Hi,  I am a member of the T211 course team and thought you might like to know about its mac-usability. My role on the course team was as Lead Author of the T211 DVD and I have tested this extensively as I am a Mac user.

I thought that you may like some info on this course and its usability on Macs. This DVD will also be given to T307 students in 2006 to support their work on that course as well.

I have worked with the programmer for the course to try and make the DVD compatible on Macs.  There are several components on the DVD, the main interface, exercises developed in-house, external software and video footage. Almost all of this is now accessible on a Mac. If Virtual PC is installed then the whole DVD can be run from there, although the Virtual PC will not play video footage. This is not a problem though as video can be viewed using the DVD player mode. (see comments below)

The main interface is HTML with exercises that run in Java. On the version of the DVD that you have you should find a folder labelled Mac, locate the file "index.htm" and run the DVD from there.  On my G3 OS 9 iMAc there were memory issues and I ran into problems opening Java files. However on my G4, OSX iMac this is not a problem.

The interactive exercises, which we developed inhouse,  run fine. When you click the link to the exercises from the menus Java should open automatically, but, if it doesn't, double click on the highlighted file.

The externally created software is the biggest challengefor Mac users as it is all designed for PC. However it works fine on a Mac using Virtual PC. (which you should be able to get at educational discount).  Solid Thinking does actually have a  Mac version but at the moment the OU won't  permit us to put the Mac version on the DVD because the computing service cannot support Mac users.  It is possible to download a 15 day demo version from the SolidThinking website when you need it later in the course. The software which is given is quite valuable and for anyone interested in design it would be worth the investment in Virtual PC to have easy access to the excellent CES materials database.

Most of the external software is used formally towards the end of the course.  It is there as a resource for your design work to help you  find appropriate materials explore 3D modelling. If you don't  have Virtual PC, and don't want to buy it, perhaps you can plan to gain access to a PC for the relatively short time that access to these resources is required.

The video materials for the course are designed to play on a TV/DVD player as well as the computer and it is in this mode that they will launch on the Mac's DVD player.  If you use the Virtual PC interface students will see that there are also a few related 'extras' which cannot be seen in DVD player mode. These are mostly links to PDF files. You can find these files by opening the "files" folder on the DVD and then the "extras" folder.

If you intend to study T307 as well I suggest you consider investing  in Virtual Pc as on T307 far greater use will be made of the external software.

More about the external software can be found at the following sites:
 
 http://www.ces.cam.ac.uk
 http://www.grantadesign.com/products/index.htm
 http://www.pre.nl/eco-it/default.htm
 http://www.solidthinking.com/

Hope this helps

Georgy Holden
T211 Course Team Member, T307 Course Chair