New setup at school...

For "mentored learning" at the New Horizons computer learning center we have moved into a new lab they have been making for us. The main thing in the new lab is that it has computers especially tailored for the work we do in class.

On a typical day we use several virtual pc sessions to simulate a computer network which in the old lab we had to use 2 computers with about 1GB of ram each one to do the virtual PC stuff and the other to do our tutorial videos\tests but now we are on computers that have 2 flat panel monitors and 3GB of ram so we can do all that work on one computer. The flat panels have thin borders and the keyboards look very streamlined the new lab looks pretty slick.

The downsides though are that I don't get an ethernet port for my laptop in the new lab and our accounts are restricted so we can't install anything that requires an installer but I talked to the instructor and he installed a few things that I like having while I am working such as iTunes and the program I use to hook it up to my iTunes library at home. Only problem was that I had forgotten a bandwidth hogging program open at home so I wasn't able to listen to my music today but I will remember to shut down that program tomorrow before I go to class so I can listen to my music. I also packed my sony headphones in my bag because the headphones they have there for the students don't sound so good.

I also was able to get Miranda IM and VLC installed which are two programs I use a lot and they already had firefox installed which is a plus. The only thing I really miss is windowblinds but it doesn't kill me.

Click here to view a screenshot of the setup I have at school

I've found out that on windows if you have a dual screen setup you need to either use a special program to set a wallpaper to span across the screens or you need to get a wallpaper that is just the right size and set it to tile for it to span across the desktops.

The only thing is the mice they have in that lab are the old kind with the mouse balls, I got so used to optical mice!

New setup at school...

For "mentored learning" at the New Horizons computer learning center we have moved into a new lab they have been making for us. The main thing in the new lab is that it has computers especially tailored for the work we do in class.

On a typical day we use several virtual pc sessions to simulate a computer network which in the old lab we had to use 2 computers with about 1GB of ram each one to do the virtual PC stuff and the other to do our tutorial videos\tests but now we are on computers that have 2 flat panel monitors and 3GB of ram so we can do all that work on one computer. The flat panels have thin borders and the keyboards look very streamlined the new lab looks pretty slick.

The downsides though are that I don't get an ethernet port for my laptop in the new lab and our accounts are restricted so we can't install anything that requires an installer but I talked to the instructor and he installed a few things that I like having while I am working such as iTunes and the program I use to hook it up to my iTunes library at home. Only problem was that I had forgotten a bandwidth hogging program open at home so I wasn't able to listen to my music today but I will remember to shut down that program tomorrow before I go to class so I can listen to my music. I also packed my sony headphones in my bag because the headphones they have there for the students don't sound so good.

I also was able to get Miranda IM and VLC installed which are two programs I use a lot and they already had firefox installed which is a plus. The only thing I really miss is windowblinds but it doesn't kill me.

Click here to view a screenshot of the setup I have at school

I've found out that on windows if you have a dual screen setup you need to either use a special program to set a wallpaper to span across the screens or you need to get a wallpaper that is just the right size and set it to tile for it to span across the desktops.

The only thing is the mice they have in that lab are the old kind with the mouse balls, I got so used to optical mice!