Guess
a Number:(Win9x/NT)
Asks the student to guess a number. Intermediate
*** Exact
Change:
Win9x/2000/XP ~ Mac
(Classic) ~
Win 3.1 ~ Mac
(OS X)
~ Linux: Teaches kids
about money, counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s, and place value (whole
numbers and 2-place decimals). Now with Candian, US, UK, and Australian
currency
options! Levels for grades 1-3 (Note: the Win 3.1 is and
older,
CDN-only version).
Place Value
uses Canadian currency
to teach the meaning of place value from hundreds to hundredths: Windows
~ Mac
(Classic) ~ Mac
(OS X)
~ Linux
versions.
Ed-Net
Simulator: Pretend
to dial 732-8777 and get a taste of how on-line education used to be in
Vancouver. DOS
versionwill run
under
Win 3.1, Win 9x, New Deal, etc. Mac
version,
too!
Internet
stuff
Need
an
older browser for Windows
3.1, Mac, or other platform? Browser
Archivehas
over 100 browser versions for free download.
WS-FTP_LE:
(Win 95/98/2000/NT) Here's a free FTP program to update your school's
website. I prefer FTP
Surfer for a
Windows Explorer-like interface.
Or Filezilla or RightFTP.
Mac
OS X users should try Cyberduck.
Or the original Mac ftp program, Fetch,
is available to students and employees of educational institutions (or
charities) for free upon
application-- ver 5 for Mac OS X (10.2.4 or later) and ver 4
for older Mac OS versions.
NomadNews is a free usenet
(nttp) newsreader for Windows; another free usenet reader for Windows
and Linux is Pan. Microsoft's
Outlook Express and Mozilla's Thunderbird
(Windows, Mac, & Linux) include nntp and email.
Ed-Net
Simulator: Pretend
to dial 732-8777 and get a taste of how on-line education used to be in
Vancouver. DOS
versionwill run
under
Win 3.1, Win 9x, New Deal, etc. Mac
version,
too- for old-style Classic Mac OS!
MyWebServer
lets your computer be a webserver-- either for your local network or
across
the Internet. Or try Abyss
Web Server.
VNC
(Virtual Network Computer) lets you use TCP/IP over the Internet or
within
local area networks to view another computer's desktop on yours, and
run
programs, access documents, etc. on the remote computer. There are
Windows
and Mac versions-- run a Mac on a Windows computer or vice versa. There
are lots of versions of VNC- I like UltraVNC
If
you're
using Microsoft's Internet
Explorer 6 or later or Windows XP, you no longer have built-in support
for Webpages that use Java. Install Sun's Java
Virtual Machineto
be able to browse freely.
***Users
of Windows NT, Win2000, and XP need
to add Microsoft's little Wntipcfg
for that platform to help troubleshoot and manage TCP/IP settings.
**
Start Page Guardprotects
your browser's home page from being changed by students or software.
Add
a
spell-checker to Internet
Explorer to use with webmail. IESpell
offers the choice of US, UK, or Canadian dictionaries. Use
Outlook
Express? OE
Spell Checkis
a free spell-checker for that
popular
e-mail program.
*** Want
free popup stoppers, ad removers, spma blockers, and more? Check the
list
at Refdesk.
Need to
send out regular group mailings? Try GroupMail
Free
KidzLog
(Mac
OS X or Windows)
is a weblog publishing tool for kids... even beginning
readers/writers.
IECookiesView
lets you view,
edit, delete browser cookies in Internet Explorer.
Telescope
lets you search
multiple search engines at once
IEFix
does as the name suggests-- fixes Microsoft Internet Explorer; this can
be especially handy on systems where you can't uninstall/reinstall IE.
Web-Site
Creation tools.
An old, free,
easy-to-use Web creation
programs: AOLPress
2.0
for Windows
3.1, Windows
9x/2000/etc, or Mac
*** This
web-site was originally built and maintained using Mozilla Composer,
part of the
free Mozilla
suite (browser, email, etc). Versions for Windows, Linux, Mac, etc. Now
included in Mozilla's SeaMonkey web suite.
*** For
Composer-style webpage creation: check out Kompozer,
a website creation packages
with versions for
Astronomy
Animated Gifs:
animations for web pages of planets, zodiac constellations, etc. For PC
or Mac.
**You
can make your own animated GIFs with the (older) free version of Ulead
Gif Animator
Just
a
couple more Internet graphics:
make your page background look like notebook
paper
, make your page background look like a starry
night;
or use the world's best under
construction graphic
on your unfinished pages.
TryWebClipArt
for
links to lots of image libraries as well as a collection of free
graphics.
Or check Free
Graphics.com
Media
Builderhas
background,
border, icon, and line image libraries. Stuff! offers
background textures, buttons, and clip art
*** WebAlbum
Creator automates creating a web album from a
bunch of digital
photos-- resizing a folder-full, making thumbnails, and generating a
web
page, all automatically. Great! Alternatively, E-Mage
for Web also does a nice job of building web pages
of graphics
thumbnails or try WebAlbum Generator or YoPoW
(Your Photos on the Web). Mac (OS X
only) users can use Apple's iPhoto or the free jAlbum
Making
web pages but
not
sure how you would
like them to look? FreeLayouts.com
has literally thousands of design samples and templates you can try out.
