Apple Insider is reporting that the New York City Department of Education has put all shipments of Macs to schools on complete hold while they're apparently waiting for Apple to fix a Wifi connectivity issue with OS X (which should be fixed with the 10.5.3 update). And Apple is apparently scrambling to get it worked out -- they've sent an apologetic email to faculty and have asked schools to try and separate any orders of computers that won't need wireless (that will use a regular ethernet hookup) to ship now.

Unfortunately, there's no hint of exactly how many Macs we're talking about here, but if this is a substantial number of computers, and word gets out causing other organizations to delay shipments as well, Apple will feel more and more pressure to get the problem fixed ASAP. Bad news for the kids who want Macs in New York City (that's the DoE's seal on the right, in case you didn't recognize it), but good news for anyone else having this problem -- Apple's working hard on a fix.

Thanks, Rich!

The Muscatine Journal reports that the Louisa-Muscatine School District in Iowa will start using iPods as part of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Special-education students will use the iPods to allow them to work on their tests at different rates, while still providing a standardized administration of the test. The iPod will provide both test instructions and spoken versions of the questions.

It's apparently a time consuming process getting everything transferred from the written page into a spoken format but it's also pretty exciting to see how innovative educators are using off-the-shelf technology to meet their student's special needs. Obviously technology isn't going to be the answer to every pedagogical problem but a creative application of the already-available iPod may go a long way.

I think I've realized the real reason why Apple has released Boot Camp, and why it'll be part of Leopard when it's released. As C.K. suggests, it's a move to be more competitive in the desktop PC market, but it's more than that. Apple's marketshare in some of their traditional strongholds (like Education) has been slipping for some time, and Boot Camp is nothing short of an all-out frontal assault to reverse that trend. Here's how it works in most schools and large organizations:

- most universities still have both PC's and Macs. Of course, some have moved entirely to Dells, but the majority still have both.
- the computers in schools and large organizations tend to be refreshed every 3-4 years as part of a refresh program. This is hardwired to the IT budget; it's scheduled to happen.
- computer labs and classrooms are designated either a Mac classroom or a Windows classroom, by necessity.

Imagine a school budget that simply replaces all the computers campus-wide with new Intel Macs that can run anything we throw at them. Need to run Windows? Image the iMac with the WinXP image. Need to run Mac OS X? Image the iMac with the Tiger (or Leopard) image. Need to run either (because it's a dual-purpose classroom)? Install both and teach the lab assistants and instructors how switch between the environments. It might even be scheduled to reboot the classroom between classes so it's transparent to the end-user.

Now imagine that you're a sysadmin and you could tell your boss that you could outfit a classroom or a lab with one model computer that could run either your Mac image or your Windows image, or even both of the images? Suddenly your rooms are dual-use rooms. The AutoCAD kids can simple boot the computer to Windows to turn their software and two hours later, the Graphic Design students can boot the computers to Mac OS X to run their design applications!

Boot Camp is a bombshell change in the PC desktop marketplace. Suddenly, there will be options available to us sysadmins that we've never had before. This development is going to allow an organization to achieve the holy grail in computer workstation management--complete standardization on one model computer (e.g. the new Intel iMac). I'm so excited about this possibility that my workchair is spinning. Certainly, I'm not alone.