Mac to School 2005

> purchasing anything with a MasterCard doubles the warranty up to an
> extra year. Thus, the Apple warranty covers the computer for the first
> year, and MasterCard steps in to cover the computer for a second year.
> As far as I recall, one doesn't have to register the purchase or
> anything. The extended warranty coverage is automatic. Check out the
> MasterCard website for any changes/limitations. Oh, I have no
> affiliation with MasterCard, any banks, or credit agencies.
>
This varies from card to card. Last I looked you had to use a "gold"
card for this or maybe even a "platinum". And even then not all of the
"super" cards extended the warranty. Call before you buy.

Jeff,

        Thanks for the article. I have a few comments, though. ;)

        First, avoid the Treo 600. All my coworkers have upgraded to
the 650 since it shipped; the 320x320x16-bit screen is so much better
that the 600 doesn't make sense any more. I think 650 reliability is
better, too.

        For people moving to a new location, Vindigo is very good;
they cover a lot of cities these days, and are an excellent way to
find movie theaters & times, stores, restaurants, etc.

        I wonder how many schools or professors are publishing their
schedules in iCal format. This is an easy way to save lots of people
(students) redundant data entry, and works with Mozilla too.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ical/library/
http://www.icalshare.com/


                                                Chris Pepper
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

I found Jeff’s comprehensive review of technologies that appeal to college students interesting and informative. I do have comments on some aspects missing from his article:

The total budget proposed here is considerable if not untenable by families earning, say, $80k / year, particularly when you factor in tuition, room, board, transportation and other miscellaneous living expenses. I’m also worried about the precedent that sets in the student’s mind as far as what she’s entitled to each year. I know that when my children approach college age, our ability to provide all items Jeff lists would be, well, not possible. I would also argue, it is not desirable from an educational and experiential perspective.

Next, there’s value in learning how to use (exploit?) available resources. I can’t speak for every U.S. state, but I was very impressed by what computer resources North Carolina avails at its state university campus in Raleigh. I speak from personal experience, as I relied on their resources for my Master’s degree. I couldn’t afford many of the resources I needed then (e.g., broadband Internet access) I wouldn’t have learned of this had I “spent my way” into every technology I personally needed. I also saved a great deal of money. If “no man is an island,” than education should encourage students to find bridges to all technological islands.

Finally, I don’t have demographic studies to support this; but I’m concerned that many students, while knowing how to operate Microsoft Office, don’t know the fundamentals of computing. Consequently, they conflate using an application with being generally computer savvy. At least this is what I’m seeing with interns and recent grads, nearly consistently. For that reason, I find greater value in giving my college student an inexpensive Intel laptop running Linux and OpenOffice. (Heck – I’ve got a free HP laptop at home, as it lost its gloss since it’s a P3 800 MHz – and it runs great as a simple laptop) Once she has been able to support such a configuration for a year, reward her with a new Mac laptop. After a few months of moonlighting, of course :). Living on Linux isn’t easy; that’s the point. I’d like to raise kids that understand and apply computing technology appropriately, not become Mac or gadget zealots. (I am not saying that is what Jeff advocates!) Regardless, I’m leery of giving students new computers when used would be more desirable.

In short, parents can create a better educational framework by making judicious purchasing decisions towards a better experiential learning model. Giving them everything will be merely handing them a fish, not teaching them how to fish.

Regarding Jeff's recent suggestion about financial software like Quicken, I'd like to mention that gnucash for X11 (available through fink) is a pretty impressive piece of free software with most of the functionality a college student could ask for. It's not quite as polished as a professional product, and the user interface is (of course) not Mac-native, but it's certainly saved me from needing to purchase any financial product.

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08227>

On Aug 29, 2005, at 3:08 PM, kyle_skrinak wrote:

> I found Jeff’s comprehensive review of technologies that appeal to
> college students interesting and informative. I do have comments on
> some aspects missing from his article:
>
> The total budget proposed here is considerable if not untenable by
> families earning, say, $80k / year, particularly when you factor in
> tuition, room, board, transportation and other miscellaneous living
> expenses. I’m also worried about the precedent that sets in the
> student’s mind as far as what she’s entitled to each year. I know
> that when my children approach college age, our ability to provide
> all items Jeff lists would be, well, not possible. I would also
> argue, it is not desirable from an educational and experiential
> perspective.

