Laptops for Courses

alan4cult

Thinking of doing a Sciene Degree in UCD next year, namely actuary, and I'm wondering what is the story with laptop requirements and science courses. You may think I'm a bit mad wondering about these details now but it's xmas soon and I might try and get a laptop. I'm going to presume you need a laptop for most courses? I was thinking about getting an apple macbook. Is there any problem using them in UCD i.e. compatibility? I will probably use Bootcamp if there is Windows apps that I need to run but for casual use do macbooks pose problems around campus i.e. wifi/printing/network etc?

conor2007

fully compatable

in fact more so than vista - college doesnt have that

everything works on me macbook - and its as simple and as dificult (good way) as you want it

and you dont need it , not even for science - handy tho

Raphael

Commerce is the only thing you need a laptop for. That said, they're very handy, especially when you get to second science and need to submit labreports every week.

Not sure about macs, tbh, I know a guy who had one and he seemed to get by ok....

seraphimvc

any laptop will do great:D macbook?shiny!

actuary course?i think they dont need laptop that much?at least they dont have many practical report i guess...

conor2007

no course needs it

i think business is the only one they said you have to have it


very shiny - useful objetcs the macbooks - ppl stare angrily/enviously at ya

thinkin ur an arrogant **** with them tho

Red Alert

I expect somehow now that the campus is going laptop-centric that the number of public pc's that are open access all day will fall.

Macs are ideal and have absolutely no problems at all. (I do have a Win XP parallels virtual machine for one or two old bits of softare).

remus808

I know Actuary is a BSc, but it's still a Quinn school course is it not? As far as I know, all courses run by Quinn require a laptop, not just Commerce... for example all B&L, and Ec&Fi students must have one

Red Alert wrote: »

I expect somehow now that the campus is going laptop-centric that the number of public pc's that are open access all day will fall.

You think so? The PC's are almost always 90% taken in my experience, laptops or not.. and the college seems to comitted to adding more as time goes on..

Stepherunie

karmabass wrote: »

You think so? The PC's are almost always 90% taken in my experience, laptops or not.. and the college seems to comitted to adding more as time goes on..

Having been here for 4 years there is a changing attitude to pcs in the college. When the terrace moved we definately lost some pcs, I mean we have the 2 cal labs which are used a lot for classes and then two small pc labs with about 20 pcs each and that's for an entire building.

There are more stand up units which are good but not many have printers, which would be handy.

The college seem to be moving away from pcs available to write up essays/work on and encouraging more that people just use them to check email/blackboard etc.

To be honest on the whole laptop thing, I got one in second year as a present but I could have quite easily survived until this year without one. For final year though if you're thinking of doing science and you've got a thesis it's definitely a benefit to have your own laptop.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

karmabass wrote: »

I know Actuary is a BSc, but it's still a Quinn school course is it not? As far as I know, all courses run by Quinn require a laptop, not just Commerce... for example all B&L, and Ec&Fi students must have one

No it was moved under the science faculty a few years ago.

I'm currently in first year actuary by the way OP, and using a macbook with no problems at all. They're dead handy to keep you occupied during Economics lectures (which, you'll learn are the most boring things imaginable)

Red Alert

The Macbook Pros are handy if you need to do serious simulations or large compiles or anything. But I doubt any undergrad courses would need that level of processing power.

Stabshauptmann

karmabass wrote: »

I know Actuary is a BSc, but it's still a Quinn school course is it not? As far as I know, all courses run by Quinn require a laptop, not just Commerce... for example all B&L, and Ec&Fi students must have one

No, actuary run by the School of Mathematical Sciences in the College of Engineering, Mathematical & Physical Sciences

MuddyDog

get a laptop. most people generally have them and you'll feel all alone.

Breezer

I bought a MacBook last year and I find it very handy. Before, at exam time, I either had to walk around campus trying to find a free PC or wait till people finished checking their Bebo. I also find it very handy to take notes on in lectures, saves messing around with endless paper notes that inevitably get lost (admittedly a bit of organisation would have sorted that out either).

But no, a laptop is not necessary unless you are studying commerce, in which case a Mac is out of the question due to the business school's policy- see this thread.

Regarding Macs in particular, I have had very few problems with them on the UCD network. I can't use MSN or any alternative on a Mac in UCD (probably for the best ) and wireless printing won't work (nor will it work on Vista). I got around this by installing Windows XP using VMWare Fusion (Parallels will do the same thing), dragging the file over to the Windows desktop and printing from there. Of course, you can also use a USB and stick it in a college PC.

conor2007

msn
meebo


anything like that wont work , on any type of laptop/computer

Stepherunie

Eh I use MSN all the time on my own laptop in the UCD network.... i'm using it right now no probs.

