A Guide to Great Mac Books
Ric Getter January 29, 2007
We’re not going to do any conjecturing as to why, but it seems like some of the best computer books you can buy are written about the Mac. We’d like to think that the platform simply attracts the most talented and creative writers. Here’s a brief guide to some of the Mac’s most popular authors and publishers. Not Really For Dummies You may not see these books displayed prominently on your local computer guru’s bookshelf, but we bet if you look closely you’ll find a few.
Taking Great Screenshots in Mac OS X
Kirk McElhearn January 28, 2007
Tip: This article was originally submitted to coach tutorial contest contestants. We liked it so much that we’ve left it online – hopefully it will help other writers. While most people, when they think about writing tutorials, focus on the actual writing—the words, sentences, paragraphs and overall structure—the graphics and screenshots you use in tutorials are just as important. While the old saw which says that, “a picture is worth a thousand words” may be an exaggeration, screenshots in technical documentation can not only give users more information than words may provide, but they may also be much more efficient.
Shopping for Macs at Thrift Stores
Eric Buczynski January 25, 2007
If you’re like me and don’t feel the need to have the latest-and-greatest Mac equipment, the best thing you can do for your Mac and your wallet is shop at thrift stores. It’s a crap shoot, but on a good day you may walk out with more than you expected. There are a variety of stores to select from, including the Salvation Army, The Goodwill, American Thrift Centers, and my personal favorite: The Red, White and Blue thrift store.
District Spotlight: Farmington Municipal Schools
Charles Thacker January 24, 2007
We’ll occasionally reference school districts in our articles to illustrate concepts or identify how technology can be implemented, and it will be helpful if some general information about the districts is available. We’ll call these articles ‘Spotlights’. Public school districts in the United States vary greatly in many aspects. The size (in students and geographical distances), available funding, socioeconomic factors of the community, internal leadership, and age of a school district are all important ingredients in how technology is implemented.
Why Would Ordinary People Want to Program?
Joe Wilkins January 23, 2007
Last week’s article was supposed to have been labeled a “Prelude”; hence this one is the real introduction, but first a short note about the responses I received from the first article. The responses were not numerous, although the ones I did receive were very enlightening and probably represent a cross section of the nearly 1,800 readers who did take the time on the first day it was posted to look at what I had to say about Revolution and what is planned down the road.
How to Write Tech Stuff Really Good
Robin Williams January 23, 2007
Tip: This article was originally submitted to coach tutorial contest contestants. We liked it so much that we’ve left it online – hopefully it will help other writers. Be active. This is passive: In case of emergency, the red button should be pressed. This is active: In case of emergency, hit the red button. Passive is good only when you don’t want to hold anyone responsible: There was a red button pressed this morning.
Introduction to the OS X Terminal Application
Wayne Linder January 22, 2007
The Terminal is an application from Apple used to gain access to the power that is “under the hood” of the operating system. Historically, there have been two ways to access the operating system; a Graphical User Interface (GUI) shell, or a command-line shell. The Mac OS graphical interface allows us to do our daily computing tasks in a manner that is familiar to us – if we want to throw an item away, we drag it to the trash.
Finding Mac Freeware and Shareware: A Beginner's Guide
Wayne Linder January 18, 2007
Why would anyone need low-cost software? I’m sure that some people, after switching from the PC, realize that they need some software to put on their shiny new Mac and their pockets are now empty. Or how about students, who, after spending their last bit of pocket change on some yummy ramen noodles, don’t exactly have a few hundred dollars left for a graphic-editing application. Then you have people like me.
Why Use Technology in Education?
Charles Thacker January 17, 2007
If you’re a regular visitor to this website, you may not need to read any supporting arguments for the use of technology in your educational system. However, it is beneficial to begin any discussion with a solid foundation in the topic to be presented. Why students should be using technology in their education can be a complex issue, and there are many small points to be made here about the value of learning, understanding and using technology.
Introducing Revolution: The New HyperCard
Joe Wilkins January 16, 2007
First a little nostalgia. Back several years ago, prior to the emergence of OS X, there was a widely used, widely popular and widely supported Apple program called HyperCard. It made its appearance in the late ’80s and I was one of its biggest advocates. For several years, though a licensed architect, I made my living creating HyperCard stacks of a highly sophisticated nature. This was in the era of the Mac SE30 with its dinky little black and white 9-inch screen, and a 16 MHz processor without a built-in hard drive.