GenTechReview

This is a quick smack down of the leading operating systems in the market. I will look at price, performance, tools, and compatibility for each and declare the winner.

Vista Business Editon

Price: A bit on the high side, but considering the distance between major upgrades, and there willingness to release major upgrades as free service packs it becomes more reasonable

Performance: The interface is great eye candy, and works well over all. There are some sluggish moments, and everything does not neccsarily work as advertised

Adobe has announced plans to pull te plug on there stock photo service that was integrated with the Adobe Creativity Applications.  The application itself was great and well designed in my opinion, but I feel that it’s shortfall is exactly the reason that never used it in a professional situation.  It relied on the big business end of stock photography, where the use of an image  in a project  could cost over a hundred dollars.    I personally use iStock Photo where I can by a picture for print for less than $10, and web use for even less.  There are a few big agencies and businesses that will use the premium services, but that is not enough to keep development on this feature up to date.  I guess it will be nice to regain a little hard drive space.

If you are a reader from my first blog EdTechReview.net you will know that I love Google Earth.  Google earth has many powerful features that make learning about and exploring our planet very fun and interesting.  I stumbled across a little hidden feature inside Google earth that takes it to a whole new level.  Google Earth has a hidden flight simulator built in.

To access the hidden flight simulator mode on a Windows PC press Ctrl + Alt + A and on a MAC press Command/Open Apple Key + Option + A (Must be capital A). After you have accessed the flight simulator mode for the first time, you can open it by going to Tools > Enter Flight Simulator.

You get the choice between an F-16 Fighter jet and a small passenger plan.  Although this is not on the same level as Microsoft Flight Simulator, it’s simple controls are easy to learn and fun to use.  The scenery is much better because it uses images from Google earth.  So instead of generic imagery between major locations you can see the real thing.

It has been a very busy summer, and thus I have had few posts, but I have stumbled across a product that I think deserves mentioning. The program is made for writing scripts with competitors such as Final Draft, Sophocles, and Movie Magic Screenwriter.

The biggest difference in Celtx and the other screenwriting software is that Celtx is Open Source. In addition to Celtx being free, it is also much more than just screenplay formatting software. Celtx has the Screenwriting component, a storyboard, scheduling, with online collaboration capabilities. The software was easy to download and get started. I have used both Movie Magic Screenwriter and Final Draft, and I found that the ease of use, and the powerful capabilities of Celtx are as good if not better than the competition that costs much more.

So why am I discussing this in a education blog? I believe that creating films in the classroom is a powerful educational tool. You can just put the kids on a word processor to write their script, but I feel that it is important to teach the kids the correct formatting for the script. I have considered using Final Draft but I did not feel that the cost even with academic pricing was justified. Celtx is a perfect solution because it’s free and can take students through the preproduction process. It begins with listing characters and coming up with a story line, and then scripting it. Students can also crate a story board to help out line there film. I believe that this is a great writing activity even if you do not progress to creating the actual films.

Unfortunately when it comes to Mac Products and software you get reviews from wither Mac Haters, or Mac Lovers, and the reviews are biased as such. Hopefully this review will be a little fairer, and approach it from one who jumps between Macs and PC’s with the grace of a ballet dancer. On my first impression I like the new I Work 08 suite. The suite is made up of three different applications to meet your office needs. The first is a presentation program that has been around for a few years. Keynote is a well polished application that has few rivals on the market. It is far more adept than Power Point in many aspects. If I were a Professional Presenter, or doing presentations was a major part of my workday this application is very powerful. Early versions of the program were a little more difficult to get going, but in the 08 version of the program it is just as easy to use as power point, except with keynote your end result looks a lot better and you have more options. Pages is a very good and intuitive word processor and layout application. I like that these two great tools are tied together seamlessly in this program. It is very easy to get the layout you want quickly. If you are putting the word processor alone head to head with Microsoft Word, Word wins out with expanded features and ease of finding advanced features. When you combine the layout capabilities with Pages 08 it becomes a very powerful product that most users will be very happy with. If you are a Microsoft Word, or even Apple Works power user, you will likely be disappointed Pages 08. The newest addition to the I Work family is Numbers. I personally like Numbers for laying out documents that need basic spreadsheets for presentations. It is easy to lay out a page that looks great and makes your data stand out. When it comes to serious calculation, or data processing though numbers falls short. In my opinion it is a totally different tool than Excell. Excell is a serious tool that assists you in tracking vast amounts of data and performing complex calculations. Numbers at this stage of development does not meet that need at all. When it comes time to taking that data and presenting it in a clear and good looking way Excell does not hold a candle to numbers. I personally keep all of my data in Excell and export the data I need to numbers to create documents to present to people.

For most people the Apple IWork 08 suite is a great tool that will meet your needs, and wants very well. You can create great looking documents with little effort. For power office application users, at this point this product is not for you. It simply does not have the advanced features needed, with the exception of Keynote, which in my opinion is the best product in it’s field.