A lot of the stuff Jeff mentions are extras, like the iPod
paraphernalia. But a good many college kids consider iPods
necessities even though their parents might not, and I know lots of
high school kids that have summer and after school jobs they've taken
so they can have money to spend on hardware/software their parents
can't afford. My niece, who just went off to start her freshman year
on a full academic scholarship, as well as the kids of friends,
clients and neighbors, are a few.

>
>
> Next, there’s value in learning how to use (exploit?) available
> resources. I can’t speak for every U.S. state, but I was very
> impressed by what computer resources North Carolina avails at its
> state university campus in Raleigh.

I've seen this in a number of colleges, and not just big campuses. I
think the schools realize that broadband networks are important
communications channels that facilitate research and the
dissemination of information, not frivolous toys of the rich.
Broadband has upended the academic community as it has the
entertainment industry.

> I speak from personal experience, as I relied on their resources
> for my Master’s degree. I couldn’t afford many of the resources I
> needed then (e.g., broadband Internet access) I wouldn’t have
> learned of this had I “spent my way” into every technology I
> personally needed. I also saved a great deal of money. If “no man
> is an island,” than education should encourage students to find
> bridges to all technological islands.

I also have noticed that schools make broadband access easy for
students, like having tech people available to hook up the computers
of kids that are not savvy about networking.

>
> Finally, I don’t have demographic studies to support this; but I’m
> concerned that many students, while knowing how to operate
> Microsoft Office, don’t know the fundamentals of computing.
> Consequently, they conflate using an application with being
> generally computer savvy.

Coming from a background in media and publishing, I've had the
opposite experience with students and business colleagues. You'll see
people who are absolute masters of Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator,
etc. - very complex applications to learn, turn to quivering masses
of jelly when they need to reboot a router or locate a wireless
network on the fly. A good example is the widespread panic caused in
corporate and university departments across the country a few years
ago when Photoshop changed its default color space to RGB from CMYK
in an upgrade.

> At least this is what I’m seeing with interns and recent grads,
> nearly consistently. For that reason, I find greater value in
> giving my college student an inexpensive Intel laptop running Linux
> and OpenOffice. (Heck – I’ve got a free HP laptop at home, as it
> lost its gloss since it’s a P3 800 MHz – and it runs great as a
> simple laptop) Once she has been able to support such a
> configuration for a year, reward her with a new Mac laptop. After a
> few months of moonlighting, of course :). Living on Linux isn’t
> easy; that’s the point. I’d like to raise kids that understand and
> apply computing technology appropriately, not become Mac or gadget
> zealots. (I am not saying that is what Jeff advocates!) Regardless,
> I’m leery of giving students new computers when used would be more
> desirable.

Knowing about and how to use technology is critical to academic
success, and knowing something beyond MS Office is important to most
areas of studies but knowing programming isn't necessarily important.
But coming from the media/advertising perspective, which is a big and
growing industry, Macs are in industry standard for most pre and post
production work.

Lingo or Actionscript or the scripting/programming languages behind
Maya or other applications would be more valuable to students
interested in film, video, advertising and web production. And
knowing Photoshop, InDesign/Quark, etc. are critical for any facet of
print.

On two design lists I belonged to, there have been many discussions
initiated by designers who work on PCs that can't find jobs in
companies because they don't have experience with Macs. As I've
worked in recruiting, I've pointed out that companies hire not just
on portfolio quality, but on how someone will work in a team and how
quickly people can accomplish particular goals, and PC people are
often at a disadvantage when trying to break in to Mac environments.

> In short, parents can create a better educational framework by
> making judicious purchasing decisions towards a better experiential
> learning model. Giving them everything will be merely handing them
> a fish, not teaching them how to fish.

It depends on the student and the path they are considering.

