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JULY 2004

PRODUCT REVIEW:
Comgrafix’s Ragtime 5
By Mitchell Levine

Now that what was once exotic technology has become commonplace, many of us have become uncritical about the tools we use: although there are a few alternatives, it seems like almost everyone in the tech rank and file, keep using applications software from the big-time players. Certainly, most teachers in our schools don’t have time to program their apps in Visual Basic or C++, and there are a few folks that use NOD 321 antivirus instead of Norton, or Linux instead of Windows, but for the most part, teachers and technology procurers in the institutions use the lowest common denominator software.

You have to use Microsoft Office, right? It would be a virtual act of dereliction of duty to suggest that teachers and administrators deviate from this well-established baseline, wouldn’t it?

Well, I’m here to tell you there’s now an option: Comgrafix’s Ragtime 5 for Mac OS. Why should you consider this heresy? Here’s one good reason: it’s much cheaper. Without any potential discounts to the institution, you’re looking at an advertised student single user cost of only $95, or a sixteen-user license-share for $375! Compare that to Microsoft’s single-user education package, which only includes the most popular components of the Office suite, of $145. For schools that need to stretch their tech budgets as far as they can go to meet the mandates, that alone should be enough to make the switch.

Of course, that’s not the only reason to consider the Ragtime option: Comgrafix’s applications package has a wealth of features, and, even better, was designed specifically for Macs (but still operates cross-platform). Want a single, inexpensive software suite that cannot only cover basic (and advanced) word processing and do layout? Ragtime’s got you covered. Plus, the program saves documents as datasets, which allow you to compile the same basic text or images into different formats. Working with multimedia, a very important concept in today’s technology education scene, is clumsy at best with Office, but a snap with Ragtime: 2D and 3D graphics, as well as sounds and even video files can easily be incorporated.

I personally rarely work with images, so the feature I found most interesting was the software’s Apple script capabilities. Programming short macros—while requiring a small learning curve—was very helpful in processing repetitive tasks, like, to cite a recent example here, working with a list server.

Although some (in my opinion irrelevant) aspects like the interface are a little less polished than Microsoft’s, all in all, my opinion is that, given the powerful features and superior price point of the application, teachers and administrators could be doing their technology programs a disservice by not considering Comgrafix’s Ragtime 5 for their Mac-based IT systems.#

For more information, visit the company’s site at www.comgrafix.com, or reach them at their toll-free number (800) 448-6277.

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