Works just fine, webcams won't go through the ports but that's it.

Skype can be a bit odd but not MSN on any Windows based privately owned pc.

Stabshauptmann

conor2007 wrote: »

msn
meebo


anything like that wont work , on any type of laptop/computer

is this a new thing UCD has done?

When I was in UCD I never had any problem accessing any website or msn when I was using my own laptop.

That meebo website is really handy

Breezer

Windows Live Messenger works fine on laptops in UCD. Can be run just fine on Macs running Parallels/VMWare/Bootcamp.

conor2007

doesnt work for a few people i was talking too

pretty*monster

I got a laptop for Christmas last year. I hardly ever use it for college because I hate having to lug it in with me and keep watch of it all day.

Stepherunie

conor2007 wrote: »

doesnt work for a few people i was talking too

Most likely a settings issue - i'm using msn right now on the ucd network - no problems.

Raphael

conor2007 wrote: »

doesnt work for a few people i was talking too

If you're talking to them again tell them to set Internet Explorer to auto-detect proxy settings.

conor2007

who uses internet explorer?

seriously

Stepherunie

Okay whilst I don't people do.

And to make MSN work you need to have the settings right in IE as it takes it's settings from there.

Seriously.

conor2007

seriously? lol

thats gay , and im fairly sure thats not true cos on my home pc i have ie blocked , yet msn works

Stepherunie

Eh i'm like 100% sure it's true.

Microsoft own and produce MSN Live Messenger thus it's obvious that it' would use it's own internet browser to get it's settings rather than Firefox or some such. So yes, you must have the correct settings on IE, even if you don't use it or have it blocked for MSN to work.

conor2007

okay

where is that setting?

Stepherunie

tools - internet options - connections - lan settings - click automatically detect settings.

conor2007

ty

ill see if this helps - have to get ****ty ie for me laptop now

Breezer

Conor, I'm confused - are you using a Mac or a Windows laptop? If you're on Windows, uninstalling IE is going to screw things up because the entire system is based on it. Don't use it for internet browsing if you don't want to (personally I agree with you), but getting rid of it altogether by some hacky method is dangerous, as is blocking it, not least because you need it to access Microsoft Update.

If you're on a Mac, obviously you don't need IE, but MSN isn't going to work either in UCD because of how the college has their proxy set up.

What stepherunie said is completely true. Many Windows programs (including the Windows version of Apple's Safari by the way) take their proxy settings from IE. It makes sense to have a central point for changing proxy settings. Personally I don't think this should be part of IE, because I don't think IE should be an essential part of the system, but while IE remains so tightly integrated it's logical.

The reason MSN still works on your home PC without entering any proxy settings is because like most home users you're (presumably) not behind a proxy server.

I know this is slightly off-topic, just following the flow of conversation and trying to help out though.

Stepherunie

Breezer wrote: »

Conor, I'm confused - are you using a Mac or a Windows laptop? If you're on Windows, uninstalling IE is going to screw things up because the entire system is based on it. Don't use it for internet browsing if you don't want to (personally I agree with you), but getting rid of it altogether by some hacky method is dangerous, as is blocking it, not least because you need it to access Microsoft Update.

If you're on a Mac, obviously you don't need IE, but MSN isn't going to work either in UCD because of how the college has their proxy set up.

What stepherunie said is completely true. Many Windows programs (including the Windows version of Apple's Safari by the way) take their proxy settings from IE. It makes sense to have a central point for changing proxy settings. Personally I don't think this should be part of IE, because I don't think IE should be an essential part of the system, but while IE remains so tightly integrated it's logical.

The reason MSN still works on your home PC without entering any proxy settings is because like most home users you're (presumably) not behind a proxy server.

QFT

stereoroid

If the autodetect doesn't work, choose 'Use Automatic configuation script' and enter http://proxy.ucd.ie/proxy.pac
And if that doesn't work, set up HTTP and HTTPS proxies manually: proxy.ucd ie port 8484

rainbow kirby

Have been using a Mac in UCD since 2005 (first my iBook, then my Macbook Pro - though I'm on a year out now). Never had any problems apart from the usual MSN crap, though I used Meebo the vast majority of the time to get around that. I always used Firefox or Camino browser-wise.

conor2007

windows - home pc
macbook - my laptop
ye , i tot so - you cant use msn in ucd - no matter what
ye , i know im aware of window$($$$$) and integrating ie and stypid other ****ty software into their os
i dont update my pc anymore - things were better with older xp sp2
still not the best - but workable and decent