Marilyn

Read Jeff's article on Back to School Software with great interest.
In terms of buying software, it's always a good idea to wait and see
what the school computer labs supports, and perhaps more importantly
what individual instructors require.

For basic word processing when it is all said and done, it's likely
to be MS Word. When I was in college there were a proliferation of
various word processors, but everyone handed their writing in as hard
copy so it really didn't matter what you used. Now many professors
(myself included) require that the student submit their papers
electronically in a standard format---usually MS Word format. There
are a number of reasons for this. For one, I have the strong desire
not to carry around a large-dead-tree's worth of paper each time an
assignment is due. The mark-up and commenting features in Word are
quite useful for comments (no one wants to read my handwriting
scrunched into the margins). It is easier to share student papers,
either in whole or in part, with other students for pedagogical
purposes. And many universities now provide faculty with access to
plagiarism checking services which require electronic submission of
assignments. (This last, an unfortunate but all too necessary result
of "research" getting done on the internet.) The upshot is that with
all its flaws, MS Word is the required format in my classes (and that
of many of my colleagues). I require MS Word not because I use Word
personally for my writing, but it's a good bet that a large majority
of my students already have/use or can get access to Word.

So, it's always a good idea to find out what instructors are doing
with software requirements before, say, going out and buying iWork.

One category of software that students should really seriously
consider (and IMHO deserves more than a one sentence mention) is
bibliography management software. Aside from Papyrus, there are many
alternatives such as Endnote and BibTeX based software. The task of
getting citations right and assembling the bibliography is the most
tedious yet absolutely necessary part of academic writing, so any
software that automates the process and thereby minimizing mistakes
is well worth the investment for students.

This week's TidBITS also mentions MathMagic as something that
students in scientific/technical fields might want to invest in.
While MathMagic looks to be a fine piece of software, it's academic
price of $60 is still a bit steep, especially when there are free TeX/
LaTeX based alternatives: LaTeX Equation Editor, LaTeXiT, TeX FoG,
all output very nice equations to small pdf files. The downside is
that none of these are true GUI based equation editors so you have to
learn the equation syntax in TeX. On the other hand, once you have
learnt it, typing equations in TeX is a lot faster than using the GUI
in MathMagic or other similar equation editors.

Tn

On 8/30/05 5:45 PM, "Marilyn Matty" <mmattynyc.rr.com> typed:

But a good many college kids consider iPods necessities even though their parents might not,

One of my goals as parent is to pique the student to ponder; "what is necessary," by way of technology rather than unwittingly "follow the pack."

and I know lots of high school kids that have summer and after school jobs they've taken so they can have money to spend on hardware/software their parents can't afford.

That's an excellent demonstration of the initiative I, as a parent, would like to see. I should be clear -- I would be most pleased to see my children thinking for themselves -- and I will be proud of them regardless of their decisions.

Coming from a background in media and publishing, I've had the opposite experience with students and business colleagues. You'll see people who are absolute masters of Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, etc. - very complex applications to learn, turn to quivering masses of jelly when they need to reboot a router or locate a wireless network on the fly.

It sounds like we're in agreement, as least as far as what we have experienced?

Knowing about and how to use technology is critical to academic success, and knowing something beyond MS Office is important to most areas of studies but knowing programming isn't necessarily important. But coming from the media/advertising perspective, which is a big and growing industry, Macs are in industry standard for most pre and post production work.

Agreed. However, as a former pre-press manager, most of our technicians would refuse to (or fight mightily against having to) handle files generated on the Windows platform. Heck; I'll up the ante. MS Publisher files from an ME workstation. I would think one would have a competitive career edge in the market place if an operator wasn't so 'parochial' about their choice of tools and enthused by the challenge that such a job presents. (Note to Windows-only I.T. support for G.A. environments: your TCO remains much higher.)

On two design lists I belonged to, there have been many discussions initiated by designers who work on PCs that can't find jobs in companies because they don't have experience with Macs. As I've worked in recruiting, I've pointed out that companies hire not just on portfolio quality, but on how someone will work in a team and how quickly people can accomplish particular goals, and PC people are often at a disadvantage when trying to break in to Mac environments.

