2001 – This is the second 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.
Author Archives: Jeffery Adkins
2001 – In light of the recent admission by Microsoft that “funded advocacy groups” have sent letters from dead people to newspapers in support of the beleaguered* computer software company, Apple Computer has issued a press release noting the tremendous advantages the Macintosh computer has for “the dead or recently unliving.”
2001 – This is the first 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 – If you have ever set up a small Mac network, you know creating a server is as easy as pie (see Transferring Files from Your Old Mac to Your New One: Classic Mac OS Edition for more on this topic), and it’s a snap to setup login names and passwords using Users and […]
Different people have very different ways of explaining how a computer works. Here are a few of them.
As regular readers of this column are aware, I am an astronomy teacher. I teach both high-school and college astronomy for teachers (online) and am involved in several organizations and astronomy programs. I maintain a collection of links at www.AstronomyTeacher.com, which lists dozens of links sorted by category.
2001 – Transferring files from one computer to another used to be relatively simple; you just copied the files to a floppy and sneaker-netted it over to the other machine, and voilà, you’re done. However, since the advent of the iMac, which has no floppy drive, users have had to become more creative. The solutions […]
This article explains how to take the skills you have as a Windows user and get the same job done on a Macintosh. It is intended as a guide for beginning users and not a comprehensive Mac vs. Windows comparison; for example, the niceties of configuring TCP/IP are not covered here.
August 2001 – Macworld Expo attendees were duped into thinking there would be a flat panel iMac by unsubstantiated rumors. Steve Jobs announced faster iMacs and a new faceplate for the Power Mac G4. Mac OS X 10.1 is not quite ready.
Now you too can generate Mac rumors just like the professionals do! All you have to do is select one of the options in each of the pop up menus below; when you’re done, just print the rumor out or copy it and email it to your favorite news site! If you go to all […]
For math and science teachers, entering equations into typewritten (or word processed) documents is often a challenge. For the novice, many tabs, spaces, underlines, and struggles with the Symbol font yield unsatisfactory results.
July 2001 – This week, Apple will undoubtedly make several announcements at the Macworld Expo in New York. Among these will be some product revision announcements, Mac vs. PC benchmarking demonstrations, and sales figures showing how Apple has regained the lead position in educational sales. What won’t be announced are some of the unfortunate tactics […]
Random features I’d like to see in future operating systems and computers:
Once upon a time Apple Computer issued a document called 50 Macintosh Advantages, which became 75 Macintosh Advantages in 1997, a document that purported to list 75 different advantages the Mac OS had over its chief competitor, Microsoft Windows 95.
2001 – If you had to do a presentation to the city council regarding radioactive emissions from your local nuclear plant, first you’d do a bunch of research and then sit down to create your presentation. Although your material may be important and your research thorough, you may not be able to get your point […]
Twenty-one ways to interpret XP.
2001 – This article concludes our in-depth reassessment of Apple’s 75 Macintosh Advantages brochure.
If Apple lovers made bumper stickers….
If I could eliminate Windows from the face of the earth, I wouldn’t do it.
2001 – Some things every Mac user should know about Microsoft Windows™.
2001: My first Mac wasn’t my own. It belonged to my college professor. I think it was a 512K Fat Mac, because it booted off of a floppy and didn’t have a hard drive. It couldn’t have been later than 1985, because that’s when I graduated.
Well, let’s get this part out of the way first. The folks over at the Cube-Zone (G4 Cube Forever!) will tell you the Cube didn’t fail, still has life in it, won x-many awards, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, we can all agree that the Cube’s sales have been, shall we say, less […]
Madame Chairperson, Esteemed Members of this August Committee, Members of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Speaker of the House of Representatives: Thank you for allowing me to address you on this most urgent matter.
I teach Astronomy and Space Science. Wishing to teach students about the difficulties of manned vs. robotic exploration, it occurred to me that it would be nice if I could simulate a deep-space rover. The basic idea is simple: Use a radio controlled car to drive around a video camera, which will transmit live video […]
2001 – Here is a partial glossary of terms you are likely to encounter when discussing supporting the Mac platform with a longtime Mac user. If you have more contributions, tack them on in the message board.
2001 – MacCentral will occasionally post “famous people” sightings, where celebrities and others use Macs as props or as tools in public. I was thinking about this the other day, and wondered if people in TV shows used computers as much as real people – and real computers, not those 67-point font monsters that say […]
2001 – For those of you new to this series, this is a look at the old 75 Macintosh Advantages brochure put out by Apple in the pre-iMac days. Many of the advantages still exist, but some have fallen by the wayside. There are references to OS X here, but my general attitude is that if […]
The Royal Quiet De Luxe portable typewriter is about a ten pound machine capable of printing single page documents not wider than 9 inches and of indeterminate length. It was designed to allow the user to continue working while on board trains and in hotel rooms, but it was never practical for air travel, due […]
2001 – Are you a news junkie? I used to watch news on TV until my wife and I had twins. Now I get to watch Teletubbies and Disney’s Dinosaur five times a day!
2001 – We continue the review of the old Apple 75 Macintosh Advantages brochure here, attempting to update it to Mac OS 8.6-9.1 vs. Windows 95/Me/2000 as much as possible.
