But the good news is...

[firiel44]

Okay, a lot of little things are annoying me right now, so I'm going to say all the positive stuff that's happening instead.

I may be able to get free tuition for my graphic novel class! Both schools are part of The Council of Independent Colleges, which offers free tuition to full time staff and their families at member institutions. The catch is

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[alto2]

the perpetrator (or person buying stolen property) is going to rather literally get a shock when they try to plug a new power adapter into an older Mac and it goes blooey.

It probably won't. I bought a new adapter for capax11 last summer when I went to the Apple Store, and since her iBook is an older model, I asked if it would work. Apparently, they're made in such a way that they determine the voltage required and drop down to the lower power setting if necessary. So...if they ever find the laptop, there's a good chance it'll be intact, at least in that regard.

We got an email about new firewall software at school, and I have a terrifying feeling that LJ will be on the list of banned sites. I'm seriously considering requiring my writing seminar classes to keep an LJ to practice their English. (No, I'm not doing this at all to snark the school, whyever would you ask?!?) I suspect I'll be screwed, though. :-\

[firiel44]

Darn. But I will let her keep her image of the horror on the person's face as it melts down. It has acquired some other quirks in its old age that will make using it rather prohibitiive if you aren't schooled in them. That will have to be vengeance enough.

I'm seriously considering requiring my writing seminar classes to keep an LJ to practice their English.
You should! I think it's a great idea. My problem is not that it is blocked but that they watch what we're doing instead of coming and fixing my printer, as evidenced in a recent "Appropriate Use of Computing Resources" memo from the VP of Financial Affairs. Those bad, sneaky faculty are using Myspace and the like! How dare they get on the same level as students, and especially in a format that technophobes can't hope to understand! (No, I have no issues, not at all.)

[alto2]

Ahh. I was thinking of it more in the sense that she might be relieved that the laptop should still work if she ever gets it back. Oh well!

I think it's a cool idea, too. I went to a workshop at the ESL conference last year that was about using blogs, wikis, etc, as a teaching tool (another idea this guy had was to have kids post their HW on a wiki where they could all comment on it--talk about putting the fear of god into 'em!). LJ is, IMHO, better than something on Blogger for this purpose because the kids can lock entries and thereby skirt privacy issues we'd have elsewhere, but it also means they'd be able to join some sketchy comms, so I could still get in trouble for it. :-\

[firiel44]

I thought about using LJ to communicate with my student workers, but that would force them to sign up for LJ or something else where they could use OpenID. I have the ones that are all Myspace-y and such, and some that can't be talked into getting an email address. I figured it wouldn't be fair to drag the latter group kicking and screaming into the wilds of teh intarwebs just so they can get paid minimum wage. But if I were to drag them into the 21st century against their will, I would probably use LJ because Blogger et al don't have the message thread-style replies. For what I would want to use it for, that would be pretty much necessary.

[padawanpooh]

It's always a good idea to list the positives in life when things are stressful - I remember the line in an old Bing Crosby song (yes...I confess...I ADORE Bing...even though he's probably the most un-cool singer EVAH to like) - "Count your blessings instead of sheep". And I see I'm not the only one to work in a company with rubbish IT. And to think my college has just spent thousands installing Smartboards which probably won't even get used, when they should have used the money to improve our computers which often take *ten minutes* to log in (it's true...I've timed it often). *sigh*

[firiel44]

We just got Smartboards too! For some reason, though, they put them in the Humanities building rather than the Science building, where they would probably get more use. We want one for the library, but I have no idea where we could put it since we usually teach the archives room. (Not my idea of an ideal environment to engage freshmen, but it's what we have

[alto2]

My kids and I discovered last semester that Bing sold more records than anyone else in the 20th century, including Elvis. Someone had to think he was cool!! :)