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wmmk

wmmk

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 28, 2006
2,414
0
The Library.
hello all,
i am a student and recent switcher. i had world book encyclopedia on my pc, and i'd love something similar on my mac mini. when i put my friend's copy of world book (he got it preinstalled on his iMac G5) on a dvd, then tried to run it on my machine, it said it could not be run on a cpu other than the one it was preinstalled on. i got q, an awesome emulator, and installed windows. on that, i can install my old world book cd. still, it just doesn't make sense to have to boot up windows on an emulated 46 Mhz pentiumII just to get reliable information. if there any downloadable free encyclopedias for mac (no, wikipedia will not look proffesional in a college boibliograpy) or ways to run windows apps on mac without actually booting windows (darwine with emulation?) would be truly appreciated. i'm on a G4, so darwine alone will do me no good.
thanks a bunch:)
 
The encyclopedia software packages that were bundled with the PC and with the iMac were not free... they were purchased as part of the machine bundles.

Usually, the software OEM or bundle license specifies that they can only be used with the machine they were sold with (which is one reason they are so much less expensive than a retail program). And borrowing it to install is not within the bounds of copyright.

I can't think of a name brand encyclopedia that is legal to download -- I think your answer here is going to be - purchase a Mac-compatible encyclopedia package.
 
see if you can find the current (for the US) issue of Britain's Macworld or Mac Format magazine. One of them has a full version of Encyclopedia Britannica on the cd(s)
 
i dont need name brand, just reliable. i live in america, and really can't subscribe to any magazines, so a download is really needed. thanks for the quick response.:)
 
now that i think of it, wikipedia would be great if it had a real nice gui and came with a wikimedia player plugin and automatic online updating, but most importantly was fact checked
TALK ABOUT COOL:D
 
Wikipedia is a great tool, but I wouldn't rely on it to heavily in college, or even high school if were you. Since it's edited by anyone and everyone, it's not necessarily factual. If you are just looking up facts, you might want to follow REv9k, and you don't have to have a subscription, you can get one of those magazines at a bookstore or newstand.

On another note though, you might want to be prepared to use a informational database like EBSCOhost or the like when you get to college. If you're in high school, I wouldn't worry about that yet, especially since you would almost certainly have to go through your school (college) to be able to access such a database. Just a little food for thought though.

By the way, I dig the user name, it's great to see a fellow Dem with pride. :)
 
Hmm, I think that you misunderstand me. You don't need a subscription to a magazine. Just pick up the current issue at your bookstore. If you live in just about any city, they will have the UK magazines.
 
CanadaRAM said:
The encyclopedia software packages that were bundled with the PC and with the iMac were not free... they were purchased as part of the machine bundles.
Click to expand...

Doesn't World Book still come with new Macs? My iBook came with World Book 2005...
 
ok, rev9k, im sorry. im trying to say that those magazines are not available where i live in america
 
i know that they sell a mac version, but it costs 60 bucks and i've already paid for the windows version. i wonder if they'd let me exchange it for the mac version
 
more important than this - why are you citing to an encyclopedia? slow update cycles lead to old info. Find another source that can verify what you are trying to cite to. The fact that it doesn't matter what encyclopedia (meaning not a quote), means a bit of hunting for the information elsewhere will get you a more reliable source more quickly.
 
If you are a college student, many Universities allow you to use name-brand online encyclopedias through the university. I go to UIC, and I have a huge selection of online resources that the university has paid for the rights for its students to access. I'm not too sure about high schools, though.
 
my school has SIRS, culturegrams, infotrac, and a whole bunch of other stuff, but no plain old encyclopedia. our system administrator claims encarta is free, but most of the articles are only available to subscribers. wold book and encarta have online services, but again, im a student who is kinda short on cash, if i must, i can just go to the library, but its nice to have info right on my mac, for free, and all being totally reliable
 
Despite it being potentially flawed, I still stand by http://en.wikipedia.org as one of the best resources there is. It has some media on there, not masses, but enough to get by with. In a recent report too, EB online was shown to be just as flawed as wikipedia.

It's certianly worth looking at as the starting point of any research.
 
wikipedia

I dont recall where the article was (I think I found it through digg), but I read that some big university professors compared it to brittanica and world book and some others and wikipedia came out more accurate and complete.

EDIT: actually it was nature.com and heres the article.
 
chaos86 said:
wikipedia

I dont recall where the article was (I think I found it through digg), but I read that some big university professors compared it to brittanica and world book and some others and wikipedia came out more accurate and complete.
Click to expand...

It was an article in the distinguished journal Nature. Unfortunately, it appears that the authors were more than a little misleading with their study. And then there's Nature's response to the response.
 
Democrat622 said:
i know that they sell a mac version, but it costs 60 bucks and i've already paid for the windows version. i wonder if they'd let me exchange it for the mac version
Click to expand...
It's not likely they will crossgrade you for free, again because it was an OEM bundle with the PC. The PC maker paid World Book or whoever maybe $4 for that disk in a volume deal. Which is why your usage is restricted on it.
 
sorry, i think this is getting confused. i bought world book for pc standalone, it was not an OEM deal. the only OEM deal was the world book mac edition that came with my friend's imac G5 (w/o iSight or FrontRow) i bought the world book cd right from store.worldbook.com.
 
chaos86 said:
wikipedia

I dont recall where the article was (I think I found it through digg), but I read that some big university professors compared it to brittanica and world book and some others and wikipedia came out more accurate and complete.

EDIT: actually it was nature.com and heres the article.
Click to expand...


saw a simlar thing on CNN a few weeks back, i love WikiPedia, it and FireFox on some of the best open on the internet!
 
zap2 said:
saw a simlar thing on CNN a few weeks back, i love WikiPedia, it and FireFox on some of the best open on the internet!
Click to expand...
yes, alas I doubt any professor worth his/her two cents will let you cite wikipedia as a source. It's great for looking things up on the fly, but not for anything else. And it's Firefox and Wikipedia, thanks.

Your college library should have some better resources available for free, like mine has a ton of online resources, including encyclopedias. However, it's sorta crummy looking to put an encyclopedia on any bibliography. Encyclopedias generally suck when you're looking for more than just the broadest of the basics.
 
Democrat622 said:
sorry, i think this is getting confused. i bought world book for pc standalone, it was not an OEM deal. the only OEM deal was the world book mac edition that came with my friend's imac G5 (w/o iSight or FrontRow) i bought the world book cd right from store.worldbook.com.
Click to expand...
OK, sorry, was hard to know in the original post. It would probably be worth an email to Worldbook then.
 
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