Tuesday, June 5, 2001

Apple Computer has added a "summer camp" for college educators June 21-25 at UCLA to its array of summer workshops. The free workshop is to help instructors in departments of education integrate technology in their own instruction and show their prospective teachers how to do the same.

Lunar Software's EarthBrowser has been updated to version 1.5.1. Available for both Mac (1.5 MB) and Windows (1.2 MB), the nifty $19.95 utility displays a rotating globe with current cloud cover photos, along with weather updates, seismic activity reports, and much more. It makes a great screensaver for a teacher's computer.

TechTracker.com has officially announced that its VersionTracker site will now carry Windows and Palm OS information. The Windows page has been on VersionTracker for some time now. For those of us who are cross-platform users, it will be nice to have one, regularly updated site that carries Mac, OS X, Windows, and Palm info.

Low-End Mac's RumorMill page today has an interesting spoof about how Apple's Text-to-Speech function still pronounces the "X" in OS X as the letter "X" instead of "ten."

Dan Knight has put up a couple of extraordinary posts on his Low-End Mac site. Crunch Time at Low-End Mac and Crunch Time at Low-End Mac, Part 2 candidly describe Low-End Mac's current financial woes. Dan left his full-time job in January to devote his full efforts to the web site. While he felt he had a good plan, the economic downturn of many of his advertisers, and what was, in retrospect, and ill-timed purchase, left him in a tight spot. Dan decided to go public with the problem and ask for his readers help.

Dan's plight is sadly not all that different from many other web content providers or all that unusual. Web sites come and go with some regularity. Occasionally, you'll see one of the major content providers go down unexpectedly. Usually, it happens due to costs outrunning ad revenues, or ad payments coming in late. A hiccup in the economy can seriously impact such sites. Names such as the MacTimes News Network and Mac OS Daily quickly come to mind.

Mac web sites may be more prone to failure, as they serve a very limited market. Dan's Low-End Mac site serves a very specialized market. It's original focus was providing solid information on older Macintosh computers. As an occasional Mac columnist, I find Dan's site to be an incredibly valuable resource. No other site on the web carries such complete information on older Macs. In the last few years, daily columns and editorials have come to be a major part of the site. Dan is often willing to give aspiring writers an opportunity and forum to express their views.

Let's hope Dan and company can survive their tough times.

Wednesday, June 6, 2001

I received the following email from Tom Reedy, of Alton, Illinois:

I'm using an older (slower) Quadra 630 Macintosh with ClarisWorks 5.0 that includes the Equation Editor, but always displays the message that it needs an Equation Editor True Type font to replace my Symbol font. Would you be kind enough to tell me where I can download the appropriate font to work with my CW5 Equation Editor--I've looked around the Internet and have come up empty handed. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

I tried to replicate Tom's problem with AppleWorks 5 without success. In other words, I didn't get the missing font dialog. I did notice that there is a font labeled "Equation Editor Fonts" in my fonts folder. If Tom's lost that, that would be the problem...maybe.

Several other possible fixes come to mind. Tom may have replaced his True Type Symbol or Equation Editor fonts with Postscript versions when installing something else. Updating to AppleWorks 5 from ClarisWorks 5 might also help. That updater is here. If he were working on a machine new enough to run System 9, he'd also need to go to AppleWorks 5.0.4, whose updater is here. But he isn't.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

According to MNN, ZDNet, and others, Apple and Future Power have settled their lawsuit over Future Power's alleged infringement of Apple's iMac design. According to various sources, Future Power cannot sell their iMac knockoff until 2004, but are free to market their 17" all-in-one. They even call it their AIO. (Background screams you may be hearing are probably Macintosh G3 All-in-one (AIO) owners shouting, "Sacrilege!")

Travis East, author of Geometry, has come up with another dandy freeware math application. FractionCalc (PPC-410K) is a freeware fraction calculator that can add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions and mixed numbers. It also reduces the answers to lowest terms. FractionCalc is available for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. In an email yesterday, Travis echoed what almost every freeware and shareware author writes: "If you have any ways that you think that the software can be improved, let me know." BTW: Travis was on a temporary high school math contract last year. If you know of a middle or high school math opening in central Indiana, be sure to drop Travis a note.

The Orlando Sentinel's Myriam Marquez certainly knows how to get this teacher's attention. In the first paragraph of her June 1 column, On tax cuts, who most deserves the money, Marquez states: "The president's tax cut unfairly focuses on the richest Americans instead of public-school teachers, counselors, child-care workers and nurses." While most of the column concerns the tax cut, Marquez shows an uncanny understanding of the professions mentioned in the following paragraph:

Public-school teachers, counselors, child-care workers, nurses. They're walking wounded, going off to new jobs. They're frustrated, hurt, disappointed by a public attitude that nickel-and-dimes teachers and nurses, then turns around and demands high-quality education and health care.

I guess I got wound up when I saw a story on school bullies on the national news last evening with negative implications towards public school teachers. It sounded like another mandate without any serious funding, training, or staffing to make it work. Grrr.

The Microsoft Word for Mac Security Update (361K) is now available for download from Microsoft's site. This update addresses the possibility of malicious code running in rich text format (RTF). The update should work with both Word 98 and Word 2001, but may first require the installation of Office 2001 Service Release 1 (6.9 MB).

In case the news briefs above are getting too heavy and you're ready for a little comic relief, click on over to As the Apple Turns. In "I Can't Read It: Set It Darker" the ATAT gang relate a story of a toaster that dials up the local weather and then toasts an appropriate symbol onto your toast! You could, of course, just click on over to The Register, where AT&A got their info, but ATAT's take on the new device is a lot more entertaining.

