"Apple Education: 'I'm Not Dead,' (Yet)"

Steve Wood's View from the Classroom continues with this month's column. While down, Apple Education may be poised to stage a comeback according to Steve's latest writings.

-- Weekend, April 28-29 --

[6:30p ET] PowerMail v3.0.9 is Out: From CTM, "CTM Development released a new version of its $49 flagship e-mail application for Macintosh, PowerMail, now natively supported both on Mac OS X (Carbon) and on Mac OS 9 and 8 (Classic).

"Designed as a fully-featured, user friendly alternative to Microsoft's Outlook Express/Entourage and Eudora, PowerMail features the highest performance mail searching capability, excellent compatibility with complex languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Hebrew as well as a state-of-the-art Mac-like design with Aqua support.

"The new version offers 14 new features, 26 bug fixes and has been successfully tested with Mac OS X version 10.0.1 and Mac OS 9.1 (all releases since 8.5 are supported). PowerMail 3.0.9 can be ordered, or evaluated as a 30-day trial; this version is free upgrade for PowerMail 3.0 registered users."

[3:00p ET] Linksys Wireless Access Point (WAP-11) Review on MacWindows. Last week we reported on our unsuccessful attempts to use Linksys' wireless PC and PCI cards in our Macs and Compaq Presario with our Apple AirPort Base Station. We noted that we had seen reviews which claimed that the Linksys Wireless Access Point ($179 with rebates) works with Macs using AirPort Cards. MacWindows recently posted a reader review. The WAP-11 works but the reviewer reported that it does not have a modem, NAT, a DHCP server or AppleTalk capability--so it seems you do get what you pay for. In our case, we just use our AirPort Base Station as a simple bridge (i.e. no modem, NAT or DHCP) for our PowerBook, iBook and iMac to reach our ethenet network's Linksys router. Except for the lack of AppleTalk, which we need for our Strydent network print server, the WAP-11 would work out just fine.

[10:30a ET] Flat Panel LCD Monitor Price Continues to Decrease--$399: In its weekend (usually Sunday) flyer, Staples advertises a 15" Envision LCD monitor for $399 after a $100 mail-in rebate. It has a 1024x768@75Hz resolution and a 3 year warranty.

[10:00a ET] Mac OS X iMovie Plugin Pack v2.1 is available for download from Apple's server. The iMovie Plugin Pack 2.1 for Mac OS X ONLY includes the following new effects, transitions, and titles: