J. Klein Productions Inc. was founded in Colorado Springs by English teacher Jay Klein. In the mid 80s, Jay saw a need for an electronic grade book system that would operate on the Apple II computers the school was using. Grade Busters came to be right after the movie, Ghostbusters, so the connection becomes obvious. It has been a good name in the multitude of grade book names. Grade Busters, on the Apple platform, has outlived hundreds of similar programs, and is still selling today, 12 years later. J. Klein Productions Inc. is one of the top sellers of electronic grade books. One of their biggest selling points is their commitment to free, unlimited, lifetime product upgrades. There are currently over 500 site licenses, including the Denver, Tucson, Houston, and Nashville public school systems.
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I have just begun using this application after having taking a position in a new school district. I find the MTG to be a decent app, doing everything I have thus far asked of it. Jay Klein product support is very good, you get a human being on the phone, and email questions are answered almost immediately.
My biggest beef with this app is that it seems somehow non-Maclike in its implementation. Similar functions are spread across several menus, and the whole thing seems like something out of the 1980's. When I showed the app to my wife, she said it reminded her of the Windows-based applications she uses for billing at the hospital at which she works. This app would benefit enormously if a Mac developer, familiar with the Mac human interface guidelines scrubbed this program, it would then be top drawer.
As it is, I would still highly recommend this application to anyone who does not have a school-wide grading system run on the back-end of the computing chain. As already indicated, documentation is nonexistent, but being so straightforward, and with good customer support that is not much of an issue. One small issue is that if your school already has a license for Windows, you must either purchase a one seat license for you Mac OS X computer (You do have one of the three Macs in the Windows-based school, don't you?), or a $500 unlimited seat for your district. I hope I will be reimbursed for my purchase, after all, teachers love freebies.
I am waiting for some feedback from those people using the newly released 1.2 beta version, after all, with something as important as my gradebook, I am hesitant to use beta versions of software until some water has passed beneath the bridge.
For personal use, and its ability to pretty much do anything you ask of it, I give this app 4 brightly polished Apples up, at least that's what I hope shows up after my individual ratings are averaged..
Printer buffer error corrected in 1.1e
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Pros
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Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />The page counting and printer buffer crash error have both been corrected as of version 1.1e. MTG is still the best Mac or Windows teacher gradebook and is highly configurable. The authors are prompt in replies concerning requests for improvements as well as for bugs. Our school district has purchased a district-wide site license which is very affordable.