Laptops in Trinity

Zoodlebop

I was wondering if it is worth bringing a laptop to Trinity. Do things get stolen often?

davork

Zoodlebop wrote:

I was wondering if it is worth bringing a laptop to Trinity. Do things get stolen often?

Some laptops have been known to disappear - usually because they have been left unattended and someone has chatted them up and wandered off with them

Obviously treat your laptop like a EUR 50 note. You wouldn't leave it sitting around in McDonalds expecting it to be there a few hours later!

BTW you need Windows XP Professional to be allowed to connect to Trinity's network... if you don't have it, you'd better get a copy of the upgrade when you arrive. ISS (the people who look after the network connections and other things) will probably refer you to a bunch of people in cork called Micromall who will charge you EUR 99 for it (http://www.micromail.com/softsearch.aspx)

Zoodlebop

ohhh, ****e. I wanted a mac book. I guess i will have to get 2 OS' put on it. Do many people have a laptop though?

punka

you can connect to the network with macs too, using the mac os.

as davork said, stuff left unattended is mostly what goes missing. heard about a case in the library over the summer where somebody left their desk for a few minutes and came back to find EVERYTHING gone - laptop, notes, bag, everything - so it would look unsuspicious, just looks like someone collecting their stuff and then leaving. and given the dearth of people in the library over the summer (well, until this week) quite easy to get away with. every year there are a couple of horror stories involving computers with theses going missing.

generally just use your head and it won't go missing, tbh.

xeduCat

I've networked both an iBook and a Mac Mini in recent years - both were extremely easy to set up and in fact involved much less messing around with system updates and antivirus than Windows PCs. ISS do offically support Macs, so it's not a case that you're on your own; if you have a built-in Airport card of any type, that will work on the wireless network, and any sort of recent Mac will also cause you no problems on the wired/Ethernet network. You'll probably still have to turn up at the 'network clinic' but as you are not cursed with running Windoze, it shouldn't take much time out of your day - usually they run separate Mac clinics, at least at the busy times. Then you and the other Mac people can smile at each other.

Incidentally I don't know what the policy is going to be as regards dual-boot Macs (i.e. with Windows on one partition and Mac OS X on the other); perhaps the Boot Camp tool means that you don't need to have separate setups for each OS, I dunno. My now-getting-old iBook is pre-Intel.

Zachary Taylor

There's a discount on all apple products for Trinity students so it might be worth your while to wait a few weeks until you've registered, or ask a Trinity student to buy it for you.

Nietzschean

iss make you declare if you have a dual boot setup , but thats arisen more due to the linux users (who btw have far shorter clinics than either windows or mac users ) but i assume the dual boot will apply to the mac people now too.

xeduCat wrote:

Then you and the other Mac people can smile at each other.

Nietzschean

Zachary Taylor wrote:

There's a discount on all apple products for Trinity students so it might be worth your while to wait a few weeks until you've registered, or ask a Trinity student to buy it for you.

if your talking about the edu discount on the apple.ie store, i've never seen apple verify that in any way, so i'd just throw in being a student of trinity already even if you haven't registered yet.

Loads of people bring laptops but be careful about keeping an eye on it. I don't usually bring mine into the library as I'm always getting up looking for books, getting tea etc, it would probably get nicked while I wasn't looking.

John

I normally went to the library with a group of friends so we could leave each other with our respective laptops.

Going to the library with friends is a recipe for disaster! I never get anything done!

Get a kensington lock jobby

a pg on the ussher leaves her laptop there most of the day.. to date it has not been stolen

John

Will Plain News wrote:

Going to the library with friends is a recipe for disaster! I never get anything done!

Make nerdier friends

Zachary Taylor

Nietzschean wrote:

if your talking about the edu discount on the apple.ie store, i've never seen apple verify that in any way, so i'd just throw in being a student of trinity already even if you haven't registered yet.

I think that's a 6% discount that applies to all students and isn't really verified. Apple like Trinity for some reason so we get 10% off, for which you need a login.

http://isservices.tcd.ie/purchase/student.php

and click on the applestore link.

Troglodyte

A laptop can be handy alright, but it's highly debatable if it's worth the cost. They're also a serious distraction sometimes, more often than not you see people checking their emails and playing games in lectures, especially when the lecturer is making an extra special attempt to bore the arsé off everyone. IMHO it's best to stick to the old pen and paper, at least it keeps you on the straight and narrow....

Zoodlebop

Troglodyte wrote:

A laptop can be handy alright, but it's highly debatable if it's worth the cost. They're also a serious distraction sometimes, more often than not you see people checking their emails and playing games in lectures, especially when the lecturer is making an extra special attempt to bore the arsé off everyone. IMHO it's best to stick to the old pen and paper, at least it keeps you on the straight and narrow....

Yah, i can see that being a distraction alright. I would prolly use it in my room for filing notes/writing essays. If I was in Cunningham House, where would the closest place to pick up a wireless connection be?

I don't think you can pick up any wireless in or around Cunningham though I could be wrong. The modern apartments have cable broadband. There might be a neighbor or something on Temple Road with an unsecured network.

shay_562

Troglodyte wrote:

IMHO it's best to stick to the old pen and paper, at least it keeps you on the straight and narrow....

Not so much. Going back through my notes while clearing out my room this summer, at least 80% of my notes descended either into games of dots/Xs and Os, or else into conversations bitching about the lecturer's fugly belt or poor use of English.

JackKelly

It depends how disciplined you are. As someone said, it's so easy to throw on a game or whatever in the middle of a crap lecture.

Nietzschean

as shay said its just as easy to do that with paper as a laptop.

xebec

Go for the macbook, networking a mac is so much less hassle than a Windows machine!

Have my macbook on order at the moment so will be going that way too. The Windows networking clinics can take hours, for college work mac is the way to go IMHO.

Troglodyte

Nietzschean wrote:

as shay said its just as easy to do that with paper as a laptop.

Maybe, but Silent Hunter III is infinitely more appealing and tempting than a few games of Xs and Os....

disco--dave

Hey,
i'll be studying maths (hoping to transfer to TP), will I need a laptop??

There are a fair number of computers on campus, so you don't necessarily 'need' a laptop for any course imo. Saying that, it can be advantageous in any course with doing essays, projects, experiment write-ups etc. but usually all of the above can be done on the campus computers.

TP will get a bit heavier on the computers after first year, I think, so it might be worthwhile. Someone else will probably answer your question better

Nietzschean

no you won't, and transfer to TP? you know you'll need the points aye? and having not started either i wouldn't be so eager quite yet....you have until xmas to make the swap.

Nietzschean

Myth wrote:

TP will get a bit heavier on the computers after first year, I think, so it might be worthwhile. Someone else will probably answer your question better

'Need' laptop, defo not, not for TP anyway. Labs in first year have to be hand written for one, and that about the only writing up there is. Beyond that you've comp labs which are pretty quiet for TP's in both the maths department and SNIAM so its not like other courses where you might be lacking access to a computer.....

disco--dave

Nietzschean wrote:

no you won't, and transfer to TP? you know you'll need the points aye? and having not started either i wouldn't be so eager quite yet....you have until xmas to make the swap.

i've got the points, (and min requirements for that matter), but i got ****ed over by random selection in both round 1 and 2!!

disco--dave

grand so, i kinda thought i mightn't need one, as the pen and paper seem the better option for equations and whatnot...

cheers

Nietzschean

disco--dave wrote:

i've got the points, (and min requirements for that matter), but i got ****ed over by random selection in both round 1 and 2!!

uhhh if you were on random selection i dunno how it'll work, have you asked about it in the admissions office? or one of the departments (maths/physics) ? , you won't be able to change initally anyway not until people drop out as the course will be full......

disco--dave

Nietzschean wrote:

uhhh if you were on random selection i dunno how it'll work, have you asked about it in the admissions office? or one of the departments (maths/physics) ? , you won't be able to change initally anyway not until people drop out as the course will be full......

yeah i was on to some of the lecturers in the maths/physics departments, and apparently people do transfer out of TP....

Nietzschean

well that they do, i'm one, so is myth, and he probally remembers how many people left our class by xmas.... i wouldn't be in a great rush to go in if i was you. See how you get on in maths for the first month(the physics for then is more or less a re-cap of the lc anyway, other than special rel which is easy)