Software

Office 2003 is available to Palomar faculty and staff at a very low cost through the Foundation for California Community Colleges. The web site for faculty to buy Office (or Windows) is:

http://www.collegebuys.org/ Proof of faculty membership will be required.

Reduced prices on Office XP for students can be found at:
http://elms06.e-academy.com/CollegeSoftware/index.cfm

Because of its support for W3C and XML standards we recommend the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 or above when viewing web sites at Palomar College.

Acrobat Reader. The documents linked from many Palomar pages are in PDF format (Adobe Portable Document Format). You need a special program to read them called Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this program, click on the "Get Acrobat Reader" icon below.

Microsoft Reader. A new version of the very popular Microsoft Reader has been released. Click here for more information and download instructions. If you are not familiar with the world of e-books, two of the great free libraries are the University of Virginia etext center, and the Online Books Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Microsoft also gives away tools to create e-book content in Reader format.

Media Players. Some multimedia content on Palomar pages is designed to be played on the Microsoft Media Player, others on the Real Media Player. Both products are free and both support all client platforms: Windows, Mac and Unix. Get either, or both, by clicking the icons below. The latest version of the Real Player is version 10. The latest version of the Windows media player is version 10. We recommend the Windows Media player as the better of the two, but both can be downloaded, installed, and will coexist without a problem.

Shockwave/Flash Player. Some multimedia content on Palomar web pages use the Macromedia Shockwave or Flash player. The Shockwave player is free, runs on all platforms, and includes the Flash player. Get it by clicking the icon below.

Macromedia Shockwave Player
(includes Flash Player)

MusicMatch JukeBox. This is the best, free music media player available. Use it to rip/burn CD tracks, or batch convert audio files from one file format to another. There is a "plus" version available for $19.99.

Viewers, Filters and Converters and other Microsoft Office Downloads

Certain documents among Palomar web sites use Microsoft Office documents, or presentation managers. To view them, you may need one of Microsoft's free viewers or converters. Find any you might need at the following site:

Hot Potatoes. The easiest way to add interactive quizzes to your web pages is to use the free "Hot Potatoes" software, free from the University of Victoria. Six types of quizzes are possible, with a great, built-in tutorial. Registration of the product is required in order to get a fully functional version, but no cost is involved.

Hot Potatoes allows you to create any of 6 styles of web-based, interactive quizzes. Our class demonstrates how, and further explains how to load the quizzes into your Palomar web site and link to them through an upper level menu page. Read the class outline here. Take a look at some sample quizzes here.

Version 6 of Hot Potatoes was released in March of 2004, and is available for download here.

Save the file to the desktop, and double-click to install.