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I had a great experience yesterday. I brought a trial copy of Xara X to my daughter's school to show her class. I had arranged this awhile back and thought the kids would like it. I wasn't disappointed ... and neither were they. Even the class ruffians were glued to the screen, pulling quickshapes filling them ... beveling them etc.
Anyway ... the school's lab (like perhaps many schools), find it finacially tough to keep upgrading computers and so on, (luckily Xara X installed to Win' 95!)... I ran into problems with the blend steps. On most of the machines (all of them were very slow), I couldn't change the blend steps value. I only had an hour to show them around Xara. Last night the teacher asked me to come back again soon ... hopefully with a solution to the blend problem. It probably happens with the contour tool as well, but i didn't have time to check it. 25 Grade 5'ers are a handfull...
Thanks, Wayne
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I had a great experience yesterday. I brought a trial copy of Xara X to my daughter's school to show her class. I had arranged this awhile back and thought the kids would like it. I wasn't disappointed ... and neither were they. Even the class ruffians were glued to the screen, pulling quickshapes filling them ... beveling them etc.
Anyway ... the school's lab (like perhaps many schools), find it finacially tough to keep upgrading computers and so on, (luckily Xara X installed to Win' 95!)... I ran into problems with the blend steps. On most of the machines (all of them were very slow), I couldn't change the blend steps value. I only had an hour to show them around Xara. Last night the teacher asked me to come back again soon ... hopefully with a solution to the blend problem. It probably happens with the contour tool as well, but i didn't have time to check it. 25 Grade 5'ers are a handfull...
Thanks, Wayne
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Ivca - Now you are a Xara evangilist!
Regarding time-stealing blends: Maybe, in the context of what you are doing with the class, the blend tool icon could be removed from the toolbars and not be used or missed. I use standard default toolbars myself but I believe they can be easily customized - see the help files.
Another idea. Have the school join the xaraclub. Create a xara factsheet the kids can take home to show their folks. On that factsheet have the school's xaraclub referal link. If the families use it and end up buying software, the school will get the referal income. Xara's referal program is quite generous and so helping to sell several copies could allow the school to have a few bucks for the computer lab.
An extension of the idea would be for the school to post the kids' xara creations on a website. Feature info about xara and use the referal link to direct visitors to xara and the software. A website link could potentially reach a lot of people. (Grandparents, teachers, and other folks interested in kiddy art).
Regards and keep the faith! -- Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
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Wayne
Doing a demo for the kids is a great thing. I'm going to do a demo next month for a BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) high school class in Gallup, New Mexico. (Do you know that our New Mexico license plates say New Mexico, USA on them?)
I'll be using my laptop so if all goes well I won't have to deal with the blend steps problem.
I don't imagine you were trying anything overly fancy or system-taxing were you? And did the computers have a reasonable amount of memory and/or available disc space?
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Even So Humble...
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Yes, as a matter of fact Gary, some of the computers were 486's I think. I only had enough time before hand to install the software so I couldn't benchmark many of them. They were not on a network, so I had to install 15 separate times.
As I mentioned, the OS was Win'95 and most (or all) of the displays were set to 256 colours. No biggie though, as I thought to myself in that they all looked more like Xara movies (mpegs):) while the british fella reminded me (in my head) "not to worry, chap ... Xara's onscreen dithering to the rescue!!!"
I had about an hour with them ... doing mostly filling shapes and trimming, intersect, using other shapes to create compound objects ... etc. I quickly touched on beveling, blending, drop shadowing thier names, you know ... a little flash at the end. But I liked it and want to go back and continue with them.
Place soapbox here ----> You know, I really think it's important for people to give of themselves in anyway shape or form. In my case, It's plausible that by going in and showing these kids something I know they haven't or probably won't ever see, that I struck a cord with at least one out of 25 that he/she will pursue a line of work or discover a talent they never new they had thus providing for themselves a living or a rewarding hobby that brings them more meaning.
That's what it's all about .... for me.
Be good to yourself today, you deserve it ... Wayne
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Wayne
I use X on Win95 and have no particular problem with blends and /or 256 colours. It may pay you to do a little 'homework' with the computers to see how they're configured. My experience of 486s running Win95 is that they're usually upgraded from Win 3.1, low on RAM, low on virtual memory (i.e. disk space) and have all manner of unnecessary drivers loaded via autoexec. The computer can usually be made very usable but often requires a clean installation of all the software, stating with Win95.
It may also be the case that X is not compatible with 486s, so you might also try a demo of CX2.
Regards - Sean
