ALPHABABY FOR MAC MAC OS X
Drop this plug-in into /Library/Screen Savers or ~/Library/Screen Savers, and AlphaBaby becomes available as a Mac OS X screen saver, configurable via the Desktop & Screen Saver pane of System Preferences. You choose the object (stars, lines, squares, circles, ducks, or trucks), the color (fixed, random, or rainbow), and the thickness/size of the “line.” You can also remove the restriction requiring the mouse button to be pressed, so a younger child can draw by simply moving the mouse.įinally-and this is one of my favorite features-AlphaBaby includes a Mac OS X screen saver module.
If your child is a bit older and can use a mouse or trackpad, AlphaBaby can draw objects as the mouse cursor is dragged across the screen. A neat feature is that if you have a folder of images and a folder of sounds, you can “match up” sounds with images by naming them similarly (for example, daddy.jpg and daddy.aiff ). You can also choose a different folder of sounds (in AIFF format) anywhere on your hard drive, or you can have AlphaBaby instead speak the names of letters, shapes, and images, as well as speak the color of each shape (for example, blue triangle ) using OS X’s built-in text-to-speech technology. Whenever an image appears on the screen, AlphaBaby plays a random sound from OS X’s default sound folders (/System/Library/Sounds, /Library/Sounds, or ~/Library/Sounds). (However, I found that once I used an iPhoto album, turning the feature off didn’t remove my photos from the “pool” of images.) You can also determine the ratio between how often AlphaBaby’s shapes and your own images appear, and you can have AlphaBaby assign each of your images its own key. However, you can instead use your own folder of images or even an iPhoto album via AlphaBaby’s preferences. When typing non-alphanumeric keys, AlphaBaby uses its own images by default-mostly simple geometric shapes. There’s also a Mode setting that lets you decide how AlphaBaby responds to key-presses: the slightly-misnamed Single Letter mode displays only a single item (letter or shape) at a time, dead-center on your screen Alphabet mode displays the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9, one at a time and in order, regardless of which keys are pressed and Typing mode displays letters and numbers (non-alphanumeric keys function as a Space bar) in a fashion similar to a word processor-starting in the upper-left and continuing across the screen in lines. (The default is 30 you can also manually clear the screen at any time via a keyboard shortcut.) You can choose your preferred font and font size and whether to display capital letters or mixed caps. You can also determine how often-after how many items appear-the screen should be wiped clean. You can choose between a number of color palettes, including an Infant set that includes just black, white, and red. In my testing, the only keys AlphaBaby didn’t take over were Eject, Volume Up/Down, and Brightness Up/Down hopefully a future version can block these as an option (especially considering that kids love to play with shiny objects-like, say, a newly-ejected CD or DVD).ĪlphaBaby offers a number of useful options for customizing its onscreen display and actions, accessible by pressing Control+Option+Command+P to bring up the preferences dialog. (By default, pressing letters and numbers results in those letters and numbers appearing on screen pressing other keys or the mouse button results in random shapes.) Just as important, AlphaBaby locks the screen so that your baby or toddler can’t accidentally (or purposefully) exit AlphaBaby you have to press the keyboard shortcut Control+Option+Command+Q, or quickly type q-u-i-t, to quit. As your child presses keys on the keyboard, large, colorful letters and shapes appear on the screen, and sounds are played to go with them. When you launch AlphaBaby, it takes over your Mac’s screen and replaces it-Desktop, menu bar, Dock, and all-with a clean white background. This is where that beat-up keyboard in the basement comes in handy.)
ALPHABABY FOR MAC SOFTWARE
(Safe from a software standpoint, that is depending on your baby’s physical development, your keyboard may not fare so well. In short, AlphaBaby make it safe (for your files) and fun (for your baby) to bang away. A fun solution to both concerns was recently suggested to me by an old friend and co-worker from theĮducational Technology Unit of UCLA’s GSE&IS: Laura Dickey’s AlphaBaby 1.51 ( payment requested).
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