Again, I agree. However, wouldn't be even better to be savvy on both (heck, why not include Linux?) There's a thread of thought, somewhere out there, that advocates a cross-platform ethic, in that it frees your mind from solutions that derive solely from a single-platform approach. This might be possibly akin to the advantages of speaking more than one language. Before the student develops her graphics skills, say, would it be beneficial for her to cut her teeth on computing fundamentals?

> Giving them everything will be merely handing them a fish, not teaching them > how to fish.

It depends on the student and the path they are considering.

Despite my quasi-neo-ludite tendency to downplay the value of the essentials of computing and the rudiments of pedagogy, I think we're past the point where a student can be blithe to this aspect of contemporary career requirements. But, yes, there's *always* exceptions, no doubt, but I'm hard pressed to think of an example.

Kyle

On Aug 31, 2005, at 9:22 AM, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:
> Read Jeff's article on Back to School Software with great interest.
> In terms of buying software, it's always a good idea to wait and see
> what the school computer labs supports, and perhaps more importantly
> what individual instructors require.

Do check on what your school provides, also. Here at Ohio University,
we have site licenses for several titles. Students here may legally
obtain a copy of MS Office (for Mac or PC) for a $20 "media
charge" (I know, $20 for a single CD is pretty hefty, but it's still
much cheaper than even the .edu discount price from MS) and Tiger for
$15.

--
Greg Sigman, Senior Library Associate
Ohio University Music/Dance Library

Jeff mentioned OpenOffice in his article, but not NeoOffice. An
extract from the latest OO newsletter explains it well:

What Is NeoOffice/J (and Can It Replace MS Office)
--------------------------------------------------
"NeoOffice/J is Mac-friendly version of OpenOffice.org. This
full-featured office productivity suite includes word processing,
spreadsheet, presentation, vector drawing, database, and macro
functionality. NeoOffice documents are interchangeable with Microsoft
Office and OpenOffice, even on other platforms. NeoOffice/J adapts the
OpenOffice.org code, then leverages Mac OS X's Java integration to tap
into the Macintosh user interface. This open source productivity suite
can be downloaded for free and is available in 40 different languages."

<http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/08/09/neooffice.html>

NeoOffice/J can be found at:

<http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php>

Cheers

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On 1.9.2005, space aliens observed Tomoharu Nishino saying:
>Now many professors (myself included) require that the student submit
>their papers electronically in a standard format---usually MS Word
>format. (...) The mark-up and commenting features in Word are quite
>useful for comments (no one wants to read my handwriting scrunched
>into the margins).

As a former student, I would like to ask anyone receiving papers to at
least accept them in PDF format. Having written several documents
containing more than hundred pages in various different word processors,
I can attest to Word's ability to insert weird errors into your
documents at the last possible minute. In one case, Word decided to mess
up a table of contents in a document containing over 200 pages. We were
eventually forced to write the TOC by hand in order to make our
project's deadline.

Additionally, I think forcing students to buy a particular software
application is just wrong if there's no inherent need for this
application in your class.

If you let students hand in PDF files, they can use whatever application
they like (personally, I use Mellel for long documents). Adobe Acrobat
provides extensive commenting features which allow you to easily mark
those documents.

lucas

- --
"Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person we become."
  -- Jim Rohn

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On 9/1/05 10:06, "Lucas K. Mathis" <tidbitslkmc.ch> wrote:

>
> If you let students hand in PDF files, they can use whatever application
> they like (personally, I use Mellel for long documents). Adobe Acrobat
> provides extensive commenting features which allow you to easily mark
> those documents.

Adobe's markup features are handy, but designed for use after you're close
to a final proof. They are still WAY behind Word's, which allow you to
modify the document from many sources, and show you the final results, along
with allowing you to choose the modifications you want. Adobe's features are
still closer to a red pen on paper.

In addition, it's pretty clear that the Mac version of Acrobat is never
going to get anything close to useful new features. Those all go to
Windows, and tend to be Windows-only. For example, the new forms designer is
not only Windows only, but once you use it, you can't edit the results in
the Mac version at all.

