Ubunto Feisty Fawn Released/ Great School Solution

Website: http://www.ubuntu.com or http://www.edubuntu.org/

Grade: A

Cost: Free

I have reviewed and suggested Ubuntu before, but with their new upgrade to Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, I felt that it was a good time to talk about it again as a solution for schools. Schools face many interesting challenges, but the biggest is lack of current technology, older computers, donated computers, and lack of finances for software to keep everything working and running smoothly. Although it can't fix everything Ubuntu can help us in some of these areas. Ubuntu is a free Open Source Linux operating system that includes a wide variety of software to get you started with most common tasks. Of all the Linux varieties out there Ubunto is probably the easiest to get up and running. It also includes great software that gets you going, including a word processor, a spreadsheet, presentation software, firefox, email, and much more. Edubuntu is the education or kid friendly version that comes bundled with the basic applications as well as many educational titles. If you have an older computer that needs something more secure that an unsupported version of windows, or a donated pc that your not sure about software licencing on, or you just want a fun alternative, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, and Edubuntu are a great choice.

Adobe CS 3 Brings together Adobe's Assets

Website: http://www.adobe.com/creativelicense/
Grade: ? Pending
Price: $489.95-$995.95 depending on version (Academic Pricing)

Later this month Adobe is scheduled to release it's CS 3 suites of creativity software. Adobe has made many acquisitions over the last few years including Macromedia with the most used web development software Dreamweaver and Premiere the popular Video Editing software. With the release of CS 3 now the interoperability of these industry standards will be paired with Adobe's dominant Photoshop software package that works seamlessly together. The way the programs work together is the most significant change, but each of the applications has many enhancements that significantly improve the user experience.

Program: Stellarium
Website: http://www.stellarium.org/
Grade: A
Cost: Free

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. This application is available for Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux. A useful guide is also available on the site that provides you with all of the information you need to get started. The imagery is amazing and very accurate. This is a very powerful tool that is being used in many planetariums. This is a perfect application for any class studying space.

Create Great web Pages with NVU

Software :Nvu (pronounced N-view)
Website: http://www.nvu.com
Grade: A-
Cost: Free
Platform: XP, OSX, Linux

NVU is an open source software based on Netscape Composer from a while ago. It has been significantly improved and is now a very powerful and capable WYSIWYG (What you see is What you Get) web editor. With many powerful features that make it easy to build and manage a website. NVU is relatively intuitive and easy to use, however due to the complexity of the task managing links, menus, and web management takes a little effort to learn.

The support system for NVU is better than most open source projects, and has a wide variety of support options to help you learn the product. The manual and online guides are very helpful and cover most basic topics needed to create a great website. For more advanced help there is a forum, but it may not be active enough to get help for everything, or to get immediate feedback. Over all it is a very good program.

Norton System Works Premiere, A Pleasant Surprise!

Norton System Works Premiere preformed very well during my testing period. I must admit I was a little weary of trying Norton again because in the past I have had trouble with the anti virus significantly slowing my system. An when I installed it, I experienced a very long boot time, and was afraid this program was much of the same if not worse. Fortunately the boot time issue was a one time thing, and now my system works very efficiently. I preformed some benchmarks before and after installing the system, and after running the system optimization tools. there was no loss of speed in most tests before and after the installation, and those that we lower were still very close to original benchmarks. After running the system optimization tools I noticed a boost in boot speed and application launch speed. The benchmarks showed some improvement in most areas, although it was not significant. The tools worked flawlessly, yet the interface could use some improvement. Over all I was pleasantly surprised with the improvement in antivirus performance, and the tools worked well. The price tag is somewhat steep but if you watch for rebates you may even find help in this department. For those of us dismayed by the poor perfomance of System Mechanic 7 this is a good alternative.

Elementary Advantage 2007 Review

What it is:
Elementary Advandace is a collection of various educational software that covers a wide variety of subjects. Each subject has it's own disc and application for ten applications in all. The applications in general seem somewhat primitive, but are effective.
What it's not:
It is not a well thought out learning system where programs are tied together in an easily manageable system. It is not even interlinked in it's tracking system so that monitoring progress is a tedious task.

My Opinion:
Elementary Advantage 2007 is a reasoably priced collection of software, but because of the dated programs, and the lack of interactivity between the applications it is not a bargain. The 2007 on the box basically means that they reprinted the box from the 2006 version, but it appears that there are no significant upgrades to the software, with the exception of the encyclopedia. I purchased this product and for the price am satisfied, but hoped for much more.