Latest News

Archive for the 'Mac' Category

Happy 25th Birthday Macs!

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

I found it quite funny, that even 25 years later, that little booklet that drops in the ad for the original Macintosh looks just like the booklet I got with my MacPro when I switched last year. I suppose it goes to show even with leaps and bounds in advances in technology on a computer that is astronomically more powerful than the original, Apple still strives to keep things simple across all of their products.  Are they always successful?  No, but that goal is obvious in their product philosophy even 25 years later.   I would have to say my experience to date is filled with a lot fewer computer frustrations than before Feb 2008, and for that – I owe them thanks.   So Happy Birthday.

Here is another video that aired during the 1984 SuperBowl;

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Equipment notes, Mac, switch to mac | 3 Comments »

The Mac Experience – Part 4

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

WA8075.jpgGetting a new computer can be a great source of fun, as well as a lot of work in migrating all of your software and data over  Adding a new computer with a new type of operating system.. you would think it compounds the work  But actually it has been much easier than I expected  A lot of people worry about software expenses in such a move from PC to Mac   They can add up depending on the applications you use most   My most heavily used applications are from Adobe;  Photoshop, Lightroom, and Dreamweaver, and are probably the most costly to buy outright.

As I mentioned before, Lightroom already has cross-platform licensing, so it was a no brainer, and no cost to switch it   My other apps, I have been holding off on upgrading them because I was anticipating this switch   Dreamweaver also has cross-platform licensing,  so it only cost me the standard upgrade fee to get Dreamweaver CS3 for Mac  (less my NAPP discount of course!)    Photoshop is  a bit more complicated.

Adobe requires you to sign a “Letter of Software Destruction” (sounds ominous doesn’t it!) to transfer your PC license to a Mac license, and then only the normal upgrade fee applies if you are upgrading from an older version   I was moving from PC CS2 to Mac CS3 in this case  They do a lot of digging into your Photoshop history to determine your last full version that was registered (not upgrades)    Other than some time spent on the phone (and you do have to call to get a ‘case number’), it was rather painless   It is a good idea to first start with the 30 day free trial on Mac first to make sure all of your actions, presents, and plugins migrate over OK   Even though I am only a week into my trial, I probably have to start planning my Photoshop for Windows CD destruction party now.

WA8029.jpgI. am already spoiled on the speed I am experiencing in Photoshop CS3 on the MacPro   My PC was quite old I know,  a new PC would probably perform fast just as well  But just to highlight the difference, there is a popular Photoshop benchmark test that is referred to quite a bit here   Give it a try if you want to see how your own computer fares  Be sure to follow their preparation instructions.

Old PC: Dell 8300 Pentium 4 3 GHz, 4GB Ram, ATA hard drives, Windows XP Pro SP2, CS2 : Speed test results  3 min 45 seconds
New Mac:  MacPro 2.8 GHz Harpertown, 6 GB Ram, SATA2 hard drives, Mac OSX 10.5.2, CS3 : Speed test results:  25 seconds  :o

That’s quite a big difference of course, and I am noticing it in how much quicker I can process an image to a fully processed 16×24 size print.

I am still quite a newbie in learning the Mac way, lots of apps still to explore like iPhoto, GarageBand, all the other cool stuff available online   All in all, software migration has been quite painless, and quite easy     Smooth as silky water, and now flowing quite fast! :-)



  • Share/Bookmark

Tags:
Posted in Mac, landscape, switch to mac | 8 Comments »

The Mac Experience – Part 3

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

Wow, my first post from a MacPro.. I am kinda teary eyed  :)   I am still in the process of migrating data and files from my PC and am quite happy with my decision thus far   There are some statements from Mac users on various things where it ultimately comes down to “It just works.”   I have to say I have had a few of those experiences so far   It is pretty obvious that a lot of attention has been given to the entire experience by Apple    The first time you turn the computer on you are presented with a little video show saying “welcome” in about 20 different languages in front of a little light show   It’s not a big deal, but that small human touch that is nice to see   Those small touches are everywhere, and I am seeing that they all add up to the complete experience.

