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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Hello,</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I wanted to report on my progress with SoaS on my MacBook. I still haven't got the USB version working, but, as I mentioned yesterday, I did get SoaS running with Virtual Box. </p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I was surprised how few programs were shown. Are others hidden but included? How are they accessed? </p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I downloaded TamTam Mini and Record. The sounds in TamTam worked but the quality was really bad....sounded faint, tinny, and almost like there was static (like old-time radio or really old recordings...think Scott Joplin or Enrico Caruso).</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Record could not access the camera on my Mac, nor was it able to access the microphone. So it just sat there.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Do these programs work better on PCs?</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Caryl</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">P.S. (Very Long!)</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">On the discussion of whether it is worth developing SoaS for Power Macs ... I asked several teachers and tech coordinators at the InfoTech event today what computers they had in their schools and how long they expected to keep them. </p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">First, I was surprised to find so many schools with PCs! As one person told me, "The district has Macs but the schools have PCs.", and in may cases this seems to be true.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">However, there was evidently a large purchase of G5 Power PC machines earlier in this 2008-2009 school year. As usual, Mac was probably clearing out the old stuff at bargain basement prices and the schools were snapping them up. This always happens. They bought them with an extended warrantee which she thought was for 5 years (more likely 3 or 4). So, these machines will surely be in service long enough to consider them in the SoaS plans.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I also talked to some folks who are still using some very old Power PC Macs and have no hope of getting anything new (LAUSD is laying off teachers, not buying computers).</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">My guess is that this situation is probably pretty typical of other districts around the country.</p>
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