osx leopard

[arguchik]

damn. osx leopard won't be released until october. stupid i-phone...apparently they had to divert people from the osx team to work on the i-phone software so they could get that schmancy device released on time.

well, i was trying to wait until leopard came out to buy a new laptop, but i might just do it sooner. might as well upgrade before i start on the real diss writing. the new mac books are pretty reasonably priced, actually--especially considering that i get the academic discount. also, i have discovered that the uw bookstore has clearance mac books for like $800. they have the intel core 1 duo processor rather than the intel core 2 duo processor that's in the new machines. i'm still deciding whether or not i want to pay for the newer technology. the up-side is that they may have worked out some of the kinks of switching to intel processors prior to building the newer machines... the down-side is that pesky cash...

i think i'm going to buy apple's word processing software rather than using microsoft office, too. i've been talking about going microsoft-free for years now, and haven't gotten around to it. i have office now, and while i'll miss excel, i won't miss the annoying features of word. no doubt apple's software will have other annoying features... so the question now is, should i get appleworks, or should i get iwork? i would pay $39 for appleworks, $49 for iwork (love that academic pricing--they each cost $79 for those outside of the ivory tower). appleworks has spreadsheet software, which i use for grading when i'm teaching. iwork integrates with ilife programs, which in turn come with the computer. i have fooled around with the word processors in both suites, and i prefer pages to appleworks...but that spreadsheet would be nice to have... no matter which i buy, the up-side is that i already own the most recent release of office for mac (2004, student and teacher edition), so if i end up hating the apple stuff, i can always switch back and not be out that much money. (by contrast, office for mac 2004 cost me $150 when i bought it.)

shit...neither endnote nor procite (bibliography software) is compatible with either of apple's word processors. guess i'll be stuck with office for awhile yet. p.s. i'm going to have to re-buy this software. i had endnote for awhile, but it didn't work with my version of word very well, so i didn't re-install it on this machine when i upgraded to osx tiger. i was wondering if anyone out there has experience with either/both endnote or procite--specifically on a mac--and could recommend one over the other. i have been limping along without biblio software, and i just don't want to have to re-type my bibliographies again and again and again anymore, or even to transport them from document to document. ya know?

Comments

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

Not sure if you are picky about spreadsheet software, but openoffice is free and has a decent spreadsheet. The wordprocessor isn't bad either, but probably not a good idea for something big that needs to be perfectly formatted and exported, like a dissertation.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

no, not picky about spreadsheet software. the bottom line though, is that i need a word processor that's compatible with one of the biblio software packages. i already own the latest version of office for mac (student/teacher edition, which includes excel and word along with powerpoint and entourage), so i guess i'm just going to keep using that. unless there's another biblio software package out there that's compatible with either the iwork or the appleworks word processor...then i would gladly use the openoffice spreadsheet.

[evernanon.livejournal.com]

Also, Google has free spreadsheet software and it's actually not bad. Do you have a gmail account? It's in a link up top.

And, I don't know if you know about the nifty feature in WorldCat where you can just click "cite this item" and it will bring up all kinds of citation formats (APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, etc.) Not even close to doing what biblio software does, but if you might be limping along without it a little longer, it's a handy thing to know about...

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

i ended up buying a new machine, and i bought the newest version of endnote. i'm just going to keep using MS-office with endnote. it looks like microsoft is planning to release the new office for mac 2008 in october, same time the new OS comes out, and the guy at the mac store said i'd be "grandfathered in" for an upgrade of endnote (though i have to double-check that). so...my thinking is, i'll use the machine with this software until it seems economically feasible to upgrade everything.

the machine is groovy. i'm not typing on it at this moment because it's still loading all of the requisite software updates, etc. it'll probably be fully up and running tomorrow sometime. fun fun fun!!!

[evernanon.livejournal.com]

Oh, and do you know about RefWorks? If you have full library privileges, this is one of them.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

no i didn't know about that, but i'll check it out. i should have gotten a comprehensive introduction to the library when i started here! they probably offered one, but i probably skipped it. heh--maybe i'll have you give me an abbreviated version before you leave! (kidding...unless you're into it...)

[evernanon.livejournal.com]

RefWorks is a really recent thing. One of the problems I think the library has is the PR problem -- they don't advertise these new great things nearly as well as they could, so nobody knows about them.

I'd love to give you more info about the library. Anytime, anyplace. :)