I would be completely unsurprised to see Acrobat 8 unchanged from 7 on the
Mac with the exception of features required by new file formats. The irony
is, that Office 12 on both Windows and the Mac will be using XML, and that
give the chance to finally have cross - platform embedding. Meanwhile, Adobe
is doing nothing new on the Mac once you get past
Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign.

Then again, Chizen's preference for Windows is hardly a secret.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On Sep 1, 2005, at 11:06 AM, Lucas K. Mathis wrote:

> As a former student, I would like to ask anyone receiving papers to at
> least accept them in PDF format. Having written several documents
> containing more than hundred pages in various different word
> processors,
> I can attest to Word's ability to insert weird errors into your
> documents at the last possible minute. In one case, Word decided to
> mess
> up a table of contents in a document containing over 200 pages. We
> were
> eventually forced to write the TOC by hand in order to make our
> project's deadline.

As a former graduate student, I'd concur entirely. Word is adequate
for a five- to ten- page paper with minimal special formatting (and
I'd include "footnotes" in special formatting). Once you get into
diagrams and images, Word gets clunkier and clunkier. I wrote *one*
paper with Word 2000 when I was in graduate school, because I had
heard that Word had been improved; I had so many problems with it
(the most perplexing was, the first footnote mark was on the first
page, but nothing I could do would get the footnote body to appear
anywhere before the second page.

> If you let students hand in PDF files, they can use whatever
> application
> they like (personally, I use Mellel for long documents). Adobe Acrobat
> provides extensive commenting features which allow you to easily mark
> those documents.

Exactly -- if the point of allowing students to turn in Word
documents is so that the professor can more easily comment, then any
solution that allows for that commenting ought to be good enough.
Constraining the options to a few file formats -- Word and PDF -- and
*always* allowing submission on paper would seem to be the most
reasonable route. If you require me to read your chicken-scratch
handwriting, I'll cope; if you require me to use Word, I'll find
another class to take.

--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilburchromatico.net

On Sep 1, 2005, at 6:08 PM, John C. Welch wrote:

> Adobe's markup features are handy, but designed for use after
> you're close
> to a final proof. They are still WAY behind Word's, which allow you to
> modify the document from many sources, and show you the final
> results, along
> with allowing you to choose the modifications you want. Adobe's
> features are
> still closer to a red pen on paper.

Which is, in the context of students submitting a paper to a
professor for feedback and commentary, exactly appropriate. The
original poster's reason for requiring students to submit papers in
Word was so that students would not have to read his handwriting.

If I were trying to write a paper collaboratively with a colleague, I
would most likely use LaTeX and some kind of version control system.
Having actually *used* Word's change-tracking features, there's no
way I'd actually trust a document I cared about to it, and producing
a book-length manuscript in it -- or even a lengthy paper -- is
nightmarish. I can't imagine what it would be like if I had to deal
with Office for Mac versus Office for Windows issues on top of it --
all the long-document nightmares I've had thus far involved the same
version of Office on the same operating system, at least.

--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilburchromatico.net

On 9/1/05 17:29, "Charlton Wilbur" <cwilburchromatico.net> wrote:

>> Adobe's markup features are handy, but designed for use after
>> you're close
>> to a final proof. They are still WAY behind Word's, which allow you to
>> modify the document from many sources, and show you the final
>> results, along
>> with allowing you to choose the modifications you want. Adobe's
>> features are
>> still closer to a red pen on paper.
>
> Which is, in the context of students submitting a paper to a
> professor for feedback and commentary, exactly appropriate. The
> original poster's reason for requiring students to submit papers in
> Word was so that students would not have to read his handwriting.

That's assuming you have Acrobat 7 which performs in a speed faster than
that of a cold banana slug racing across drying epoxy, unlike Acrobat 6. I
would not wish Acrobat 6 on people I don't like. As well, the markup
features of Acrobat really only work reliably with Acrobat, not
<insertpdfreaderhere>. Just because PDF works everywhere doesn't mean what
Acrobat does to a PDF will.

