Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Launcher tricks
The Launcher dates back to the first Performas running System 7.1p and has not changed much since System 7.5. But I still find it useful for kids, both at home and in the school iMac lab. You can accomplish some of the same stuff using Favorites and Button view in System 8.x and later. For computers used by both kids and adults, I put the adult programs in Favorites and the Kids stuff in the Launcher.
My wife teaches grades Pre-K through 6 in her computer lab and has lots of programs. She learned the trick of making separate categories for the different grades from another computer lab teacher: create sub folders in the Launcher Items folder with a bullet (option-8) as the first character of the folder name. To keep them in order by grade, she has bullet-space-space-Pre-K, bullet-space-K, bullet-1st, ... bullet-6th. Then put all your program aliases in those subfolders (none in Launcher Items to avoid having a "Main" category).
Getting things into the Launcher is easy: select an item in the Finder, drag it to the open Launcher window, and an alias is automatically created for you. For a web site, first drag your browser address bar to the desktop or a Finder window which creates a web location document. To delete or move items we open the Launcher Items folder in the Finder and drag them. We put an alias to Laucher Items into the Apple Menu Items folder to make it easy to get to, plus an alias to Launcher itself so you can easily get the Launcher back after you close it.
Little kids really need different icons on the Launcher buttons. But the Launcher does not respect custom icons pasted onto items in the Launcher Items folder or category sub-folders. The solution is to put the original item somewhere else, and paste the custom icon onto that original. Then make an alias of that original and move it to Launcher items.
Custom icons for CD-ROM programs and applications on servers tend to be forgotten by both the Finder and the Launcher. One solution is to copy the application file in question to some out of the way location on the hard disk. This is just to get the Mac desktop to remember its icons. You still run the program by an alias in Launcher Items pointing to the CD-ROM or the server, not your out-of-the-way copy. Another solution is to use a chain of 2 aliases: make an alias to the CD-ROM or server app, place it outside Launcher Items, and copy and paste the icon onto that alias (even though it appears to already have that icon!). Now make an alias of that alias, and put the 2nd one inside Launcher Items.
Occasionally the Launcher window will become very tall, with the resize box hidden below the bottom of the screen. You just need to close the Launcher and discard Launcher Preferences.
My wife teaches grades Pre-K through 6 in her computer lab and has lots of programs. She learned the trick of making separate categories for the different grades from another computer lab teacher: create sub folders in the Launcher Items folder with a bullet (option-8) as the first character of the folder name. To keep them in order by grade, she has bullet-space-space-Pre-K, bullet-space-K, bullet-1st, ... bullet-6th. Then put all your program aliases in those subfolders (none in Launcher Items to avoid having a "Main" category).
Getting things into the Launcher is easy: select an item in the Finder, drag it to the open Launcher window, and an alias is automatically created for you. For a web site, first drag your browser address bar to the desktop or a Finder window which creates a web location document. To delete or move items we open the Launcher Items folder in the Finder and drag them. We put an alias to Laucher Items into the Apple Menu Items folder to make it easy to get to, plus an alias to Launcher itself so you can easily get the Launcher back after you close it.
Little kids really need different icons on the Launcher buttons. But the Launcher does not respect custom icons pasted onto items in the Launcher Items folder or category sub-folders. The solution is to put the original item somewhere else, and paste the custom icon onto that original. Then make an alias of that original and move it to Launcher items.
Custom icons for CD-ROM programs and applications on servers tend to be forgotten by both the Finder and the Launcher. One solution is to copy the application file in question to some out of the way location on the hard disk. This is just to get the Mac desktop to remember its icons. You still run the program by an alias in Launcher Items pointing to the CD-ROM or the server, not your out-of-the-way copy. Another solution is to use a chain of 2 aliases: make an alias to the CD-ROM or server app, place it outside Launcher Items, and copy and paste the icon onto that alias (even though it appears to already have that icon!). Now make an alias of that alias, and put the 2nd one inside Launcher Items.
Occasionally the Launcher window will become very tall, with the resize box hidden below the bottom of the screen. You just need to close the Launcher and discard Launcher Preferences.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Network Assistant in the iMac lab
Today was my wife's first classroom day as computer lab teacher. She has 30 bondi iMacs, an iMac DV for the teacher, a G3 server, and a snow iBook for use at home and to carry in as needed. We are scrambling to set up some extra clamshell iBooks for classes of more than 30 students.
Apple's Network Assistant has proved to be a key utility for setting up and running the lab. The school had both version 3.5.2 and 4.0.1 but had lost the 4.0.1 CD. Luckily I found a Network Assistant 4 CD on eBay, as the older versions don't work well with Mac OS 9.1. We chose that OS so every student computer could run the same software. Then we set up one iMac the way we wanted, and used the Copy Hard Disk function of Network Assistant to duplicate it eventually to all 30+ Macs. As updates and changes are needed, many of them can be sent as file and folder copies through Network Assistant.
