I received a couple of new eMacs for my classroom yesterday, and began eagerly setting them up. This is an upgrade from iMacs, which will move to another room in the school - but is also a test case for OS X in our school, so that makes ScienceMan the guinea pig!

When I was unpacking them, I thought that other schools might be considering the eMac/OS X upgrades - but might be nervous about them. So I thought I would chronicle the experience and hopefully it will help others avoid the pitfalls. So today begins the "eMac diary":

Day 1 - Out of the box

The eMacs arrived late in the day - and only about 10 days after ordering, pretty good. There was just enough time in the day to unpack them and take a first look - out-of-box experience is superb, everything clearly labeled and organized. The eMac is much heavier than the old iMac, watch your back! The computers were in perfect condition, except for a hideous glaze left on the screen that look like an oil slick - don't they have Windex?

On powering up, these machines displayed system 9.2.2 - you can order them to boot up in OS X as well, that's what we wanted, but made a boo-boo on the order. No big deal, we'll just get to the task of installing OS X tomorrow. That leads to the first minor disappointment - the machine shipped with OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) UPGRADE discs instead of the actual install discs. This means installing 10.1.5 that also came with the machine first, and then applying the upgrade (that means 2 updates, sigh, because 10.2.1 just came out) - a minor hassle, but still, why not throw in Jaguar discs?

Tomorrow - old imac side-by-side comparisons, installing RAM and OS X 10.2 installation.

Day 2 - Mac OS X and RAM installation

Comparing the old iMac and the new eMac reveals that these machines have a similar footprint, and the eMac jams a lot of screen space into its form factor:

Student opinion on the looks of the new eMac is suprisingly negative - they have to warm up to them considering the are losing their multi-coloured little friends!

Installing the RAM on the eMac was extremely simple - a panel on the bottom removes with a single screw, yielding access to the RAM slots:

Note the motherboard battery within easy reach! Hooray for Apple - they finally wised up on that one!

Installation of Mac OS X was made simpler by grabbing Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) install discs from our school tech, instead of using the provided upgrade discs. Before installing, you may want to use the included disc utilty to partition the 40 GB hard drive. I made a 12 GB OS X, and 5 GB Classic partition, with the third partition for file storage. There are situations I may want to boot up in Classic mode, so that's why I chose a separate partition - it's not really necessary, just a matter of choice - perhaps slightly easier to manage the classic system when it's on a separate partition.

Mac OS X 10.2 installed without a hitch - and because our tech had burned a copy of the 10.2.1 update, that also installed easily.

Next day we venture into the world of user accounts and software installation!

Day 3 - User Accounts and Software

Like many teachers, I would like to restrict access on student computers to just the applications that they need. In OS X, this can be done without the use of extra software, simply by establishing user accounts.

When you choose System Preferences you will see that one of the choices (near the bottom) is "Accounts". Here, you can add new accounts and change the privileges of those accounts that you create:

As you can see above, I simply created an account for "Student" - you will be asked to provide a password for accounts that you create. It's probably best to choose something that students can't easily guess! That's because each user can edit THEIR OWN account, IF they know their password. The idea here is that we create the student account and then take most of their capabilities away:

As you can see, system functions can be restricted easily by using checkboxes. I recommend using the "Use only these applications" - then choosing only those apps that you want students to use - they won't be able to use anything else.

Keep in mind however, that creating a user account is like creating a whole new computer! Each user has their own preferences for all their applications and basic systems settings such as views and even desktop picture. That means that you will want to set up ALL preferences in the student account BEFORE you restrict access - because you must you the student account to set those preferences.

I found that it was be to use the ADMIN (teacher) account to do all software copying and installation, because I found out the hard way that if you do it in the student user account, even as the admin you will be sometimes be restricted from moving the software around, or deleting it.

Day 4 - Set up details

Unfortunately my classroom was flooded overnight when a new heating system was pressure tested... without anyone to watch the pipes! Luckily, my eMacs escaped the deluge, barely.

