2002 – I had a couple more thoughts plus some email regarding my comments about AppleWorks last week, and thought I’d share them with you.
Author Archives: Jeffery Adkins
2002 – AppleWorks is a fine Office suite. As it is, I like how well integrated the suite is and the fact that it runs smoothly in Mac OS 9 and OS X. Additional features, such as the slide presentation module (added since version 5), have been most welcome. However, I still feel the need to retreat […]
2002 – This is one part of a multi-part series on setting up laptops for use with Apple’s iBook laptop cart. Today’s article deals with mechanical issues and configuring the AirPort base station.
2002 – In a few weeks, I have to train my colleagues how to check out, use, maintain, and return one of several iBook carts our school has purchased. In the meantime, the carts have to be prepared with certain multiple user settings, passwords, site licensed software, and network settings.
What if cars were designed like Windows, OS X, and Linux?
2002 – Here are four free (not shareware) programs you might find handy when teaching math, physical science, astronomy, or biology. Everything works under Mac OS X either natively or in Classic Mode except as noted. Enjoy!
If Mac users made bumper stickers, continued.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton
2002 – Having had some time to reflect on my experience with the flat-panel iMac G4 at Macworld Expo, I have come up with five ways to improve the product which range from the impractical to the irresistible.
2002 – I agree with most who’ve tried out Apple’s new iPhoto software: It has an intuitive interface that’s easy to learn, can manage large numbers of photos easily, and meshes nicely with iTunes and iMovie, Apple’s other digital hub software for consumers.
2002 – The communication gap between teachers and software companies is hindering the adoption of technology by “technology resisters” and the adoption of standards by veterans waiting for the latest fad to expire. Apple knows a little about this, probably more than any other computer vendor, but even they don’t get it in a fundamental […]
2002 – Could it be that Apple is undergoing a radical mutation and growing a new backbone?
Macworld San Francisco 2002 has come and gone, and the new flat-panel iMac has finally arrived. The iWalk was shown to be a Photoshop daydream, and the 1.0+ GHz Power Macs predicted by the rumor sites are still in the future.
2002 – On the face of it, Apple’s digital hub strategy seems to be progressing well. At Macworld San Francisco 2002, I saw how iPhoto nicely complements iMovie’s intuitive design. I got to touch an iPod for the first time – boy, it sure is tiny – and as I reported yesterday, I got to […]
2002 – I’m sitting in one of the lobbies at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, having made a pass through the entire exhibit hall, up and down every aisle. This is my first Macworld, and I’ve learned a few things, seen some things, and talked to a bunch of people.
2002 – One of the difficulties of working in a lab full of Macs is that students sometimes wander off and do things they’re not supposed to do. Our district has filtering software, but as several news reports have recently pointed out, no filtering software is perfect. Teachers simply have to be aware of what […]
2001 – This is the first Mac Lab Report I’ve submitted for a while, primarily because I was working on a grant proposal for my school, and it absorbed all of my time. It absorbed my time not just because it was a lengthy proposal (approximately 20 pages of text and charts) but because it […]
2001 – Back in January, I wrote in Never Go with Point Oh that I was conservatively waiting to switch to Mac OS 9 until Apple brought out OS 9.1 or greater, because by then most of the bugs would be eliminated. I also tend to run about one OS version behind the rest of […]
Our school is one of many that purchased some of Apple’s “iBook mobility solutions” this summer, but unlike some well-meaning souls in various spots around the country, we decided not to just roll the computers into classrooms right away. We’re going to field test the technology before it is placed in classrooms (gasp!).
2001 – This is the fourth in a series of reviews of planetarium software for the Macintosh, with emphasis on its use in schools. Planetarium software, at a minimum, simulates the appearance of the night sky given certain parameters such as the date, time, and observer location.
2001 – Back in the old days (that would be the 1980s), when you had a computer in the classroom, you used it for grades. We also used to put ditto masters (sort of like carbon paper with more residue, used for making at most around a couple hundred copies of something) through the dot […]
Think you know why the Mac OS logo has two faces?
2001 – Over the past two years, I have collected a number of pre-PowerPC Macs, mostly through donations to our school by individuals and corporations.
As I sit here at the end of a long teaching day, contemplating the work I have to do over the next few days, I recall when I was teaching in the mid-1980s using Apple II era equipment.
Mimio is a whiteboard capture tool that allows a USB-equipped Mac to capture the user’s marks on a standard whiteboard and save or print the results as a handwritten document. I recently got to play with one purchased for our school.
2001 – I find that casual users of the Mac OS do not investigate the features of the operating system as thoroughly as necessary to achieve the greatest efficiency. Perhaps that is because Mac users tend not to read the manuals for their computers (if there is a manual to read), or maybe it is […]
2001 – There have been many excellent reviews of the new snow-white dual-USB iBook detailing such interesting features as the dropdown hinge, the integrated FireWire port, the keys that pop off too easily, the beautiful scratchable surface, the nice software included (such as iMovie2), and the bright high-resolution screen. This is not one of those […]
2001 – This is the third in a series of reviews of planetarium software for the Macintosh, with emphasis on use in schools. Planetarium software, at a minimum, simulates the appearance of the night sky given certain parameters such as the date, time, and observer location.
2001 – Iomega has produced a new entry in its collection of Zip drives. There are now, what, seven or eight different Zip drives, from the VL-Series reviewed here to the Zip 250 FireWire drive – and that’s not counting drives made for internal installation.
Don’t tell Microsoft, but I’ve just figured out how to get all those individual users and server admins to apply those security patches for Windows.