General
Advice for Macintosh-using Educators
Your
aging Macs deserve better
by Bill
Palmer
So
your school isn't quite ready to make the leap to MacOS X. By
sticking with the traditional MacOS, you're denying your students
the opportunity to put fantastic multimedia tools like iLife
and Keynote to use. But considering the glacial speed at which
most educational software companies
tend
to update their products, you're one of the few groups of Mac
users whose hesitation is justified. So I'll spare you the rest
of the lecture about why you should be moving at least some of
your Macs to OS X, and I'll skip straight to the part
where I tell you about something that you should be doing for all of
your school's Macs: you need to juice them.
Juice
your Macs, you say? You mean, as in turning them into apple
juice? Nah, no such pun intended. What I mean is that even in
you're not going to make the leap to OS X, there's probably quite
a bit of meaningful upgrading that your older Macs could benefit
from greatly. If you're like a lot of K-12 schools I've visited,
many of your older iMacs, G3 all-in-ones, and clamshell
iBooks haven't been touched since the day they first went into
use. Part of the beauty of the Mac platform (and reason number
6,125,692 that the Mac is the correct platform for schools) is
that you can often ignore a Mac for a few years and it'll just
keep cranking along. But here in the middle of the school
year, I'm going to give you an assignment. It's time for you
and your technology team to descend on your school's Macs and
bring each and every one of them to a minimum level of "updatedness".
To make things easier,
I'll even provide the checklist for you, complete with links
to each of the updaters:
1)
The first software upgrade we're going to do will be the operating
system itself. But before you can do that, you have to double-check
a few compatibility issues. If your school uses a desktop lockdown
system such as FoolProof, you'll first need to update it to the
latest version. And, you'll want to make sure that it's temporarily
turned off before proceeding.
2)
Those of us in consumerland generally scoff at anything below
128 or 256 MB of RAM, but the tray-loading iMacs in your school
came with only a paltry thirty-two! Your school might not have
the funding to add the kind of RAM you'd like to, but all is
not lost. You can greatly enhance the speed and usefulness of
an older iMac by simply adding another 32 MB for a total
of 64...and, you can often purchase 32 MB RAM chips wholesale
over the internet for as little as two dollars each. Even if
your school isn't allowed to purchase from internet wholesalers,
I'd be willing to be that your PTA is. And you can find detailed
instructions on how to install that RAM on Apple's website.
3)
So now that all your iMacs, iBooks, and G3's are sporting at
least 64 MB of RAM, it's time to take the next step: firmware
updates, perhaps the weirdest and least understood of all updates.
It's likely the only software update you'll ever perform that
requires a paperclip. But go ahead and do it; it takes
less time than you'll expect, and in some cases it's actually
required before you can upgrade the operating system. You can
get the latest firmware for tray-loading iMacs here, and for
slot-loading iMacs here.
4)
And now, the most crucial of upgrades: MacOS 9. Is it ironic
that I'm recommending that you upgrade to an
operating
system that most of the Mac universe is moving away from?
Sure it is. But the fact is, MacOS 9 (at least in its 9.1 and
9.2
incarnations) was by far the fastest and most stable pre-OS
X system that Apple ever created. Check with your district
to see
if you might already own a blanket OS 9 license. If not,
check with your local Apple Rep about the cost of purchasing
one.
They just might be willing to practically give it to you.
5)
Even if you can't acquire an OS 9 license, take solace in the
fact that all of your slot-loading iMacs are already running
it. But many of them are probably still running 9.0 or 9.04.
There's simply no reason for this! Sure, upgrading to 9.2.2 will
require three successive installations (9.1,
9.2.1, and 9.2.2), but someday, you'll come back and thank me.
The increases in both
speed and stability will work to your school's advantage in the
long run.
6)
Now that you've got the system-level updates out of the way,
you can turn your attention to the individual applications. First
up is AppleWorks. Of all the computer-related tragedies I've
seen in schools, seeing Macs still running version 6.0 of AppleWorks
is perhaps the worst. It's buggy. It's unstable. You can do something
about it. Leave 6.0 behind and update to one of the flavors of
6.2. Apple just released the 6.2.9
update, which I haven't been
able to test yet. The previous 6.2.7 update had a sporadic printing
bug, so you might want to standardize on the extremely stable
and clean version 6.2.4. But whatever you do, get away from version
6.0 (and 6.1, for that matter) as fast as humanly possible! Note
that the above version numbers apply to OS X installations; the
OS 9 versions are each a hundredths place or two lower. In other
words, the "6.2.4 updater" actually updates AppleWorks to version
6.2.3 if you're still running OS 9. It's not a big deal, but
it's often a source of confusion. Just ignore it.
7)
Next up is an update called CarbonLib
1.6. You'll never use it
directly; it's a library that AppleWorks 6 and other "carbonized"
applications call on in the background while they're running.
Don't worry, it's an extremely quick install.
8)
This next one might be controversial to some Mac users, but it's
essential nonetheless. Safari doesn't exist on OS 9, and Netscape
4.7 is just a horrible, horrible browser. So regardless of what
you might personally think of Microsoft, you owe it to your school
to install the only legitimate web browser on the OS 9 platform:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1. It's your choice; you can either
go with IE 5.1...or you can have Netscape load web pages
far too slowly, fail to load various modernized pages at
all, guzzle up too much RAM, and crash
too often. Several older Macs already have IE 5.0 installed,
but this isn't the answer. Go ahead and install version 5.1.
