What does this thing do?

[drfsupercenter]

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3061/1212081209tu3.jpg

The school laptops all have them. And I'm just curious what its function is.
I'm talking about the little metal thing under the Vista sticker if you don't see it.

[atifsh]

thats a finger print reader, basicaly u logon to ur pc using ur fingure. dont have to enter ur password. u can use same for loging in to compatible websites aswell.

[drfsupercenter]

Seriously?

My school doesn't use any sort of biometrics, we just press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and use our usernames. They also put XP on the Vista laptops. So I really had no idea what that was, and thought it was just wasting space.

[doctorhardware]

If your school's IT department had a clue they would be using the the biometric scanner. It is a better way to access the computer. It is also much more secure.

[atifsh]

and a headach, u have to train evry student how to swipe finger, and to stay clean fingers, technology is there but not as good inplemnted on laptops yet, buggy. maybe newer systems have better hardware now.

[atifsh]

Seriously?

no i was joking that is a nail cutter or finger shreder

[UncasMS]

@drf

are you part of a new programme at school where NO teachers are present any longer?

if not, why dont you simply ask your teacher what that thingy was you hadnt seen before?


and btw: this fingerprint scanner can as easily be reset as a simple user/login password so not using them at all seems the best way imho

[doctorhardware]

The high school my son goes to uses the biometric scanners on the computers. It works out very well. They were having to constantly reset passwords. So at least here it is working out very well.

[drfsupercenter]

are you part of a new programme at school where NO teachers are present any longer?

if not, why dont you simply ask your teacher what that thingy was you hadnt seen before?

Because the computers aren't owned by the teachers. They were bought by the district's IT department and the teachers can just take the carts for their classes as needed. I asked around and nobody there had any idea either.

As for actualy using the fingerprint scanner - wouldn't that mean all 2000 students at the school would have to register a fingerprint with the system? Seems like a hassle to me - especially since ONLY the laptops have those things... all the desktops don't.
People can reset their own passwords, it's just a matter of ctrl+alt+delete and "change password".

[doctorhardware]

My son high school it is not allowed for the students to change their passwords. The teachers in the district all got new laptops with the biometric scanners. That was even before new books were ordered at the high school. Some of the courses students were not allowed to take the book home. That is because there was not enough books for all the classes, had to share and leave them in the class room.

[drfsupercenter]

Heh... well our school is pretty stupid when it comes to technology... They used to block some Nazi Germany documentary sites for "History"... LOL

Thankfully they recently fixed Bess Stupidfilter. And they're finally putting Firefox on all the computers, though I've been running it off my flash drive for over a year.

[doctorhardware]

At my son's school they have a choice of which explorer they want to use. The computers have both. Which is pretty good for a school.

[UncasMS]

though I've been running it off my flash drive for over a year

... which clearly shows the lack of decent hard- and software administration in your school

if i were in charge i would definitely not enable usbports for everyone bringing in their entire operating system on a thumbdrive and virii to keep me busy *g*

[drfsupercenter]

Well, until very recently all the computers had DeepFreeze.

So you could bring in whatever viruses you wanted and they wouldn't stay very long. The school lets people use USB drives, because how else do you transport projects and homework back and forth with a home computer? (Assuming you're not gonna use Hotmail every day to attach in an email to yourself)
And really, if it's from PortableApps, what harm is it gonna do? They have a problem with people INSTALLING stuff but not just running browsers and whatnot.

[Abuilder]

What about booting the system with one of the many Linux versions that can boot off a USB pen. Somebody could really raise hell with the schools network if they wanted.