>
> If I were trying to write a paper collaboratively with a colleague, I
> would most likely use LaTeX and some kind of version control system.
> Having actually *used* Word's change-tracking features, there's no
> way I'd actually trust a document I cared about to it, and producing
> a book-length manuscript in it -- or even a lengthy paper -- is
> nightmarish. I can't imagine what it would be like if I had to deal
> with Office for Mac versus Office for Windows issues on top of it --
> all the long-document nightmares I've had thus far involved the same
> version of Office on the same operating system, at least.

I dunno, I used to run 300 page scientific proposals in word, it's not the
greatest at that, but it can be done.

Using a version control system isn't terribly practical since most of the
free ones assume text, and work like a sucky thing that sucks on binary
files.

However, there's no way I'd try to teach anyone but someone who HAD to use
LaTeX that monstrosity of a page layout system. Maybe one day, when there's
a front end to it designed for humans, I'll think about it, but I haven't
seen one yet. If the LaTeX people want that to come out of the ghetto of
scientific typesetting, they're going to have to give it a UI that is a bit
friendlier than the current "Zombies are gonna eat me" one it has now.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On Sep 2, 2005, at 3:13 AM, John C. Welch wrote:

> On 9/1/05 17:29, "Charlton Wilbur" <cwilburchromatico.net> wrote:
>
>> Which is, in the context of students submitting a paper to a
>> professor for feedback and commentary, exactly appropriate. The
>> original poster's reason for requiring students to submit papers in
>> Word was so that students would not have to read his handwriting.
>
> That's assuming you have Acrobat 7 which performs in a speed faster
> than
> that of a cold banana slug racing across drying epoxy, unlike
> Acrobat 6. I
> would not wish Acrobat 6 on people I don't like. As well, the markup
> features of Acrobat really only work reliably with Acrobat, not
> <insertpdfreaderhere>. Just because PDF works everywhere doesn't
> mean what
> Acrobat does to a PDF will.

Well, yes; but if you're going to criticize Acrobat for being flaky,
proprietary, and slow, you're going to have to find something a heck
of a lot better to nominate as a replacement than Word.

>> If I were trying to write a paper collaboratively with a colleague, I
>> would most likely use LaTeX and some kind of version control system.

> Using a version control system isn't terribly practical since most
> of the
> free ones assume text, and work like a sucky thing that sucks on
> binary
> files.
>
> However, there's no way I'd try to teach anyone but someone who HAD
> to use
> LaTeX that monstrosity of a page layout system. Maybe one day, when
> there's
> a front end to it designed for humans, I'll think about it, but I
> haven't
> seen one yet.

LaTeX source *is* plain text, and I've been quite successful at
teaching people how to use it, even without a front end.

--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilburchromatico.net

On 9/2/05 02:30, "Charlton Wilbur" <cwilburchromatico.net> wrote:

>> That's assuming you have Acrobat 7 which performs in a speed faster
>> than
>> that of a cold banana slug racing across drying epoxy, unlike
>> Acrobat 6. I
>> would not wish Acrobat 6 on people I don't like. As well, the markup
>> features of Acrobat really only work reliably with Acrobat, not
>> <insertpdfreaderhere>. Just because PDF works everywhere doesn't
>> mean what
>> Acrobat does to a PDF will.
>
> Well, yes; but if you're going to criticize Acrobat for being flaky,
> proprietary, and slow, you're going to have to find something a heck
> of a lot better to nominate as a replacement than Word.

Depends on the document. For huge complex docs, Word has issues. For shorter
ones, it works fine. There's not much out there with a decent front end that
has Word's collaborative editing features.

>>> If I were trying to write a paper collaboratively with a colleague, I
>>> would most likely use LaTeX and some kind of version control system.
>
>> Using a version control system isn't terribly practical since most
>> of the
>> free ones assume text, and work like a sucky thing that sucks on
>> binary
>> files.
>>
>> However, there's no way I'd try to teach anyone but someone who HAD
>> to use
>> LaTeX that monstrosity of a page layout system. Maybe one day, when
>> there's
>> a front end to it designed for humans, I'll think about it, but I
>> haven't
>> seen one yet.
>
> LaTeX source *is* plain text, and I've been quite successful at
> teaching people how to use it, even without a front end.

