Apple customizing MacBooks for K-12?

I work at one of the Louisiana schools receiving some of these MacBooks (not the school mentioned in the linked article; the Governor certainly never came to my school), and I'm quite sure I haven't seen any of the modifications mentioned by the Kansas City Star; this is apparently only happening there, and not in Louisiana, which strengthens the theory that the modifications are being made by a third-party.

The security is probably against people deleting the Creationist garbage that Kansas teach ;)

Apple customizing Macbooks for K-12?

That's a laugh. As if that's going to benefit public education at all.

I hope those school boards aren't offended that Leopard is an evolutionary OS. :)

I bought an old 12" ibook used that originated from the Kansas school system (they sell the laptops used after a few years). It had a hot foil stamp saying it was their property on the back bonded hard to the plastic. Nothing could get rid of that. Well a can of Fusion red spray paint did, but that was not to hide that logo, that was to make my laptop colorful. http://www.gregorycohen.com/redibook.jpg

-GReg

@Tyrone Rugen: hilarious

I want to know how they add GPS tracking internally on MacBooks. I'd like to do it to my own. Mat Lu, this is my Ask TUAW.

I don't see why you people get so worked up about this. Apple's been supplying laptops to my county for ~6-10 years now. Well, I'm pretty sure there's no GPS tracker on ours, but other than that, we DO have a customized version of the OS. And a sticker.

The sticker that we have on ours takes about 600 pounds of force to rip it off, and after observing it, I'm pretty sure it involves magnets in some way.

@6: You're right; I actually meant to put a question mark in the title. I thought it was Apple that had done it because of the GPS tracking.

lol-now that's a feature that you can order for Dell pc's for years now...

Yeh, the only way to get the sticker off is to have at it with a pocket knife or screwdriver. You'd break the plastic by doing so. It's not really a sticker, it's a thin metal plate with some really really strong adhesive. Anyone who planned on keeping it around campus would have a hard time concealing the fact that they stole it. Try selling it on eBay with a big honkin (& suspicious) hole in it.