This year 60 percent of the first-year class brought Apple computers to school, bringing the school total to 40 percent Apple and 60 percent computers with Windows based operating system, a Library and Technology Services staff member said.The LTS Web site says that for the 2003 to 2004 academic year, about 79 percent of students had Windows operating systems and 20 percent had Apple computers with one percent of students using the Linux operating system.

Information on the proportions of students who had computers with Windows and Apple computers last year is not available.

"Apple has a fantastic ad campaign going on," LTS Director of Networks and Systems John Turner said, suggesting that this could be a reason for Apple's recent success.

The free iPod that students can receive when they buy an Apple computer for college is an incentive, he said.

Dan Gutman '12 said he liked certain programs Apple computers offer, such as GarageBand to record music.

"I kind of felt like [Apple computers are] the future," he said.

Turner said that Brandeis works carefully to be "very Mac friendly" and "as agnostic as possible" when it comes to students' computers. He said that originally Sage only worked when it was opened in Internet Explorer, but LTS pushed for the program to work on the Safari Web browser for Apple users.

He said the school does not accept computer program vendors if their programs do not work on Apple computers.

Turner added that most administrative programs also work on Apple computers, but for those that do not, a program called Parallels allows users to run the Windows operating system on an Apple computer.

The University uses Parallels software to operate the magnetic locks that open with swipe cards.

Chet Berman '12 said his family always used computers with Windows but found the new Windows Vista operating system "horribly incompatible" with certain applications, so he purchased an Apple MacBook for school.

Berman said he likes his Mac but has had some problems operating Safari and gaining access to the secure Brandeis network.

On the other hand, Turner said, some students continue to use computers with Windows because they were popular in the past and people are "influenced by what [they] know and what [they've] done."

Turner said he has found from speaking to new students that parents' suggestions and the higher cost of Apple computers kept some students from purchasing a Macintosh computer.

Turner noted that 70 percent of students who brought computers with Windows use the relatively new Vista operating system, which comes standard with the computer.

The rest of the students who use computers with Windows have older computers or downgraded their operating system to the old standard Windows operating system, Windows XP, because "they all know Vista sucks," Turner said.

Aneil Tripathy '12 uses a computer with Windows and said that he has not had problems using Vista, although some of his friends have had trouble.

Turner said that for students having problems, Brandeis is an authorized Apple care warranty center and an authorized Dell repair shop and that LTS can fix other computers.

"If Apple continues [to make a] great product, more freshmen will bring them," Turner said.