Dual Boot Classroom in C196.02 on the C level of the Mina Rees Library at the Graduate Center.  Classes are regularly scheduled in the room and it can be reserved by contacting IT.

If you’ve set up Entourage on your Mac to get your GC email, you might not have access to the Contacts that are also offered by our Exchange servers.  If you notice that Entourage doesn’t autocomplete names when you type them, this is why.

To get these services working, you’ll need to add our LDAP server to your Entourage account configuration.  Here’s how:

1. In Entourage go to the “Tools” menu and choose “Accounts”

2. Double-click to open your Exchange account settings

3. Click on the “Advanced” tab

4. In the “LDAP Server” field, type: r1.gc.cuny.edu

5. Check the box “This server requires me to log on”

6. Click “OK” and you should have access to directory contacts in Entourage!