New Software, Disposable Software, and Second Life
Royal Van Horn · Phi Delta Kappan · 2008
THE FUTURE is a complicated place, as I've said many times before. Unfortunately, it is getting worse than even I could imagine. I used to think that I was a power user of all kinds of technology, but today that is no longer possible. There is just too much complexity for any one person to master. One of the relatively recent happenings that has complicated matters is the advent of what I call By that term I mean any software that becomes obsolete in a very short time. Both Microsoft and Apple now make disposable software and have done so for several years. Let me explain. Every 12 to 24 months, Apple releases a new version of the Mac operating system (OS X). The most recent version is called Microsoft does likewise for PCs. Leopard has many enhancements of the interface and offers specific features that help to automate work flow. However, before installing Leopard, you absolutely must go through all the other software you own to find out if it is compatible with Leopard. Plan on spending the better part of a day completing this task. A friend just installed Leopard and quickly found that his version of Photoshop, as well as other programs, did not work on Leopard. He further learned that no upgrade was available, so he would need to purchase an entirely new version of many of his programs. So within less than two years, his recent version of OS X had become disposable and with it much of his other software. There goes another hundred dollars for Leopard and a few hundred more for Photoshop. In past columns I have mentioned Keynote, Apple's great presentation program, which is bundled with Pages to make what Apple calls iWork '06. In late 2007, Apple came out with iWork '08. A few days ago, I wanted to use Keynote to create a presentation that I could export as a QuickTime movie. The export failed. I had recently upgraded to QuickTime 7.2 player, which I think was the problem. Now I will probably need to purchase QuickTime 7.2 Pro for about $30. And because there is no upgrade path for Keynote '06, there goes another hundred dollars. You can avoid problems like those above if you keep in mind that the software in your computer must work together and that old and new programs might not play well together. To avoid problems, never upgrade any software unless you are prepared to upgrade nearly all of your software. You can simply keep using the old stuff that works. Now that I have given Apple some press, let me turn my attention to Microsoft's latest blunder: Vista. If you thought Apple liked to upset the apple cart occasionally, consider Vista, Microsoft's newest version of its Windows operating system. A lot of older PC software is not compatible with Vista. Here are a few words from the Microsoft Vista website: Most programs written for Windows XP also work in this version of Windows, but some older programs might run poorly or not at all. If a program written for an earlier version of Windows doesn't run correctly, use the Program Compatibility Wizard to change the compatibility settings for the program. To change settings for a program manually, use the individual program's Compatibility tab. If changing the settings does not fix the problem, go to the program manufacturer's website to see if there is an update for the program. Here is an abbreviated list of the settings you might have to tweak to get older software to run (minus any description of what they do and how to use them): compatibility mode, run in 256 colors, run in 640 x 480 screen resolution, disable visual themes, disable desktop composition, disable display scaling on high DPI settings, privilege level, and show settings for all users. How bad is the Vista dilemma? Already I have students who are frustrated because I cannot open their e-mailed homework, which they wrote in Word 2007. I simply have to ask them to please bring me a printed copy. …