What can I say? The included calculator, I finally used more of it today, has an
amazing bunch of features. Previously I just used it to do stupid little
calculations that anyone should do in their heads. Today I looked further.
Somewhere I read that the calculator can do currency conversions with fairly
current rates. I wanted to try this. I opened up the calculator, went to the
"Convert" menu, which I had never bothered to look at, and selected "Update
Currency Exchange Rates". This took a few moments to download new rates and
then showed me that it was updated 5/07/02 1:35pm. It's 6/07/04 10:00pm. Did it
update or not? The menu shows this update time, the popup box showed a
different time: 3/07/03 8:05am. The clock on the Powerbook is set correctly.
Well. My initial wonder at the calculator was disappearing fast. I looked at
help, to see if it would, well, help. It didn't.
Help did show me that you can alter calculations in the "Paper Tape" window by
changing the numbers and then pressing the "Recalculate Totals" button. This
works and is a great feature if you want to quickly check some scenarios, you
can calculate 1 then modify for the others, great!
Calculator with Paper Tape window (large).
I also finally noticed the Stickies application. I've been using a similar
application (by 3M) on Windows for a while, very handy. I like Apple's
implementation better, integrates nicer with the OS' "feel". The 3M application
for Windows just does not match Windows, it feels unprofessional.
