[IAEP] [SoaS] [MARKETING] Get Sugar landing page

[Tabitha Roder]

>
> If we support VIrtualBox we
> should probably also support VMWare, Hyper-V, KVM and Xen. Who's going
> to do all that testing when we have barely the resources to do a
> single image.
>
> Peter
>
>
I am a teacher of sorts and have been into loads of education institutes
from pre school through to tertiary. Apple is everywhere so we have to solve
this problem.

I use Virtualbox and have a geek master to turn to for help when I need it.
I have not heard of those other virtual machine things and all the teachers
I know that have tried a virtual machine have done so with Virtualbox or
something called bootcamp (which might not even be a virtual machine, who
knows?) and they generally also keep a geek nearby to help them along. My
designer type friends who use Macs know what Virtualbox is and will give
most things a go on the computer, but also have needed geek help with Sugar
installs.

Here is what the scenario looks like to me, the teacher:
You download Virtualbox (easy) and you download the Sugar image that lets
you "try before you buy" (easy). You feel fantastic that you have managed
this all by yourself without your geeky friend helping. You play happily for
a few hours. Next day you want to show someone else what you have done all
by yourself. You then realise you have done something wrong in setting up
your Sugar, as it gives you a fresh Sugar and loses all your work and
downloaded activities each time you restart. Disappointed, you don't give
up, you give it a go with trying to find out what is wrong. Then you get
angry and feel a failure. Then you call a geek. Then they mess with your
computer, they get on the web and read lots and flick between wiki pages
looking muddled. Then they try downloading things and try to fix it. Then
they read some more and try to fix some more. Then they get angry. Then
there are tears and you say just give me the other computer (this is
particularly bad when that one is a Windows machine as that is the sign of
complete failure) and everyone forgets the Mac for a few months until
someone is brave enough to ask if it works now.

Can you tell we have been through this cycle quite a few times here in NZ? I
have tried since mid 2008 to work out how Sugar could work on my Mac. It is
soul destroying to fail at this repeatedly and a complete put off for
teachers who are being brave and trying new approaches with technology.

I hand out Sugar on a Stick on USB keys to teachers at loads of events and
am often asked if it will work on the school Macs, and I have to say no it
won't, and they hand the USB back. Lost opportunities. :-(

Tabitha
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