Matt the Tech Man

A blog about my experiences, solutions and fun times as a tech.... If you want to contact me hit the submit button or if you already have my deets, hit me up!

[mattytechie]

eduSTAR.NTP Round 4 Cycle 4

This has been an interesting round of teacher notebooks as the original date last year was supposed to be November last year, but it got pushed back and back and back and back to the point where the end of the round ended up being 28th May this year. We have found out that unlike previous rounds, these were not done by Macquarie Finance but by the Department of Education themselves. Slight shamble would be sugar coating it. Every previous round there have been "Buy backs" because with these it has been like a car lease and a residual... After x amount of years you are offered to 'buy back' your used laptop for a set residual.

They still after five weeks have not come back with any information as to if there will be a buy back this round or whether we will be sending them back. They've only been boxed up and sitting in the Business Manager's office for the past two months (close to give or take a couple of weeks).

The disorganisation in the DEECD must be absolutely bizarre.

[mattytechie]

Just for a bit of comedy, but it is always one of the first things I ask...

[mattytechie]

Computer Recomendations

Now working for Public Schools (Vic Department of Education), teachers are given choices on what computer they can lease. It is not a requirement of the DEECD that you lease a laptop from them. It is simply recommended that you choose one of their two platforms as they have warranty and insurance included in the lease price that covers until the laptop is sent back. What would I recommend (DEECD Laptops)?

What I would recommend out of these if you get thrown into the allocation pool is you stick with the Lenovo as they are very reliable and all recent allocations have been the L420 Core i5 500GB Hard Drive 4GB RAM model, the lowest you will get is the L420 Core i3 320GB Hard Drive 4GB RAM. I would not recommend the MacBook as you will most definitely get the crappy White clamshell one. These are sluggish and slow and god-awful compared to the Core i3 Lenovo that came out at the same time.

If you get thrown into a new round or are up for renewal I would personally recommend the Apple as they are offering the best yet... MacBook Pro Retina 13-inch with 256GB SSD Hard Drive and 8GB RAM. I have had three teachers who have never used a Mac computer before and dove head first and are currently loving it. It is $17.50 a fortnight which in retrospect over four years is nothing and you have four years of insurance and warranty where if you purchase it new in-store for $200 less you get the one year limited warranty and no insurance.... Just to put things in perspective for you...

What I would recommend (Outright Purchasing laptop)?

What I recommend is a computer that has the following specs:

4GB RAM or higher

Core i5 or Higher

Any AMD that is 2.5Ghz or higher

13.3"-15.6" Screen (Nothing Smaller or bigger)

Hard Drive - 500GB or Higher (Standard) or Minimum 128GB (Solid State Drive aka SSD) and that is if you really only use it for work documents and nothing else

And please purchase the extended warranty so for it is covered for the duration of a DEECD laptop lease if any mechanical failures etc happen. Best place to buy one outright that have amazing warranties (Like Next Business Day on site warranty) is Learning with Technologies (www.lwt.com.au)

Any other questions hit me up!

[mattytechie]

Day 1

Tomorrow is Day One of a new job!!! I am so excited and very nervous after leaving my old job of three years behind! At least I have made some very good friends that I will know forever and ever... Why? Because they don't know how to operate a computer! ;D

Even better tomorrow is a PD session so I'm not even at the actual new school until Wednesday.... Should be interesting! If anything interesting comes out of the PD I promise I will share!