You can download it here.
9)
Now that you've got the best browser in place, you'll want to
load up on helper applications and plugins. You wouldn't want
a teacher to hit a download or attachment that he can't access
properly, so be sure to install the latest versions of Acrobat
Reader and Stuffit
Expander. And to ensure that your students
never come across educational web content they can't load, make
sure you install the latest versions of QuickTime, RealPlayer,
Windows
Media Player, Flash plugin, and Shockwave
plugin. You
might notice that some of these links don't lead to the true
latest versions; that's because not all of them are still being
developed for OS 9. But that's the compromise you make by not
moving OS X. Still, you'll want to install each of the above
updates to ensure that you're as current as possible.
10)
Now that you've got all your essential software components, you
might consider trimming down the list of active Control Panel
and Extensions. By doing so, you can free up RAM memory and boost
your computer's speed. But if you don't know what you're doing,
you could make a mess of things. Clearly, you don't need the
AOL extensions turned on, nor do you likely need the Location
Manager on a desktop Mac. But if you're going to attack your
Extensions Manager, it's best to do on only one "test" machine,
tweaking it until you've got an active extension set that you're
sure will allow all your software to function normally. A good
rule of thumb is that if you don't know what an extension is
or does, leave it running; you don't know enough about it to
be turning it off. If the whole thought of it makes you queasy,
you might skip this step entirely. But on the other hand, a Mac
with only 32 or 64 MB of RAM could really use the breathing room.
Just to be absolutely clear here, we're talking about "turning
off" extensions and control panels via the Extensions Manager,
NOT about throwing them in the trash. Never trash them!
11)
Develop a standardized system for which applications should be
made easily accessible by students. There's never any reason
for students to have to go digging through the hard drive just
to launch the software that they use on a regular basis. My recommendation
is that you place aliases of the most common apps on the desktop
and then "lock" them (via the Get Info panel). I also recommend
that you duplicate those aliases and add them to the Apple Menu.
Why the redundancy? Because despite 18 years of development,
the traditional MacOS never did produce
an application-launching
scheme that comes anywhere close to OS X's Dock in terms of ease
of use and constant accessibility. For that reason, you're best
off giving the students more than one way to access their apps.
But don't talk to me about the Launcher, a terribly inefficient
and outdated app-launching utility that's older than most of
your students. It manages to get in the way of everything, while
still being no more accessible than desktop icons. But that's
just my opinion.
12)
Since you're making the rounds and visiting every one of your
Macs anyway, you might want to perform a few more tasks, if you
have time. The first is to set up a standardized set of bookmarks
in Internet Explorer that includes your school's website along
with a handful of other sites that your teachers all feel are
essential. The second, which is purely cosmetic, is to
install a standardized desktop picture on all of your Macs. What
better way to advertise your school's slogan, or better yet,
the address for your school's website?
13)
Attack your Control Panels and set them up in a way that's more
advantageous. Turn off the "Sleep" timer altogether;
sleeping Macs are less likely to get used during the day. Instead,
set
your
Macs
to automatically start up every morning and shut down every evening.
That way,
your Macs start each day with a fresh restart...and you
won't have to worry about whether your teachers are actually
turning on the computers in their classrooms! If you have time,
go to the Monitors control panel and calibrate your screen's
color balance. Sure, it's not essential, but what other opportunity
will you ever have to do these little things? You're making the
rounds anyway.
14)
Open your Utilities folder and run Disk First Aid. And then just
as you're quitting Disk First Aid, hold down the Option and Apple
keys so that your desktop will rebuild as the Finder starts back
up. I bet you didn't know you could rebuild the desktop in OS
9 without restarting the computer!
15)
One more step, if you can. I don't recommend running tools such
as Norton Utilities too frequently, but now would probably
be a good time. First, run Norton Disk Doctor, to correct any
errors. Then, run
Norton
Speed
Disk, to optimize the drive. The bad news is that Norton will
cost you $100 or more; the good news is that you only have to
buy one copy. Whatever you do, don't install Norton
Utilities, just boot from it and run it. And don't fall into
the trap of running it too often; it would be like changing your
oil every three miles instead of every three thousand.
All
the standard disclaimers apply regarding backing up your crucial
data before performing upgrades, etc. As always, use your own
best judgment in such areas. One final piece of advice: consider
placing all of the above updaters on a local server, burn
them all to one CD-R, or employ some other method making them
all easily available each time you sit down to update another
Mac. That way, you won't have to deal with the insufferable fate
of
downloading
them from
the
various
websites
repeatedly.
In
summary, you can add a lot of mileage to your school's aging
Macs without spending a lot of money. And even if you think you
might be migrating these same Macs to OS X before long, you'll
likely want to perform most of the above updates anyway; in doing
so, you'll be crafting the perfect "Classic environment" for
when you do migrate. If you're already overworked in your job
as Technology Coordinator, see if you can assemble a team of
technically-inclined staff members willing to share the load.
If your staff is already spread too thinly but you've got funding
available, you might consider bringing in a
consultant like me to do the dirty work, allowing
your staff to focus on doing what they do best. But one way or
the other, develop a plan for bringing your school's Macs respectably
into the 20th Century, if not the 21st.
If
you have items that you would like to see added to the above
checklist, feel free to share them by sending email to billpalmer@billpalmer.net.
Remember, we're all in this together.
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