So apparently some of the computers bought with Digital Education Revolution money are underpowered for the software suite loaded on by state education departments.
The Lenovo netbooks handed out to NSW students in 2009 and 2010 sport a 1.66MHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 2GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive and 10-inch screen
A rig with these spacs this is my primary Windows machine, and for a while was the most powerful machine in my house. It’s fine for not playing HD video or anything that challenging, although operating without the (maximum) 2 gig of RAM is a weedy beast (the raw boot memory consumption is 640 meg, leaving plenty of space to run Notepad or perhaps Windows Performance Monitor). With 2 gig it runs browsers, spreadsheets and word processors without complaint, but:
A NSW education department spokesperson, in response to complaints from students that their free netbooks don’t have the performance to run Photoshop, said
“Slow performance has not been highlighted as a major issue with the laptops … As with all computers, after time they can slow down. The department regularly upgrades the versions of software and performs a tidy up to ensure smooth running of the devices. This helps avoid slow boot and operating times.”
A. Why are these kids whining about free computers?
B. What the hell do school kids need Photoshop for?
C. Why would the passing of time cause a computer to slow down?
D. How does upgrading software versions improve boot times or even operating times?
Maybe the “tidy up” is the important bit.
Isaac was given (well, loaned) a Netbook for year 11 last year. This year he’s doing media, which will require him to do video editing on a school Netbook — he and all the other year 12 media students are getting a new, beefier Netbook specifically for this purpose.
As for slow-down and tidy-up, the school has a facility to re-image the Netbooks… that should do the trick.
Garden-variety Windows users just accept as a fact of life that their computer will slow down, by itself, over time. They don’t know how it actually works and that it is the inefficiency of the operating system, other software and websites that causes the problem. They just think the computer runs out of puff. So eventually they replace it and start the cycle again. This works well for the people who make and sell computers.