With all the clean-up, I didn't get much accomplished with eMac set-up, except for a few (annoying) details:

• Detail number one - USB cable too short - the USB cable for the keyboard is too short. Apple needs to either include an extension for education models or make the cord longer. Most schools use desks with pull-out typing platforms, and a short USB cable is woefully inadequate. My solution? USB extension cables from Belkin (hint - don't pay the online price, go to any big-box computer retailer and the price will be only about $12).
• Detail number two - only one headphone jack - this is extremely sad to lose the great feature of two headphone jacks that were supplied on the iMac DVs. This way, two students can hear audio while using the computer. My solution? An stereo audio jack splitter, available from Radio Shack, or even cheaper from dollar stores (hint - when you buy headphones, make sure they have individual volume control, that way students can have their own level without messing with the computer's settings).

• Detail number three - impossible to reach power button - not much can be done to solve this, except go to WalMart and buy 3/8" clear plastic floor guards (for putting under appliances, etc). Stick one of those on the power button and you instantly have an easy-to-feel and press button! For those who want more of a high-tech approach, I'll discuss Apple Remote Desktop later.

Day 5 - Problems, problems!

Not a very good day on the emac integration front.

Software installation was a breeze with the help of a portable firewire hard drive - highly recommended. With the student user account established, and all the software tested (using the student account), I set to the task of restricting student account capabilities, as described in diary day 3.

This was supposed to be a simple task - choose "Use only these applications", then deselect the apps I don't want them to use. Problem is... it doesn't work. No matter what programs I select, even if I grant access to all them, some apps will not work - the Finder reports that the user does not have enough privileges. The only thing that works is to deselect the "Use only these applications" choice, which is pointless if I wish to restrict student access to programs they should not be using (terminal, disk utility, etc.)

We'll try to tackle this again tomorrow and report back. Arrrrgghhh!

Day 6 - More problems!

I have yet to solve the privileges issue when trying to restrict student access to certain applications - I am getting close to declaring that it simply does not work. Another problem has surfaced with using that accounts feature - if "Use only these applications" is checked, Classic will not run! The ironic thing is, even if you allow access to ALL applications, it still doesn't work. Most perplexing, and frustrating - I was hoping that this feature would work seamlessly, since it is very important to classroom environments to be able to restrict access to certain system components and applications - can you imagine how much havoc a student could cause with the terminal?

By the way, if this accounts feature (restricting application access using "Capabilities") is not used, everything works fine. More comments on individual applications next week.

Day 7 - USB and serial devices

Every USB device that I have tried so far with the eMacs and Mac OS X 10.2.1 has worked flawlessly (without having to install any dirvers!). Serial devices (with the use of USB to serial converter, or course) have all failed, no matter what shenanigans I tried! This could mean big trouble, if you, like me, are using several serial science interfaces. These worked fine under Mac OS 9.2.2 with the help of USB-serial converters - I have been using uConnect adapters from Momentumus - but unfortunately they went out of business, so updated drivers for OS X are unlikely.

Apparently Keyspan makes an adapter that works with OS X, but I have yet to try one. I am more interested, however, in the new USB to serial converter that is offered by Pasco - I have ordered one, because I use many of the 500 interfaces. Will it work with OS X? I'll let you know as soon as I find out!

Day 8 - Still More Problems

After having upgraded to version 10.2.2, I was hoping the aforementioned problems with users capabilities would be solved. No such luck. This feature still does not work.

Another frustrating problem is the ability to mount remote volumes on start up. This is a very useful feature for educators, and it should be a built in feature. But as usual with OS X, this is not built in. Currently I'm looking for some sort of third party solution.

Yet another frustrating problem is copying the exact contents of a hard drive so that machines can be set up identically. Easy to accomplish in OS 9, but in OS X, you are on your own. No instructions are provided in Apple help for this. Doesn't Apple have the foresight to see the need for easily setting up identically configured machines in a school environment? Fortunately, Carbon Copy Cloner, a 3rd party utility, does the job.

Stay tuned for more updates - hopefully there will be some GOOD news in the future.