  • Networking. :  Home networks can always be a somewhat tempermental beast to deal with (or at least what I am used to)   But I hooked my Mac up and was quite pleased to see it was automatically seeing the shared folders and drives I had been using with my PC   No special settings, no configuring or fiddling – I plugged in the cable and it worked  It made it easy to start copying some files over through the network.
  • Dell Printer!  I have a Dell Color laser printer that is also on the network, and the Mac didn’t see this right away   Dell actually makes a Mac driver for this particular printer (!) – so all it took was to download it, figure out how to “unStuff” a “StuffIt” file, and it installed complete with a icon that is a graphic of the actual printer, not a generic one. 
  • Adobe Lightroom. :  I have Adobe Lightroom up and running, and my image catalog already transferred  That also was quite easy   One nice thing about Lightroom is that it already has cross-platform licensing  So I simply downloaded the Mac trial version, and entered my previous serial number from my “PC version.”   Sweet!   I was also able to copy my database over and all my presets   I did encounter one problem with the PC folder names for the previews – they transferred over as a single file to the Mac instead of a folder  Have to figure that one out yet.
  • Email  :  This one had me a bit nervous on transferring my old email over  It was a combination of old email from Outlook Express, imported into Thunderbird, the program I have been using for the past few years   Well, Thunderbird has a Mac version, and I noticed the Mac Mail application has a menu item for Import from Thunderbird   Sweet again!   I copied my Thunderbird profile folders over to my Mac, ran Thunderbird for Mac just to see if it imported – it did!  Then a run of Mail – and it imported all the Thunderbird email no problem   So I will probably end up ditching Thunderbird and using the Mac Mail app since it seems to be integrated with a few other programs within OS X. 
  • Don’t shut me down, only sleep :  One of the more dramatic differences are startup/shutdown times versus what I am used to on PCs   Everything I have read state it is a rare occasion to actually need to reboot a Mac  Most of the time it just sleeps   This means it is nearly instant on / instant off   I grew fond of that real quick  . 

. I am still finding my way around OS X Leopard and trying to adjust to the Mac way of doing things – from determining what programs are running to the unbelievably easy process of installing new applications  ”Drag icon to applications folder” are the instructions you see a lot because that is usually all there is to installing a new program  As mentioned in the comments of “Part 2″ – the mouse is certainly different  I like the little magic ball for scrolling more than a scroll wheel, but hate the right clicking experience of this thing    I think Mighty Mouse’s days are numbered.All-in-all a pretty good experience so far    No technostress.. it has actually been quite fun.

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Mac, switch to mac | 11 Comments »

The Mac Experience – part 2

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

photo.jpgIt is finally here, and Valentine’s Day is probably one of the worst days to receive a new computer, especially one like this. :-) The packaging is rather obvious at what’s inside, probably like little moving billboards for Apple. Not that it is much different than say Dell or a cow-like box from Gateway. Computer manufacturers seem to like using their packaging for touting how many they are shipping around the globe. But it is black, sleek, minimal, Apple. If you have ever bought an Ipod, IPhone, etc – you can tell Apple pays very close attention to their packaging as part of the overall user experience. It is quite a contrast to say a new lens you might get, which is pretty much a plain, brown wrapper as camouflage.

As photographers, we always hope that it is the content that matters above all else, but presentation does factor into overall impressions. It simply cannot be ignored.

But now the migration begins, and feeling like a fish out of water for awhile. I may develop a new strategy in my image storage since I can pack 4 hard drives or 4 TB into this thing. Seems a shame not to take advantage of the fast access on the internal drives and utilize my NAS boxes for backups. More to come!

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Mac, switch to mac | 9 Comments »

The Mac Experience – part 1

Friday, January 25th, 2008

LE8716.jpgWell, OK, this is kind of just a start off post since my Mac is ordered but I don’t have it yet. Hopefully you folks won’t get too tired of my babbling about this. The anticipation is building though for this Mac newbie. The new MacPro’s have an option for a fairly high end Nvidia graphics card, but that option is going to cost you in availability – they aren’t shipping yet. But I have patience since my PC is running for now, I have some orders to work on, and it gives me time to spend reading up on how things are going to change a bit.

