AW: Support for Mac OSX 10.5

[Richard Gaskin]

Tiemo Hollmann wrote:
> Hi Matthias,
> thats what I did, and the installer of snow leopard told me, my hardware is
> out of date and incompatible.

I'm sorry to hear that.  Apple makes good computers, but their costs 
average about twice that of PCs.  Good components and all that so I'm 
not making a judgment about price, but it seems a reasonable expectation 
that the company would support their products with at least critical 
security updates for longer than 7 years.

In contrast, Windows XP is being EOL'd in April, more than 12 years 
after its release.  Ironically, Microsoft scores lower than Apple in 
customer satisfaction, even though they deliver a longer useful lifespan 
for their systems.


I realize this may not be an option, but it seems hardly a month goes by 
in which I don't stumble across yet another school in my area switching 
to Ubuntu, so here goes:

If the school you work with needs to continue using computers Apple has 
since rendered unsafe, Ubuntu or its lightweight variant Xubuntu will 
probably run quite well on them, providing safe and efficient computing 
which would likely extend the lifespan of those machines by at least 
another couple years, possibly more.

If that may be an option you're welcome to email me directly and I can 
put you in touch with local resources who can assist with that 
transition.  Given the wide range of free software for education in the 
Linux world, it may even help save quite a bit of money beyond the 
hardware expense as well, and your school would enjoy the benefits of 
completely owning their data with open formats.

In fact, my friend Liz is a contributor to the Edubuntu project, an 
Ubuntu-based distro specialized for use in education.  It may be worth 
trying that first to see if it runs well on your systems, since it comes 
with many packages for education preinstalled:
http://www.edubuntu.org/

All Ubuntu-based distros can be run from DVD or USB drive without 
needing to install, so you can evaluate the OS and check compatibility 
without altering the computer in any way.

I'd be happy to lend some guidance porting your software to Ubuntu if 
needed.  It probably won't take much, given LC's good support for Linux 
these days.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys