Running CLEA applications on a Mac

The CLEA suite of astronomy software is written for Windows. Despite that, it is possible to run them on a Mac if you don't mind jumping through some hoops. To get started you will need:

• The CLEA software you want to install (the .EXE file(s)).
• WineBottler, which lets you run Windows programs on your Mac (it is based on Wine, which provides Windows emulation for Linux). Download and install both WIne and Winebottler (both are included in the download).

Now the work begins you will be using WineBottler to create a Mac "application" version of the CLEA program.

1. Open WineBottler; click on "Create Custom Prefixes" (screenshot)
2. Select the CLEA file you downloaded. (screenshot)
3. Click Install; choose a name for the Mac version of the CLEA program and click Save. (screenshot)
4. Wait patiently while WineBottler sets things up (screenshot), then follow the instructions in the CLEA installer (screenshot).
5. Shortly after the CLEA installer finishes you will be prompted to "Select Startfile". You want JupMoons.EXE (substitute the appropriate file for the CLEA software you chose) (screenshot)
6. Double-click the Mac version you just created. Before you run it you won't see the usual CLEA icon, but it will be generated the first time you launch it.

You are done!

Notes on the Moons of Jupiter software:

• When you launch it an annoying little window pops up; click cancel on it and the program opens up like it should. (screenshot)
• Fitting a sine curve to the data behaves oddly when you adjust the period; it seems to be resetting the offset every time youa djust the period. Don't know if this is a problem only on Mac or also on the PC version.
  

Skitch + Dropbox

I use both Skitch daily on a couple different computers and got tired of having to figure out which computer I'd made the original Skitch on. Dropbox seemed like the natural solution; just follow the directions at the Dropbox wiki...not sure who the original author was, but I just updated the instructions to handle the situation when your username on the computers you are trying to sync are not the same.

EPO and Astro 101: Constructive dialog or tossing bombs?

Overall the ASP/Cosmos in the Classroom meeting has been great. The only disappointment so far was the opening plenary "EPO and Astro 101: Shotgun Wedding, Marriage of Convenience or Meaningful Relationship?"

Instead of the positive dialogue that could have been--for example, exploring ways the astro ed research community could inform the evaluation of EPO efforts or the ways the evaluation experience of the EPO community could inform the outreach many astronomy instructors do outside the classroom, we bickered about tchotchkes and whether EPO evaluation was significantly rigorous.

The claim that the informal science community doesn't publish studies of efficacy is incorrect. All recent NSF-funded informal science projects (which includes some astro-related work) are required to post their eval reports at http://informalscience.org/evaluation. These are not peer-reviewed but they are done by independent evaluation companies. Maybe their results are statistically rigorous, maybe not, I'm not qualified to judge.

The number of peer-reviewed articles is quite a bit smaller if you restrict it to articles related to astronomy, though there is at least one in AER. If you want to educate yourself about body of peer-reviewed literature in informal science check out any of the journals in the research section of informalscience.org.

If you want a really quick overview find Mary Dussault or go to her presentation at 10AM in UMC235.

I'm sure it isn't too hard to find flaws in these studies if you are an expert, but is also extremely valuable to get an idea of how you evaluate the impact of an activity in which your contact time the learner might be only 10 minutes.

In any event, there *is* research, it just isn't being hand-delivered to the astro ed community.

In the spirit of the discussion yesterday morning, what will Ed report back to NASA from his workshops here? The number of participants or some more-detailed, carefully-constructed, statistically-valid evaluation of the efficacy of his workshop for the participants? I went to one and I *know they are useful*...just making the point that we all use numbers sometimes.

Finally, remember the public outcry when the HST servicing mission was canceled? I would imagine most of the people that contacted NASA or their elected representatives were not Astro 101 students, but had had some sort of EPO experience even if was just the Hubble Web site.

SoftChalk Lesson Builder v.5

I'm using Lesson Builder to construct online versions of some astronomy labs. I've run into these limitations with Lesson Builder (Mac OS 10.6):

1. Copy and paste from MS Word doesn't quite work. Lesson Builder doesn't copy images of the equations into the lesson folder so the images that appear correct on first doing the paste will not work later once the temporary files used by the system to do the copy to/paste are gone.
2. Apparently you can't copy/paste QuizPoppers...this is documented in their User's Guide, but it seems like that will make it hard to reuse materials.
3. LaTeXiT doesn't work drag-n-drop to Lesson Builder. A workaround is to drag to the finder, then drag from the finder to Lesson Builder. That does not work either with LaTeXiT's default setting of PDF output. PNG does work.
   

Mac finance programs

I used to use Microsoft Money, even on my Mac (I'm lazy, ok? I didn't want to switch since I could use VirtualBox). Then Microsoft abandoned Money, so I started looking for something else.

• iBank ($59.99): Scheduled transactions can't estimate future payments based on past payments (e.g. credit card bills). OK interface, slick looking. From user forums it looks like paycheck setup is not straightforward and at least one recent user had data loss with an upgrade.
• Budget: Uses the envelope model, which I don't like. Plus no easy way to forecast balances. Well, I didn't look very hard but I shouldn't have to.
• Cashbox (free?): Not actively developed(?), very basic features only.
• Money ($39): Doesn't import too nicely...all my transactions are listed as year 2020. No forecast, no paycheck entry.
• Moneydance ($39.99): What MS Money called bills are called reminders here. Import from MS Money works pretty well. Transaction entry is straightforward. Not sure how well the "Balance Predictor" works, and it looks like paychecks are splits. They have decent instructions/support for transitioning from MS Money. On the downside, they are not too fast with updates to their software.
• Moneywell ($49.99): Nice looking interface, but no forecast, and another "envelope" model program, which I still don't like.

For me the winner is...Moneydance. It is the easiest transition from MS Money, and import from MS Money was straightforward. Now I just hope the promised Moneydance 2010 materializes some time soon!