Any Mac Heads out there?

[Nid Noy]

Just wondering if any of the BM's out there are Mac users....
Being from Cupertino, CA and even having worked for them a bit, I can help ya'll out with any Mac related Q's you might have.

I'm not trying to start a WIN vs. Mac war here. Just trying to find some like-minded BM's that dig Macs.

[LivinLOS]

Wheres my second mouse button gone ??

[stevem]

Had to use a Mac years ago at work, never again.

[Tyfon]

Originally Posted by Nid Noy

I can help ya'll out with any Mac related Q's you might have.

OKay, here's one. I have a mac powerbook which I use as a doorstop. However every so often the door closes unexpectedly... why is this?

My boss had a powerbook too, I replaced it with an etch-a-sketch and told him that whenever the screen becomes corrupted he should reboot the system by turning it upside down and shaking it. He is very happy with this upgrade.

[Sirgezza]

Originally Posted by Tyfon

OKay, here's one. I have a mac powerbook which I use as a doorstop. However every so often the door closes unexpectedly... why is this?

My boss had a powerbook too, I replaced it with an etch-a-sketch and told him that whenever the screen becomes corrupted he should reboot the system by turning it upside down and shaking it. He is very happy with this upgrade.

I now understand why I am crap with computers - I could not master etch a sketch as a child.

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

Wheres my second mouse button gone ??

Tired argument: any Mac power user immediately gets a 3 button mouse. They now sell the Mighty Mouse which has multiple buttons.

Originally Posted by stevem

Had to use a Mac years ago at work, never again.

What kind of work do you do? Why was it a problem? Were you just not familiar with the OS? Did the programs crash? What?

Originally Posted by typhon

OKay, here's one. I have a mac powerbook which I use as a doorstop.

You can send that doorstop to:
Nid Noy
San Francisco, CA

I'll gladly take if off your hands. In fact, I'll even replace it with a real door stop.

The intention of this post, as I had already said, was not to start a WIN vs. Mac flamewar. I just wanted to find out if there were any other Mac users here. I guess you guys missed reading that part.

[stevem]

Originally Posted by Nid Noy

The intention of this post, as I had already said, was not to start a WIN vs. Mac flamewar. I just wanted to find out if there were any other Mac users here. I guess you guys missed reading that part.

No war intended, just some BM's having alittle fun.

[Nid Noy]

Ehhh - OK....
MUST - THICKEN - SKIN

I will just assume that you guys have never tried out a modern Mac G5 duallie with OS X. It's simply a dream machine. I think that most WIN folks probably would not mind having a Mac around their home/office. Especially Unix guys that can zoom around the terminal and definitely video folks making movies, DVDs, music production, etc.

Older Macs? Things have really changed since OS9, etc.

Not long ago, I had a room full of 10 G5's all connected by Fiber Channel to a stack of Xserve RAIDs in a SAN environment - meaning that every station could pull from the same video file at the same time - usually uncompressed SD or HD. Now that was a monstrous system!

I can't believe that there aren't any BMs not on Mac, though....
Mac Headz...where are you??

[stevem]

In my case, its more of playing great games. Also I'm into programming and do heaps on the PC. Have never even looked into whats involved or what development environments exist on mac.

[LivinLOS]

I had macs forced on me when many many years ago there were not PC based video editing suites.. Now with AVID and a host of others the SW gap seems to have caught up..

I have to say that I had a (very brief) play with OSX and it looks slick.. I think of OSX could be sold to piggyback a *nix distro and made wintel it could shake up the market a lot.. However would that shake up benefit apple of intel I dont know.. I would do a dual boot..

What I hate is the limited hardware configs.. My house is full of machines that never get the cases back on.. New parts gon in and out, gutting them, swapping components, all available locally.. Apple parts.. forget about it..

I guess I just never really caught the cult of the mac thing.. I think they have design flair but its never been enough to pull me in..

You mention video work.. What the hell were you doing with uncompressed HD ??? I have dealt with D5 equivalents (compressed HD master type stuff) and they were HUGE.. You must work in the film / pro realm yes ?? I had and have more than a passing interest in cinema / encoding / HiDef / Etc..

[Coolhand]

I use mac, and for me it is far better than windoze.

[swiftdave]

I have an apple IIe, hooked up to a hydrostatic transmission and dual ailerons. I linked it to a Mig 26 and shot my dog.

Seriously, I looked at mac for my new computer but I just bought a Compaq p-4 3.08 GHz, 200Gb HD, Lightscribe DVD, loaded full of shit, 19" flat LCD monitor for under $800 CAD. For home office, Mac can't touch it for value.

