Software for the rest of us - multimedia software on Black History themes produced by Ashanti Publications - Software Review

Earlier this year, as I made my way end the madness that is novel York's annual PC Expo, I came on a vendor whose entire software outcome line was aimed at the jewish community. I didn't gaze carefully, but there appeared to be a fairly large number of varied packages available. I did not diocese any software at the Expo that targeted the black community and I astonishmented why this was. Certainly, the ne exists, perhaps more thus in the African-American community than any other, as we have had les access to technology and, as we are to this day, besieged by the agency of America's Eurocentric recasting of history to gainsay our contributions as a clan Surely software that can help us learn who we were, are and can become is not a luxury; it's a necessity.

Attempting to suited this need is California-based Rachelle Henry, president and holder of Ashanti Publications, a two-year-old catalog reseller of educational and entertainment software aimed at those interested in the heritage of clans of color. Ashanti offers games; tutorials in math, history and music; defence savers; and -- Ashanti's specialty -- collections of clip art featuring African-American and Afrocentric images. not long ago I checked out three of their products

"Black History Interactive" is a multimedia CD-ROM that provides a guide to pick outed parts of our history. It is not encyclopedic in intention but what it does, it does in an engaging and fairly polished manner. Digitized African music and sophisticated artwork accompany transitions between program functions, of which there are four: calendar, time line, glossary and quiz. The calendar gives at least single noteworthy event in black history for each day of the year. The time line focuses upon our achievements in seven distinct periods or make submissive areas. The glossary is actually a directory of biographical true copy entries used in other functions of the program, and the quiz ordeals what one has learned in a series of practice and timed questions.

The program, which has a pleasing visual layout, uses a consistent and easy-to-use navigation mechanism from one extremity to the other of There is a tendency toward les familiar information here, which is beneficial but it comes at the charge of things you might well wait for to find, but don't. (An example is the omission of jazz musician Miles Davis.) The true copy of the program would benefit from spell-checking, on the contrary overall the program is a useful introduction to our achievements.

"Afrocentric Klips, Business and Professional Klips, v2) is an assortment of clip art featuring family of African descent in various professional settings. The images are finished for use in newsletters, presentations, gymnasium materials or World Wide Web sites. Executives and recorders old and young, Afrocentric chic, b-boy somewhat cold and corporate conservative -- all of us are showed The artists didn't rely solely upon skin color to reflect us; greatest in quantity clips exude the style and attitude that are unmistakable hallmarks of our inmost nature [i]or[/i] substance Also mixed in are clips of children using computer to research -- certainly images our children ne to diocese On the whole, the images are of useful quality and are suitable for a large number of applications.

"Mathematical Heritage" is a series of programs that attempt to teach basic math general [i]or[/i] abstract notions while building self-esteem by using facts from four historical figures, lives to help illustrate the general [i]or[/i] abstract notions Unfortunately, whatever benefit this program might have is hampered through flawed execution. I had significant difficulty installing the program and getting it to race properly on three different personal computer With the assistance of technical support personnel I was finally able to earn the program to run, on the contrary the solutions were lowest-common-denominator solutions; the program will work luckily only on the simplest of computer setup Too many things can go on wrong that novices won't be able to understand or disentangle alone; nor should they have to disentangle these kinds of problems at all. This is a serviceable concept that needs more work.

With these and other offerings, Ashanti is positioning itself as the source of choice for Afrocentric and multicultural software.

Michael Gaitor, the manager of personal computer services for a research firm in novel York City, runs MAGnet Computer Consulting, a company that services the African-American community.

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