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Taking tech to college
By DAVE GUSSOW
Only weeks before she begins her freshman year, Laura Templeton still has major decisions to make about college. Among them: laptop or desktop? "I'll be away from my room a lot" playing softball, said Templeton, who will attend the University of Florida. Templeton, the valedictorian of her class at Sickles High in Tampa, and her parents can't decide between a laptop's mobility and a desktop's lower price. Decisions about technology are high on the to-do list of many students preparing to head to college. "Approximately 80 percent of incoming freshmen had a cell phone, pager" or handheld organizer, said Christopher Akin, assistant director of information technologies at the University of South Florida, citing an informal survey USF conducted last year. USF and other colleges are working to accommodate the high-tech needs of students, from high-speed Internet connections to new wireless networks that offer a variety of services. At USF, the Mobull service expected to be in full swing this fall includes text messaging to cell phones with campus events, registration information and electronic coupons from advertisers. And in the excitement of heading off to school, administrators say, parents should have one more chat with their student: practicing safe tech. The computerLaptops have become the big machine on campus. "If you go into a lecture hall, nobody's taking notes by hand," said Tom Edwards, an analyst with NPDTechworld, because students are tapping away on their laptops or other portable devices. "You can't take a desktop into the lecture hall." Yet laptops may not be the perfect solution for everyone, no matter what the kids want, and they may not fit your budget. Let's say you have $1,000 for a computer. The average price of a laptop this year is $1,642, according to NPDTechworld, compared with $1,034 for a desktop. And if you buy a low-end laptop, any savings are quickly devoured when you start adding peripherals, such as a CD burner. Laptop processors, while still plenty speedy for most purposes, are a generation or two slower than current desktop processors. The mobility advantage turns into a disadvantage because of the threat of theft. And if the machine is dropped, repairs can be costly. A major plus for laptops is that they save space in dorm rooms that don't have the acreage your kid may have had at home. A flat-panel monitor for a desktop is a space saver, but it's more costly than a traditional monitor. Before you start shopping, the first place you should check is the Web site for your new collegian's campus. USF and Florida State University do not require students to have their own computers. UF students need access to a computer, which can be as simple as two roommates sharing one. Most schools list requirements and recommendations on their Web sites. Some individual areas of study, such as engineering, might require specific hardware and software. Some schools have worked out special pricing with certain computer companies, yet analyst Edwards doesn't think those deals are any better than you can get by doing your own shopping. "How far down can they go?" Edwards said of computer prices. "In past years, PC manufacturers kept prices from eroding by adding features. Now you're at a point where it's maxed out." Here are some things to look for in a computer: The processors in new computers will be plenty fast for most academic pursuits. If your student likes to play games (preferably not the night before a big exam), faster is better. For a PC running Windows XP, you'll want at least 256 megabytes of random access memory. If you're buying a Macintosh running OS X, you want at least 256 MB as well. Because storage is relatively cheap, look for hard drives that are at least 40 gigabytes. You'll likely need an Ethernet card to connect to the university's high-speed network for Internet access, and don't forget to buy a cable for that as well. A printer is a must, and you can get good inkjets for around $100. Be wary of some of the very low-price bargains that may not do the kind of printing the student needs. Remember a printer cable and maybe extra ink cartridges as well. You can check PC World magazine's Web site (www.pcworld.com) for its ratings of computers, printers and other peripherals. One more thing: Get a surge protector. Cell phones and PDAs 101As indicated by USF's survey and confirmed just by looking around at teens in a mall, few students getting ready for college don't have a cell phone. Universities such as USF are taking note of students' mobile lifestyles. USF's Mobull service is aimed squarely at the mobile student. Students sign up for the service on the university's Web site. They can choose a variety of information to be sent to their cell phone, pager or PDA in text messages. Topics can range from campus activities to registration deadlines to reminders for housing contracts. The system also has the potential to generate revenue for the school: More than 30 businesses have signed up to have ads sent to students. Pizza Hut, for example, might send a coupon that can be redeemed by the student showing the coupon on the screen. A student can specify which ads she gets, as well as note times when she doesn't want to be interrupted by messages. "We didn't want it to turn into spam or some kind of junk," Akin said, though students might need to watch for how many text messages their plans allow. Say 1,000 students say they want to receive pizza coupons. A pizza business would pay $150 to send that message once, or slightly less if it had a monthly contract. About 1,000 students registered while the program was in its "soft startup," but Akin expects more once the university starts heavily promoting it this fall. Some things to consider when choosing a cell phone plan: Think minutes, lots of minutes, for a cell phone for a college student. Laura Templeton says her family increased the minutes on its plan in anticipation of her leaving for school. It's probably a good idea to get, or switch to, a cell phone with the area code where the student is living. That way people at the school who call her won't have to use long distance. A regional or nationwide calling plan helps, too, since new friends may have out-of-state numbers. If you use a family plan, you may not be charged for calls to each other's phones or from school to home, saving precious any-time minutes and allowing for more calls home (Hey, Dad: Got money?). USF also is working with Hewlett-Packard to set up a wireless network accessible through the company's iPaq handheld devices. Students would be able to access the university network and get to their e-mail, schedule and other information anywhere on campus. Other handheld devices capable of receiving wireless transmissions also would work on the network. The good news for students who want a personal organizer such as the iPaq or a Palm is that prices have dropped. A device to keep a calendar, address book, notepad and other basic functions can be had for less than $200. But basic models may not allow for the kind of wireless access USF is planning. With more power and features, prices can creep into the $300 to $700 range. Wireless costs could include a network card and maybe even an expansion sleeve that attaches to the personal digital assistant. That can add from $60 to $300 to the costs. Ratings for handheld organizers also can be found at the PC World Web site. Safe techWhile students may have used a computer a lot at home, they may have left to Mom and Dad the security issues such as antivirus software and firewalls. Even students who think they are technologically savvy can end up learning some painful lessons in college. University officials say some students need lessons in computer security before they reach campus. FSU added a section on the topic to a booklet that it gives to new students, according to Carl Baker, FSU's director of academic computing and network services. But telling students about security and getting them to use it can be difficult. "The students come in much more savvy than they ever were before" in using a computer, said Fran McDonnell, UF's computing help desk manager. "Of course, they're much more likely to experiment because they're young," trying things they might not have done at home. Hogging the campus' shared information pipeline is also an offense many students don't think about. Napster may be gone, but downloading music is still big on campus. So are online games. Heavy use of both can devour a university's network speed and could get your kid into trouble if officials find him overdoing it. Schools say warning letters usually do the trick when problems occur. But if the student persists, he can lose access to the network. In addition, some students leave their computers on 24 hours a day, maybe not realizing that anything that originates from their computer is their responsibility and anyone wandering by could start some mischief. "This is basically a full-time job for one of my staff people to run down security problems on campus," FSU's Baker said. "A lot of it is researching inappropriate behavior originating from FSU (Internet protocol) addresses. Some of it is by actual FSU students. In other cases, it could be people impersonating someone from FSU or maybe even someone who has hacked into a system and is launching attacks." UF gives students a software disk that includes the setup for its network and an antivirus program, McDonnell says. The school is emphasizing information about spam, protecting account information and using the antivirus program. Firewall programs, which block intruders from gaining access to a computer, are readily available. A good free one is Zone Alarm, available from www.zonelabs.com. - Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4228.
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