Irony of Ironies: Britannica Won't Function on My New MacBook
09/23/2006 12:36 Filed in: Technology
My transition over to my new MacBook went very smoothly. Apple's Migration Assistant, which is part of OS X, moved all my personal files AND applications over for me, so I was up and running in about an hour and a half. I remember back to the days when it took me a good week to get everything moved over.
In the end, I only had to reinstall two programs: Microsoft Office 2004 (I was getting an error message about missing files even though the software would function), and Symantec Antivirus (I know, I know--no viruses on a Mac; I'm just paranoid after working in the past as a system administrator).
And then as I launched each program to make sure it was running, I discovered--to my horror--that my Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 software would not launch. Upon going to the Britannica Tech Support site, I found an article titled, "Intel-Mac Compatibility Issue." Evidently none of the current Britannica software will work on Intel-based Macs because of "an unsupported third-party plug-in that the Britannica application depends upon for rendering articles." Not only will it not work, but they say they aren't going to fix it in the current versions: "At this time, there are no plans to patch any current or past versions of Britannica, although we hope to be able to certify our 2007 software with Apple’s new Universal compatibility standard (http://www.apple.com/universal/)."
Criminy. Don't tell David Ker about any of this.
Well, I've already removed the Britannica software from my Applications folder. There's no need for it to take up space if it can't be used. I'll dig through my CD's later. If I remember correctly, the CD I have can be loaded in either Windows or Mac OS X, and I did install Parallels Desktop yesterday to run the occasional Windows program (Parallels is much faster than VirtualPC ever was, I might add). But I don't know. Having to run Britannica in Windows somehow takes all the fun out of everything.
At least I still have my hardbound set which is platform independent.
Related Reading (in case you're just tuning in and don't know why this is ironic):
Is the Wikipedia the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
The Sum of Human Knowledge
Why Britannica Trumps the Wikipedia
The Wikipedia Is Not Enough
Martin Luther Was Excommunicated on this day and Why I Love the Encyclopedia Britannica
In the end, I only had to reinstall two programs: Microsoft Office 2004 (I was getting an error message about missing files even though the software would function), and Symantec Antivirus (I know, I know--no viruses on a Mac; I'm just paranoid after working in the past as a system administrator).
Criminy. Don't tell David Ker about any of this.
Well, I've already removed the Britannica software from my Applications folder. There's no need for it to take up space if it can't be used. I'll dig through my CD's later. If I remember correctly, the CD I have can be loaded in either Windows or Mac OS X, and I did install Parallels Desktop yesterday to run the occasional Windows program (Parallels is much faster than VirtualPC ever was, I might add). But I don't know. Having to run Britannica in Windows somehow takes all the fun out of everything.
At least I still have my hardbound set which is platform independent.
Related Reading (in case you're just tuning in and don't know why this is ironic):
Is the Wikipedia the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
The Sum of Human Knowledge
Why Britannica Trumps the Wikipedia
The Wikipedia Is Not Enough
Martin Luther Was Excommunicated on this day and Why I Love the Encyclopedia Britannica