06-28-2005, 05:12 PM

So, I'm looking at getting a degree in IT. Computer information Science, or the like. The problem is, I'm in the military stationed overseas, so I need to get my degree online. All the schools that i've looked at require a "Windows OS". Being a Mac user, here are my questions:

1. Why does the IT industry cater only to Windows users/admin?

2. Is there a common ground for programming between Windows/Mac?

3. Does anyone have experience in the IT world as applied to the Mac world?

Thanks.

06-28-2005, 05:27 PM

1. Because it makes up 90%+ of the desktop market. I can get a great deal on Microsoft Software for being a student, Apple discounts are nearly as generous.
2. Yes, the basic ideas will be the same no matter what platform you are on. I do PHP programming on my Apple, but I can't go .Net programming because it requires Visual Studio.

06-28-2005, 06:22 PM

i know for a fact though , if your studing online you wont HAVE to have a winslows machine , say your studding from cisco (cisco.netacad.net) it's all online , so you just study through your browser , no windows required ..

when i was studding for my CCNA , i had to do it online and i just logged in online , so like i could be on linux reading it and stuff , or be on the mac with out having to go to windows to study it .

06-28-2005, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Ghostshadow

i know for a fact though , if your studing online you wont HAVE to have a winslows machine , say your studding from cisco (cisco.netacad.net) it's all online , so you just study through your browser , no windows required ..

when i was studding for my CCNA , i had to do it online and i just logged in online , so like i could be on linux reading it and stuff , or be on the mac with out having to go to windows to study it .

I guess, as "mynameis" mentioned, programming with .NET through visual basic. I dread buying another Windows based system. If I could do it all through a Mac, life would be good. But I'm not real clear on how/if I could program for .NET on a Mac OS.

06-28-2005, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by Ghostshadow

i know for a fact though , if your studing online you wont HAVE to have a winslows machine , say your studding from cisco (cisco.netacad.net) it's all online , so you just study through your browser , no windows required ..

when i was studding for my CCNA , i had to do it online and i just logged in online , so like i could be on linux reading it and stuff , or be on the mac with out having to go to windows to study it .

This is true, but speaking from experience (I actually support a few online shools at my job) if you are not using Windows, you get no support for the site. Also, most of the software that instructors opt to use in the classrooms are Windows only. And most of these online colleges have their websites optimized for Internet Destroyer (IE) and won't work at all in any other browser. Some of them use weird XML parsers or just plain poorly written JavaScript that will not funtion in any other browser but IE. In fact, one of the schools I support doesn't even register a login when someone tries to use Safari or Firefox on a Mac. Oddly enough, it does work with Netscape 7.2, but no other versions.
Anyhow, if the school requires/recommends a Windows OS, as much as it may suck (hehe), then you will have to use it in order to effectively participate in your studies. And don't think that some crap like VPC is going to help in this case. Just use a Windows box.
And as mynameis pointed out, and I can agree with being someone working in the IT world, the overwhelming majority of the IT work is directed towards Windows, so it would seem rather counterproductive to use a Mac in this case. I just use Windows at work, and my Macs at home.

06-28-2005, 09:54 PM

Need to be a bit careful ---- the basic CS120 class I'm taking does require a PC running XP ------- at least for part of the class ---- all of the labs require a screen shot of the particular task from an XP machine.

So I do all the word and excel docs on my mac using NeoOffice -- and my wifes PC for the screen shots

06-28-2005, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by HIM

But I'm not real clear on how/if I could program for .NET on a Mac OS.

It would require VirtualPC, which is slow.

06-29-2005, 12:37 AM

Study CS instead.

In my CS program, a Unix-style OS was a necessity. Linux, Mac OS X, or dual-boot Linux+Windows was the norm. Mac users had it best, because we could do both "Unix stuff" and "Normal stuff" (PowerPoint!) without much difficulty. A very few people scraped by using Cygwin under Windows.