I just installed Maple 12 (Home User version).  The first thing I checked was whether Maplet Builder is still part of Maple.  It is.  Then I checked whether, having built a maplet with Maplet Builder, you can run it from within Maplet Builder.  I saw the same behavior as in Maple 11:  You are out of luck if your maplet contains a MathMLViewer window--you have to save the maplet and run it standalone to see it run.  In other words, no change in Maple 12.  This may discourage people from using Maplet Builder, but I have a feeling Maplesoft may not see that a

After having Maple for a week I'm happy with it but still have to learn a lot about the kinds of problems it can solve.  Here is a problem I solved many years ago whose solution I have misplaced.  I'm wondering if Maple could help me recover my solution.

Write an expression for ab (a and b real) using only the unit (1) and the operations of adding, subtracting, and taking the reciprocal.

I'm also curious whether this is a well-known problem.  As I recall, I didn't find any references to it when I worked on it before.

I just received and installed Maple 11.  (Maplesoft wouldn't sell me the student version, but I learned they have an unadvertised Home User version which is reasonable.  You have to call on the phone to order it.)  So far it's working well, but I can't figure out how to get an exact (symbolic) solution to a quartic with integer coefficients.

I posed an integration problem and Maple solved it so easily I decided I would like to get Maple.  I'm waiting to hear whether Maplesoft will sell me the student version.  While I'm waiting, I would like to ask this group a question I've always had about systems like Maple.  I will start by posing a problem:

Let C be a unit circle and let P be a point on C.  Draw a bigger circle B with P as center which crosses C at two diametrically opposed points of C.  What is the area of the crescent-shaped region inside C and outside B?

I am thinking about buying Maple, but I would like to know how it does with the following problem:

f(x):=log(2-cos(x)+sqrt(3+cos(x)*(cos(x)-4))) ;
r(n,p):=(1/%pi)*integrate((1-exp(-abs(n)*f(x))*cos(p*x))/sinh(f(x)),x,0,%pi) ;
r(1,3) ;

These are Maxima commands--let me know if it is not clear what they are doing.  I am wondering if someone with Maple could translate these commands into Maple-ese and try them. (Maxima just gives up on this integral.)