OpenMusings

For those considering a new computer – make sure you ask for student discounts. I’ve just splashed out on a new MacBook Pro – in Apple’s case, the website doesn’t even give the full story, as they have a separate price plan for Higher Education students, including us OU part-timers, that isn’t available online. While their online Education Store usually offers up 10% discounts on new hardware, simply ‘phoning them and asking for a Higher Education discount will get you a 15% discount – quite a chunk off any piece of kit. You can’t even complain about the cost of the call, as it’s an 0800 number.

Not sure how typical Apple are when it comes to discounts (from what I hear Dell and HP at least both offer them, but not sure how much), but given the cost of decent computers these days, it’s always worth asking.

Nice little surprise arrived with me last week, as the first M257 mailing hit my doorstep – completely unexpected, as the course isn’t due to start until 6th October. If I wasn’t enjoying my short study break so much, it would be a great opportunity to get ahead a little…

Materials look straightforward enough – the first few units are going back over the history of Java and giving overviews of its use in projects large- and small-scale before it finally gets on to the coding again. Looking forwared to using a “real” IDE (NetBeans) instead of BlueJ, not so sure about some of the topics they’re due to cover later in the course!