Ordering it from the Apple store was pretty straight forward, and I was glad I remembered that NAPP offers discounts with Apple. The amount I saved by ordering with the NAPP discount paid for 4 years worth of membership fees! That’s right, I got about $400 bucks off the total package. The discounts applied to nearly every option available in the configuration. If you are considering buying a Mac, definitely look into joining the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. They publish one of the best Photoshop magazines, and offer discounts on all kinds of other stuff.

Since I also ordered an Apple Cinema Displays at the same time, it shipped the very next day. That was cool, but does me little good without the computer. Just a pretty box to drool over for now. Also ordered separately 4 GB RAM (to give me 6 GB total) and an additional hard drive since Apple charges quite a bit for these installed. Being new to the Mac world, I am looking for recommendations on the best sites for information about them, configuring hardware, forums, etc. I imagine some are better than others. I have been browsing MacRumors mostly. That’s it for now, I’ll try to refrain from posting about it until the machine actually arrives. :-)

You can follow this adventure in these other posts:

The Mac Experience – Part 2

The Mac Experience – Part 3

The Mac Experience – Part 4

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Mac, switch to mac | 16 Comments »

The Mac wait

Saturday, December 8th, 2007

TR8705.jpgIn a previous posting about a month ago, I wrote how I was considering a switch to Mac. I have been a PC user for pretty much my entire computing life, except for perhaps my original computer classes in high school where we worked on Apple IIe’s. (Is that dating myself or what!). But my frustration with the PC world, devices, and the Windows environment is probably at an all time high. I have managed to stabilize my current desktop a bit where perhaps I only crash once a day or so.

However, in some of my research, I learned that Steve Jobs will be making a keynote speech on January 15, 2008 and the rumors are flying that the announcement will be upgrades to both Mac Pro desktops and laptops featuring Intel’s new Penryn processors. I am also watching how some of the software compatibility issues with Leopard are quickly working themselves out, particularly with Lightroom and Photoshop. So I figure in January, I will have all the info I need to pull the plug.

I am normally not one to wait for the latest and greatest computer chips or need to have a top-of-the-line computer – but these new chips are probably worth the wait, and I am hoping there will be some announcements that will also perhaps update the Mac Pro’s video cards. So until then, I will save my pennies, and pray for as few blue screens of death as possible. :-)

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Equipment notes, Mac, switch to mac, technostress | 5 Comments »

Contemplating switch to Mac

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

LA8625.jpgMy computer is really starting to show its age and for awhile now I have been thinking about what its replacement should be. That also has me thinking about Macs and making a change. I have been working with PCs for 20 years+, so it is a bit daunting to think about switching out of your comfort zone. At the same time, I have just about had it with all the various issues I have had with them, and the SOOO MANY hours spend trying to remedy, understand, and patch them up. Every error now just raises my blood pressure to new levels. I am really quite fed up with it all.

Perhaps some of my angst is due to trying to squeeze too much out of an aging machine and some of the allure too much due to Apple’s marketing machine. Both are likely factoring into the temptation. But since Mac’s can now run Windows – are they really the best of both worlds?

I am discovering a few sites that help people understand what is involved in such a change, things to prepare for, etc. I am not 100% certain I am going to Mac yet – maybe I just need a more up-to-date computer – but don’t think I am ready for Vista either. I need to understand how good Macs are for an occasional diversion to play some games I enjoy on the PC (Battlefield, Doom3, etc). I need to inventory all of my software and find out what has cross-platform licensing and available side-grades. Will it truly be more enjoyable to work with? I also plan on spending some time in a newly opened Apple store nearby. I know the whole Mac vs. PC thing can get as bad as Nikon vs. Canon – and perhaps it really ends up as a matter of personal preference.

I would really appreciate any tips or advice from those that have made this switch recently and what your experience has been. Is the grass truly greener?

Related Posts with Thumbnails
  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Equipment notes, Mac, switch to mac, technostress | 13 Comments »