LaTeX is plain text, but any images you use in it are not. As well, I'm
willing to bet the people you were successful at using it were techincally
oriented. Everyone I ever saw using LaTeX did so in EMACS and had,
literally, tons of custom macros written for it. That still doesn't make it
easy to use, inviting to use, or have a friendly UI.

I've worked with people who wrote everything in raw postcript code, and
swore that was easier than Word OR LaTeX. Didn't make it true then either.
LaTeX needs a better UI. It's always needed one. Until it gets one, it's
going to be used by the people who use it now. As Office moves towards XML,
the document stability issues should get better, since 99.9% of the problem
is that silly OLE container format they have to use now. That will also
clear up a lot of the cross platform issues.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

[Let's try to keep this focused on academia... -Adam]


On Sep 1, 2005, at 11:04 AM, kyle_skrinak wrote:
> Agreed. However, as a former pre-press manager, most of our
> technicians would refuse to (or fight mightily against having to)
> handle files generated on the Windows platform. Heck; I'll up the
> ante. MS Publisher files from an ME workstation. I would think one
> would have a competitive career edge in the market place if an
> operator wasn't so 'parochial' about their choice of tools and
> enthused by the challenge that such a job presents. (Note to
> Windows-only I.T. support for G.A. environments: your TCO remains
> much higher.)

There are other important considerations, like what the return will
be on jobs that hog machines and skilled press workers, which is why
virtually every printer I've worked with over the years (they tend to
be mid sized to larger ones) will refuse to accept MS Publisher at
all. I don't think that the print broker I've used with the last few
years, who does handle small jobs, can afford to bother with them
either.

Many publishing companies instituted "no art in Corel Draw, even if
Michaelangelo or Warhol rose from the grave to produce something"
because the files would be problematic and end up incurring lots of
money and causing major grief in overtime.

A press operator who devoted lots of time developing skills in
cleaning up MS Word or Corel Draw messes will find these skills are
not in demand in many companies, and the smaller and niche companies
that accept these files won't pay well.

>
>
> On two design lists I belonged to, there have been many discussions
> initiated by designers who work on PCs that can't find jobs in
> companies because they don't have experience with Macs. As I've
> worked in recruiting, I've pointed out that companies hire not just
> on portfolio quality, but on how someone will work in a team and
> how quickly people can accomplish particular goals, and PC people
> are often at a disadvantage when trying to break in to Mac
> environments.
>
> Again, I agree. However, wouldn't be even better to be savvy on
> both (heck, why not include Linux?) There's a thread of thought,
> somewhere out there, that advocates a cross-platform ethic, in that
> it frees your mind from solutions that derive solely from a single-
> platform approach. This might be possibly akin to the advantages of
> speaking more than one language. Before the student develops her
> graphics skills, say, would it be beneficial for her to cut her
> teeth on computing fundamentals?

There could be advantages if the student enjoys and is good at
programming, but outside academia and specialized environments, a
design student who took 14 credits in Unix/Linux programming will be
at a disadvantage in the job market when going up against students
have 14 more credits in design courses, or who took the extra credits
in advertising, portfolio development, etc. Keep in mind that many of
the top BFA/BA design programs do not give credit for basic courses
in Photoshop, Illustrator, how to use a Mac (though some schools give
credit for these courses as non-major electives) - students are
expected to have the basic skills.

>
>
> > Giving them everything will be merely handing them a fish, not
> teaching them > how to fish.
>
> It depends on the student and the path they are considering.
>
> Despite my quasi-neo-ludite tendency to downplay the value of the
> essentials of computing and the rudiments of pedagogy, I think
> we're past the point where a student can be blithe to this aspect
> of contemporary career requirements. But, yes, there's *always*
> exceptions, no doubt, but I'm hard pressed to think of an example.

You can still be a brilliant artist without knowing how to turn on a
computer at all. And you'll find hundreds of thousands of artists and
designers at ad agencies and media companies around the globe that
are absolute geniuses at Quark, Photoshop, etc., who will be unable
to cope if their power strip somehow got unplugged from the wall. As
I mentioned, there was worldwide industry Panic when Photoshop
changed its default color space from CMYK to RGB.