While teaching in the lab, other functions of Network Assistant come into play. She can lock the screens, start and quit applications, and change color depth on all the Macs at the same time. Some things you want to do are not available in Network Assistant, but if you can do it in an AppleScript, you can copy the Applet to all the Macs and Network Assistant can run the Applet. So I found ready-made ones to change screen resolution, and made my own for Run Launcher, Close Finder Windows, and Put Away Shares.
Apple's Network Assistant has proved to be a key utility for setting up and running the lab. The school had both version 3.5.2 and 4.0.1 but had lost the 4.0.1 CD. Luckily I found a Network Assistant 4 CD on eBay, as the older versions don't work well with Mac OS 9.1. We chose that OS so every student computer could run the same software. Then we set up one iMac the way we wanted, and used the Copy Hard Disk function of Network Assistant to duplicate it eventually to all 30+ Macs. As updates and changes are needed, many of them can be sent as file and folder copies through Network Assistant.
While teaching in the lab, other functions of Network Assistant come into play. She can lock the screens, start and quit applications, and change color depth on all the Macs at the same time. Some things you want to do are not available in Network Assistant, but if you can do it in an AppleScript, you can copy the Applet to all the Macs and Network Assistant can run the Applet. So I found ready-made ones to change screen resolution, and made my own for Run Launcher, Close Finder Windows, and Put Away Shares.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
6200 and SoundJam
I had accumulated 3 of the road-apple 6200 models plus a 4th one that doesn't work, and was wondering what to do with them. A teacher wanted a Mac to run AppleWorks, so I got one out and did some experiments. Since I really like iTunes 2, I put 64M on it and OS 9.1, then iTunes. Bottom line, iTunes really does not work on this hardware. So it is OS 8.6 for this model which really runs well. And doesn't need so much RAM, so I went back to 32M (2x16) and save my 32M SIMMs for other projects.
The 6200 is regarded as a road-apple mainly because of the bizarre I/O architecture, which prevents you from using any modern external modem (no modem control lines). Since I knew the teacher would not be needing a modem, I chose this model for her. I put in an LC slot ethernet card (Farallon) which seems to work fine with the Apple driver. This disables the printer port (but the modem port is still usable). A comm slot ethernet card will disable the modem port.
To see if this model could be a music/tv machine, I grabbed another 6200 and went searching for an alternative to iTunes. The best was SoundJam MP free, which I had to download from some place in Russia. It works really well, except each time you launch it there is a registration reminder. But the company is shut down and you can never register! The audio output is only 22k on these models, so even with speakers, sound is not as hifi as the 44k powermacs.
To finish this project, I plan to put the TV tuner card in (it already has the prerequisite video input card), and have a Mac that doubles as a TV and an MP3 player.
The 6200 is regarded as a road-apple mainly because of the bizarre I/O architecture, which prevents you from using any modern external modem (no modem control lines). Since I knew the teacher would not be needing a modem, I chose this model for her. I put in an LC slot ethernet card (Farallon) which seems to work fine with the Apple driver. This disables the printer port (but the modem port is still usable). A comm slot ethernet card will disable the modem port.
To see if this model could be a music/tv machine, I grabbed another 6200 and went searching for an alternative to iTunes. The best was SoundJam MP free, which I had to download from some place in Russia. It works really well, except each time you launch it there is a registration reminder. But the company is shut down and you can never register! The audio output is only 22k on these models, so even with speakers, sound is not as hifi as the 44k powermacs.
To finish this project, I plan to put the TV tuner card in (it already has the prerequisite video input card), and have a Mac that doubles as a TV and an MP3 player.
7100 and AppleShare IP
Have not posted for a while, because I felt I had to fix some things in the blog template and didn't get around to it. But I've decided to post some of the things I've learned this summer, and deal with the template later.
I fixed up a 7100/80 with no sound as an AppleShare IP server. It was very difficult to add RAM; apparently this model really needs matched pairs of SIMMs. I had a matched pair of 16's, but none of my 32's matched so it was trial and error until I finally found a combination that worked. So the total is 104M (2x16, 2x32, plus 8 on the logic board). The manual inject floppy drive was not working and could not be cleaned, but I discovered that this model can take an older auto-inject floppy and the slot in the case lines up fine.
AppleShare IP version 6 is a great little server, very easy to set up and use. So far I've just used it to test things at home for my wife's new job. They have a blue&white G3 server for the iMac lab, plus a 9600 server which we hope to get as a backup for the G3. Both run a similar version of AppleShare IP.
I fixed up a 7100/80 with no sound as an AppleShare IP server. It was very difficult to add RAM; apparently this model really needs matched pairs of SIMMs. I had a matched pair of 16's, but none of my 32's matched so it was trial and error until I finally found a combination that worked. So the total is 104M (2x16, 2x32, plus 8 on the logic board). The manual inject floppy drive was not working and could not be cleaned, but I discovered that this model can take an older auto-inject floppy and the slot in the case lines up fine.
AppleShare IP version 6 is a great little server, very easy to set up and use. So far I've just used it to test things at home for my wife's new job. They have a blue&white G3 server for the iMac lab, plus a 9600 server which we hope to get as a backup for the G3. Both run a similar version of AppleShare IP.