Thursday, June 7, 2001

A couple of postings elsewhere this week may warrant further examination. MacCentral carried the news Tuesday that EMI and Roxio have entered into a new partnership. MacCentral's Peter Cohen writes:

Under the terms of the new relationship, Roxio and EMI will apparently work together to develop technology and products that will prevent users from burning to CD content produced by EMI artists unless they're first authorized to do so.

Yesterday, a MacSlash posting entitled "Is Toast Toast?" stated: "I read this as no-one is going to buy toast anymore...Any crippleware that selectively ignores certain artists is sure to fail."

Now what you do with copyrighted material is your business, but many educators routinely burn a copy of their CDs for student use, retaining the originals as archive copies. While this practice may bend the letter of the law, in use I've seen it respect the spirit of the law, with educators burning no more copies than they have originals. If Toast's ability to copy CDs becomes compromised, I have to agree with the MacSlash writer that Toast will be toast.

In a column appearing in The Standard yesterday, Margaret Johnson reported that Sun Microsystems has "expressed support for an amendment geared toward pushing technology into classrooms..." The amendment to the education reform bill that is being debated in the Senate "encourages school districts to develop plans to integrate technology and computer systems with teacher training and curriculum development." These plans would be shared with school systems throughout the nation in three years as "best practices." Jones quotes Sun's VP for global education and research as saying:

Centralizing software on large servers, which could be located on the school campus or elsewhere within the school district, and relying on open software would mean students could use whatever end device they chose - a Macintosh, PCs or thin clients, for example - to access content.

Mark Zeedar had an interesting column yesterday on MacOpinion, Macs for Everyone! Mark asks the question, "How appropriate is it to give every student a laptop?" Mark answers his question in his next paragraph:

Obviously, there must be balance: laptops should not come before qualified teachers, adequate facilities, education basics, etc. But once those needs are met, laptops for every student could dramatically help in education.

Mark presents a compelling rational for increased computer use in the classroom and for trying to give each student a computer. I've previously posted some column links that question this point of view. It's a good area for we teachers to continue considering. I will say again that I really don't think more computers, zero tolerance policies, vouchers, or most of the proposals coming out of Washington can really turn our educational system around. As teachers (my apologies if you are a non-teacher reader -- you're still welcome), I think we see a decay in homes that negates the best efforts of educators to improve education. I said as much in my first View from the Classroom column for the 2000-2001 school year.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, all 1600 students in the Quaker Valley School District in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, may receive a new iBook next year. While the contract award is still pending final acceptance by the school board, each teacher is scheduled to receive a new TiBook and the district's libraries will be equipped with Power Mac G4 Cubes. The purchase is to be funded through a state grant "to become a model for technology in education."

Last Chance!

I'm putting the finishing touches on a column about educational freewares for next week. If you have a favorite you'd like me to consider, send me an email with the details (title, download url, requirements, and especially your view of the application).

I received a nice email from Tom Reedy, saying the Equation Editor Fonts were missing from his fonts folder. (See the Wednesday posting below.) Once he added them in, everything worked well. Wouldn't it be neat if all tech support were so easy!

Since yesterday's foray into tech support was so easy, here's a stumper for today sent in by David Smith. I can't even begin to help him, but maybe you can send along an idea or two.

You seem like someone that could answer the following question. I have 10 fields, all numbers, plus a field called average. Do you know a formula that would average only the fields with data. If I have entered data in three of the fields I would like it to divide by 3, if 4 fields are filled then it should divide by 4.

David didn't say what database application he was using, but I think once you get inside the thing, this kind of question might have a pretty generic answer...maybe...sometimes... Think I'd better quit while I'm ahead.

Tuesday's Boston Globe carried a front page column by Hiawatha Bray concerning Microsoft. Bray begins:

A year after suffering a crushing defeat in a federal antitrust case, Microsoft Corp. is a different company - chastened, humbled, uncertain of its next move.

 

Dream On.

Isn't that a "gotcha?" It did me. After the teaser, I had to read the whole thing. It's an interesting analysis of Microsoft and its post-anti-trust trial maneuvers.

Dan Knight has posted a very positive part 3 to his Crunch Time at Low-End Mac series (See Tuesday's posting).

Friday, June 8, 2001

I've been working on a column for next week about educational freewares and gussied up one of my old ones. One of the items that originally was part of the registered (paid :-) version MATH DITTOS 2: Fact Controlled MULTIPLICATION for Special Learners was a set of small flashcard masters. Each master contained a set of 18 facts including each fact and its inverse. When cut into sets, the cards were only about 2"x3," thereby giving the set an almost 50-50 chance of making it home in a pocket!

Several years ago, I split off the flashcard masters and released them as a freeware PDF document. ZDNet loved them, but then, they usually love any and all freewares. Come to think of it, so do I. Anyway, I cleaned up the original version a bit and posted the new version. Download Mac (414K), Win (551K).

I brought my old G3/7500 home for the summer and found when I booted it up last evening that the old drivers for the MacAlly two-button mouse were suddenly crashing it! They were working fine at school and the only changes were that I used a new mouse, swapped an Apple 720 monitor onto it, as my good Sony went to my G3 minitower, and didn't hook up the scanner. Anyway, I found that MacAlly has recently updated the drivers (318K) for the two-button mouse. MacAlly's driver page is here.

Ken Kashmarek sent in the following answer to David Smith's question from Thursday about averaging columns:

In an Excel spreadsheet, if the values are in column A rows 1-10, you would use this formula:

=SUM(A1:A10)/COUNTA(A1:A10)

COUNTA determines how many of the cells in range have numeric values.

SUM, of course, sums up numeric values from that same cell range.

Of course, you can always use:

=AVERAGE(A1:A10)

Outside of Excel, you would have to program this activity with whatever scripting or programming language is provided for the system you are using to store the data.

Thanks, Ken.