Marilyn

On 9/2/05 11:54 AM, "Marilyn Matty" <mmattynyc.rr.com> typed:

> Many publishing companies instituted "no art in Corel Draw, even if
> Michaelangelo or Warhol rose from the grave to produce something"
> because the files would be problematic and end up incurring lots of
> money and causing major grief in overtime.
>
> A [pre-]press operator who devoted lots of time developing skills in
> cleaning up MS Word or Corel Draw messes will find these skills are
> not in demand in many companies, and the smaller and niche companies
> that accept these files won't pay well.

The more important skill to acquire is the troubleshooting skill, not the
Word, CorelDraw or Publisher expertise. Additionally, we've received
Mac/Quark files with horrendous issues; the Mac isn't exempt from production
botchery. But yes, that's another matter. The operators who thought "out of
the box" got the files to render. (And they were the best paid.) This
thinking is aided by the agility one develops when one is comfortable with
computing fundamentals. As for my previous shop, without exception, we
plated all the Windows files (Acrobat was _very_ helpful in this regard) and
this was for a $25 million / year 4-color commercial printer, which I don't
_think_ qualifies as a small shop but it depends on what criteria you use.

> There could be advantages if the student enjoys and is good at
> programming, but outside academia and specialized environments, a
> design student who took 14 credits in Unix/Linux programming will be
> at a disadvantage in the job market when going up against students
> have 14 more credits in design courses, or who took the extra credits
> in advertising, portfolio development, etc.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating programming courses -- in fact, I'd
discourage it unless programming were germane to the student's needs or
interests. I'm talking about a base understanding of how a computer
operates: I/O, CPU, ports, motherboard, how the OS interacts with the
hardware, and so on. I don't mean making one (although I don't discourage
it) but that the operator is comfortable understanding that, say, a bad
library component in the system's Library folder might be at fault and
therefore does not a complete OS reinstallation.

> You can still be a brilliant artist without knowing how to turn on a
> computer at all.

Touché! Agreed.

--
Beauty will save us
       --Dostoevsky

On 02 Sep 2005, at 01:13 , John C. Welch wrote:
> Using a version control system isn't terribly practical since most
> of the
> free ones assume text, and work like a sucky thing that sucks on
> binary
> files.

Well, yes, but he was saying version control and LaTeX.

> However, there's no way I'd try to teach anyone but someone who HAD
> to use
> LaTeX that monstrosity of a page layout system. Maybe one day, when
> there's
> a front end to it designed for humans, I'll think about it, but I
> haven't
> seen one yet. If the LaTeX people want that to come out of the
> ghetto of
> scientific typesetting, they're going to have to give it a UI that
> is a bit
> friendlier than the current "Zombies are gonna eat me" one it has now.

On the one hand I agree. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to get
just enough knowledge in LaTeX to produce gorgeous looking papers,
and on the gripping hand, the use f a single template can make even a
computer neophyte quite adept.

I setup a single template file for my wife, marked the things she
needed to change for each paper, and that was it. I had to intervene
when she had to produce and outline on one paper, but otherwise it
was pretty straight forward. I'd produce the final pdf to mail to the
professor and we only once got someone who wanted a "word" document,
so I used tex2rtf and sent and rtf. For the vast majority of windows
users, they will never know the difference between rtf and doc. If
I'd taken a little bit longer and shown her TeXshop I likely wouldn't
have had to do anything at all.

INSTALLING LaTeX, on the other hand, is a nightmare, even with the i-
installer.

--
Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you *think*
before you break 'em.

On 9/2/05 18:14, "Google Kreme" <gkremegmail.com> wrote:

> On the one hand I agree. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to get
> just enough knowledge in LaTeX to produce gorgeous looking papers,
> and on the gripping hand, the use f a single template can make even a
> computer neophyte quite adept.

And what happens when they need to move past that template, yet don't wish
to become an expert in markup?


[OK, this has devolved - let's move on. -Adam]


--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com