Cascade DTP
makes it easy to
build webpages harnessing "the powerful features of cascading style
sheet (CSS) layout and formatting commands."
ZSoft Easy Web Creator"allows
you to create a website, easy as 1-2-3. All you have to do is add pages
and write the text."
First Page 2006
is a web page editor (Win2000/XP) with "great support for CSS, along
with a ton of power tools for PHP, ASP, Cold Fusion and Perl. First
Page now supports a ton of pre-built scripts for things like creating
popup pages, scrollbars, image thumbnailing, rollover images, and
auto-generating photo albums. Link checking feature looks for broken
links on your pages, color theme tools help create pages with
complimentary colors, built-in FTP and one of the better
find-and-replace tools for text in the Web design space."
Microsoft
Word can save documents as HTML files (web pages), but it does a poor
job of it, adding lots of extra baggage that results in slow,
cumbersome pages. WordCleaner is a free web-based
application (so it works for Windows and Mac, etc) that strips the
excess padding out of Word-HTML files.
For Mac
users
Note:
you'll find
many other programs for classic Mac OS or Mac OS X spread out amongst
the various content areas... not just in this Mac ghetto. For another
take on Mac freeware, you may want to drop by Freemacware.com. Also potentially interesting:
-Mac
operating system, hardware, and system utilities
Old Mac stuff- Links
to
making a Mac
boot disketteor
downloading Mac operating
system disk
images. The Apple
Specs Databasehas
all the facts on Apple's Macintosh
computes,
monitors, and printers
GrayShare
is an Apple update to allow for sharing b&w (or gray-scale)
Personal
Laserwriters and Stylewriters on an AppleTalk network.
Having
problems with SCSI devices on an old Mac? SCSIProbe
will help manage your chain... it can even be used to mount drives that
didn't show up at bootup.
Miss
the
ability to add custom items to OS X's Apple Menu (making it a program
starter like the Windows Start Menu?) XMenu
restores this classic Mac
OS feature to OS X.
DoubleCommand nicely customizes
Mac (OS X) keyboards... especially useful on laptops
Aqua
Scribusis a free desktop publishing (page design) program
for Mac OS X (Note: Scribus is a free DTP program originally for Linux).
ImageWell
(Mac OS X) "is the easy way to edit, rotate, crop, and resize your
image and upload it to your iDisk (.mac account), FTP server, or WebDAV
server."
Music
Math"converts values
for musical use. You can calculate the time stretching to use on a
sample if you change the tempo for another, or the number of semi-tone
to transpose, the time stretching to apply if you transpose a sample
and you don't want to change the duration, the delay in ms to
synchronise with BPM, and a tap delay fonction."
ToyViewer is not toy software-
it's a fast and useful photo utility
Abiword
is a free word proceesor with an interface like MS Word. Versions for
Mac
OS X (X11 required), as well as Windows ,Linux, etc. (No classic Mac
version).
viJournal Lite
is free
diary/journal software for Mac OS X 10.3+
note:
BC (Canada) schools can freely install any version of AppleWorks
(ClarisWorks)
onto school systems under the Provincial license agreement with Apple
-Mac
Internet software
The original Mac ftp
program, Fetch,
is available to students and employees of educational institutions (or
charities) for free upon
application-- ver 5 for Mac OS X (10.2.4 or later) and ver 4
for older Mac OS versions.
OS X
users can use the free Cyberduck or RBrowser
LiteNote- FTP
can
be
used as a quick and
dirty way to share files between Macs and PCs across and Ethernet
network.
Need
help
getting an Old
Mac on the Internet?
Here's instructions, downloads, even a
complete
operating system version (7.0.1)
Cyberduck
is a free Mac OS X ftp
(and sftp) client
Working with RealBasic
(not
free) a very powerful programming
environment,
similar to Microsoft Visual Basic, but on the Mac? It can be used to
create
both Mac (OS X and Classic), Linux, and Windows programs.
Free
tutorials RealBasic
University.
ProFit
is a math graphing program (with a useable free trial version)
Need
to
read Mac-formatted (high-density)
floppy diskettes on a Windows PC? Get the free Gemulator
Explorer.
Glider
Pro is a
lovely classic game for Mac (black & white, colour,
and even OS X) and Windows, now freeware. Fly a paper airplane
throughout
a house.
Looking
for
free (and school-friendly)
Mac games? Check Free
Games for Mac.
CosmoSaver
X is a free
screen saver with high quality images of the Solar
System for OS X.
MacTracker gives
information on every Mac ever made. Versions for OS X, Mac Classic,
even Windows!
***SnapNDrag
is a free screen-capture utility. Very well done. Mac OS X. GrabMac
is another Mac screenshot
utility with lots of features. Mac OS 9 or OS X.
*** Flip4Mac
provides Windows Media video and audio playback within OS X Quicktime
Player. (The same page has links for Windows Media Player for Mac OS X
and OS 8.1-9.x) Every Mac should install this, along with the free Perian
Love your Mac but need to use a Windows machine? Flyakite
OSX makes your Windows XP system look and feel almost like a
Mac running OS X. Very slick!
last
revised 16 July 2009
Alan
Zisman is a Vancouver educator,
writer, and computer specialist. He
can be reached at E-mail Alan
