So I got to school a few days ago, hooked my computer up only to find out that there was no internet connection.

It turns out that to get an internet connection at my school you have to first have you computer certified. By which I mean they take it for 3 days, remove any virus scanner you have installed, install the one they want you to use, then put WinXP SP2 on you compuer for you.

Apperently this is to prevent all the viruses that ran rampent through out the network as of late. I think it's an excues for them to be excesivly stupid.

That's nice: so what happens to the stuff ON YOUR HARD DRIVE in the first place?! Unlike idiots in every tech department in every college, uni and secondary school on the planet, most people actually use their computer: saving files on it, collecting music, doing art with it etc.

Back when I was in secondary school, we changed all the shutdown screens on the PCs running Windows 98 in our block to read: "It is now safe to fuck off." Used the same typeface and everything. Our computer tech - a bumbling idiot who probably knew more about cardigans than computers - went completely mad: he had NO IDEA how to change it back and spent the week REFORMATTING everything despite the fact that a short internet search would have revealed that we changed ONE file to do it.

There were some times where the guy asked ME how to do stuff. We trusted THIS guy to run our school network?!

The technical staff are shockingly stupid, fearing computers and those who enjoy using them. They're worried pupils are going to use them to either bomb the place out of existence or create a cybernetic super-race or something. I despair, I really do...

Also, my friend's got something like that at university. They installed some software on his laptop that will not let him access the internet unless he has all virus tools, firewall, XP patches, etc., installed and active. If you try to circumvent the software then it's a violation of the student contract, apparently.

its

(Ness) I know if I give them the comp there going to rape it, but I need internet!

Well ... not wasting all my time on IM lets me waste my time on Mlik. It's actually to the point where all I need to do is make it not ass ugly.

Milk was ass ugly? Maybe I didn't notice becuase of the music...

Zip

I finally got to college and figured out how to set my network connection up...

Well, they've gotten my XP laptop to log on to their domain at startup, but all of my documents are on my personal account on the laptop, but I can't access my college web space and network storage between the two accounts. In addition, they've installed some simple form of client-side Anti-Virus that I can't control and I can't uninstall because it's completely password protected. And the problem was I made it so simple. I made it so simple for them to arse-rape my laptop.

But I had to do it, because all the teachers require you to download syllabuses (syllabi?) and use the web in other nifty ways which would be cool if the network was stable right now and my laptop wasn't being arse-raped. Which, it doesn't matter, because I don't have a printer yet, and I can't access the college network from home to print anything out since it's on an intranet.

I've gotta figure out a way around this, because I'm not letting my college control my laptop for me.