<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Almquist Burke <<a href="mailto:burke@thealmquists.net">burke@thealmquists.net</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> A 20" iMac is a great machine, but I don't think it's practical for a school to administer a whole fleet expensive (to buy and administer) and powerful machines when 90% of the time they don't need that kind of power.</blockquote> </div> I am lurking this list. Just want to mention that compared even to normal (non-thin) PC desktops, Apple has done a great job of forcing people to buy very expensive all-new hardware every few years. Integrating the screen with the CPU is brilliant from a marketing perspective, because when your CPU is old and slow in just a few years but the LCD is still nearly brand new, you still must discard the whole thing including your huge LCD. That integrated LCD allows them to stick another couple hundred in markup into their sleek all-in-one design, though it is also a massive waste of still-functional and usable display hardware. The Mac Mini is almost an afterthought of a product since Apple can't mark it up as much as the integrated slab. I don't believe there is any way to "cannibalize" a five-year old Mac all-in-one, to connect the huge high quality LCD to an external computer that is way faster than the old Mac guts.. - Dale