They’re the brightest kids in school. But, not challenged by the school curriculum in the least, they’re hopelessly bored. How do you engage them?

If you’re Rodd Lucier, a teacher at the London Centre for Excellence, you design a program using tools that excite those students: iMac computers loaded with iMovie.

“They need lots of choices and are constantly looking for ways to express themselves creatively,” says Lucier. “The iMac was created for this task. It’s the perfect tool for them to really explore and push themselves to learn.”

When was the last time you picked up a pint of WYSIWYG ice cream?¹

If it was that long ago, you probably haven’t been dining on the sublime confections coming from the Kroger Food Company. Those who eat Kroger ice cream are assured that the ice cream they scoop out of the box looks exactly like the ice cream pictured on the package. Kroger makes certain of it.

With ColorSync.

Part of the Mac OS, ColorSync technology lets photographers—and other graphics professionals—control color. It allows them to make certain that the color on the package you pick up at the store matches identically the color of the subject being photographed—ice cream, in this case.

It’s all quite natural—with ColorSync.

¹ For those of you not familiar with the acronym, “WYSIWYG” means “what you see is what you get.”

They consistently rank near the top in Chicago’s public school system, and as such, their performance belies the notion that schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods can’t compete educationally with their better-heeled neighbors.

Despite the facts — nearly 75 percent of the kids attending Chicago’s Wildwood School live in poverty, 20 percent have learning disabilities, and 10 percent are physically challenged — the kids don’t just compete. They excel.

Such performance surely results from talented and dedicated teachers and administrators, motivated students, and supportive parents. We hope you enjoy reading about how iBook computers are helping them to raise the academic bar at the Wildwood School.

Don’t you just hate it when you try to download software, watch a video or simply load a graphics-rich web page, and it takes f o r e v e r?

Luckily, you can get out of heavy traffic and move into the fast lane with DSL service from Earthlink. For just $49.95 per month, you’ll cruise the Internet up to 50 times faster than with a dial-up modem connection. That’s right: up to 50 times faster.

What’s more, you’ll never have to “dial up” again—with EarthLink DSL, you’re connected to the Internet as soon as you start up—and you’ll get your phone line back, so you can get or make calls while you’re online.

So, don’t wait any longer. EarthLink is even offering free activation (normally $99) and a self-installation kit that’s as easy to use as your Mac.

Here’s a basic recipe for great personal music CDs: Open iTunes, mix in your favorite songs, then burn a batch onto a CD-R. It’s simple, fun, and a great way to take your own music with you wherever you go.

But what if you’re a real stickler and want to create audio CDs of only the highest quality? MP3 files may be good for some, but you want the music on the CDs you cruise with to sound just like the ones at home.

iTunes is up to that task, too. The trick is a secret ingredient known as the AIFF encolder. It won’t compress your music as compactly as the MP3 encoder, but it will let you retain the quality of the original music in your CD collection. To try your hand at this recipe, follow the steps in this article from our Technical Information Library.

How would you like your own animation studio?

In the past, such an idea would have been totally implausible. Today, however, you can squeeze an entire animation studio into your Macintosh computer. Thanks, that is, to Toon Boom Studio, one of the newest applications built for Mac OS X.

With this revolutionary application, you can:

Looking for something?

Just open Sherlock and your computer’s built-in search engine will do the sleuthing for you. In fact, we just added three new plug-ins to the Internet channel  to make your detective work even easier.

Want to find the most current version of a Mac application? Check out Version Tracker, where you can search for the latest software releases, including the newest ones built for Mac OS X.

How about a new job? Headhunter has over 250,000 job listings representing more than 10,000 employers nationwide. (Available only in the U.S.)

Or use Sprinks to locate product or service provider information. Try it—type “Macintosh” or “batteries” or “cell phones” and see what Sherlock and Sprinks find for you.

Dirk the Daring may not be the bravest knight ever to promise to uphold a code of chivalry, but he’s going to do his best to defeat the evil dragon Singe and rescue the princess Daphne. He’ll just need some help from you along the way.

Dragon’s Lair even offers two modes: Classic (which uses the simple controls of the original Dragon’s Lair arcade game) and Adventure (which allows a much wider range of actions but also puts more peril in your path).

If you’re ready, it’s time to enter the Dragon’s Lair.