h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm really going mad over this... Seriously!

I'm a A Level student and I was intrigued to see the hefty student discounts Apple were offering for this brand new software, announced yesterday and taking pre-orders. But:

a) I apparently can't buy off their "Education" site because they only accept credit cards, despite the fact they will happily accept cheques and bank transfers on their normal site. Any loopholes I can exploit or other sites/shops that offer the discount, with cheque payments? I don't want to go all the way to Regent Street in London to get it! I live in Bristol!

b) When I go through to the site normally the price for their 5-user licence(there are three computers in our house) is £69.33, but if I click through to it via the NUS website, the price is something like £130, close to the standard price. I checked it and it was definetly the Education Store, which one is right??? It's so confusing!

I am really at my wits' end with this. I just want to know whether I CAN have a student discount or not!

call me stupid but why do you want to pay for an operating system when so many good ones are available for free (well the cost of a download & a CDR or two to burn it on to)

I know NetBSD (http://www.uk.netbsd.org/ ) is available for macs & I believe that several versions of Linux are also available.

Dave,

Try phoning your local Apple reseller (there's bound to be one in Bristol) - they should be able to tell you what is what.

In NZ the education discount goes to anyone buying from a reseller store as long as they have student ID. You can also buy through the Universities.

I can understand your frustration. Apple generally make excellent products. Unfortunately their sales and service is very uneven, especially if you present them something unusual like not living in a major city (this is the experience in Australasia).

You might get more replies to your question if you post on the h2g2 Mac Users page (sorry don't have the link to hand, but you'll find it in the search)

kea.

There is a link to the Bristol reseller on this page: http://www.apple.com/uk/buy/applecentre/

There is a link to the Bristol reseller here:

http://www.apple.com/uk/buy/applecentre/

All good advice so far. I would add that the cheapest price is the one to go for as long as you don't need a credit card if that is a problem.

Some other thoughts:
1. Check your hardware. I have just looked and suspect that my faithful old iMacDV (400MHz G3) will be incompatable. Apple don't give minimum system specs yet.

2. Why do you need a site licence? Can't you by a single copy and install it on three machines?

3. This is the Apple Centre in Bristol - http://www.western.co.uk/ .

Hope you get sorted and don't desert the Mac!!

turvy

You should be able to get a student licience on any microsoft boloocks you need to get. Why go mac? what course are you doing? is it a mac specific course? if not, don't go mac.

Lots of good suggestions here... I shall try and go to h2g2's Mac User forum as well.

Apparently there's some sort of legal thing that one-user licence means one-user. I've also heard that Apple doesn't guard their software against piracy as much as Microsoft does and you can technically install a single copy on more than one machine. However, I ever want customer service then I might want to play it safe. Besides, the student price for it is so much cheaper, I may actually be able to afford it!