[Tyfon]

Originally Posted by Nid Noy

Older Macs? Things have really changed since OS9, etc.

NO, they haven't. It just suck's in a different colour scheme.

[Rex7777]

I've got to get a new laptop before I move there next yearm and have thought of getting a Powerbook. I guess when the time comes I'll see what's new. With my luck, the day after I buy one they'll come out with a new model.

Rex

[Tyfon]

Originally Posted by Rex7777

With my luck, the day after I buy one they'll come out with a new model.

Not luck, that's Apple's entire marketing strategy.

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

I had macs forced on me when many many years ago there were not PC based video editing suites.. Now with AVID and a host of others the SW gap seems to have caught up..

You know something though, most Avid guys I know in SF and LA prefer working on a Mac, even now. The new version of Xpress Pro and Media Composer Adrenaline now runs on Tiger and even has harnessed its core video functions in some cool new video fx. Something the FCP team has not even done yet. But if someone stuck me in a suite with a PC based Avid, I could still cut like a madman. A bicycle has two wheels everywhere, and I can drive those too.

There is some decent PC based NLEs out there though, for sure: Avid, Vegas and even Premiere Pro has come a long way. Either way, though, I really don't cut on Avid anymore, PC or Mac, even though I learned on it. I prefer the mode-free environment of FCP. Most NLEs seem to be going down that path as well. Avid just can't let go of its mode-based environment, and for me, it just slows me down. I would love to try out discreet Smoke on a Linux box, but that's like $60,000. A bit out of my league.

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

I have to say that I had a (very brief) play with OSX and it looks slick.. I think of OSX could be sold to piggyback a *nix distro and made wintel it could shake up the market a lot.. However would that shake up benefit apple of intel I dont know.. I would do a dual boot..

Yeah, most WIN tweakers do like OS X once they play around a bit. It's much different that OS9. Tiger is very slick. As far as Apple making OS X bootable on a PC box as a commercial product, they have officially stated that they will not do this. OS X already does work on a PC box as shown by Jobs at the WWDC back in June. However, I think that a dual boot system would be very cool, and could bring in a lot of dough into Cupertino.

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

What I hate is the limited hardware configs.. My house is full of machines that never get the cases back on.. New parts gon in and out, gutting them, swapping components, all available locally.. Apple parts.. forget about it..

This is also kind of an old misconception too LiL. I swap out parts in my Mac all the time. You don't need Mac RAM. You don't need Mac HDs. You don't need Mac Video Cards. I swap out these things regularly. I just put new drives in my old B&W G3 and installed Tiger as well. It's a gnarley little surf machine!

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

I guess I just never really caught the cult of the mac thing.. I think they have design flair but its never been enough to pull me in..

They're not everyone's cuppa tea, for sure. Especially if you've been raised on PCs and are so familiar with them. I'm of the opposite ilk being raised in the heart of Apple country in Northern California.

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

You mention video work.. What the hell were you doing with uncompressed HD ???

Editing for the big guys down in 'Tino.

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

I have dealt with D5 equivalents (compressed HD master type stuff) and they were HUGE.

No kiddin'....
Uncompressed 2048x1080 12 bit 4:4:4 (the maximum possible dual link HD-SDI frame size and bit depth, SMPTE 372M) - 227.9 MB/sec

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

You must work in the film / pro realm yes ??

I've worked at some of the biggies in Northern California: Pixar, Apple, Electronic Arts. I've also written a book about videographics that is doing fair business in the Apple realm. I also work in trade schools and have even taught the FCP team about how to use they're own product. By and large though, I am a film and video editor and it's what I love doing most.

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

I had and have more than a passing interest in cinema / encoding / HiDef / Etc..

Me too. It's my bread and butter, actually and NO WAY would I want to do any other job.

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by Rex7777

I've got to get a new laptop before I move there next yearm and have thought of getting a Powerbook. I guess when the time comes I'll see what's new. With my luck, the day after I buy one they'll come out with a new model.

I have a Titanium PowerBook that has served me well for over 3 years. It is still a great road warrior and I had it with me when I was in LOS just a couple of months ago. I edited some videos, burned some DVDs and used it to watch movies. I even surfed at the MTB one night, no trouble at all.

I think you'd be very satisfied with a PowerBook. Just buy the best one you can afford, so you can take it down the road a few years.

As far as Apple coming out with a new model right after you buy yours....that is the norm with every piece of hardware you buy, not just Apple. At least Apple is predictable for releasing new hardware. You can pretty much count on new stuff at MacWorld-San Francisco in early January.

I'm sure you know that Apple has decided to go with new Intel processors, and that means new hardware will be phased in. Software that runs on that new hardware will also be phased in. My opinion is that new laptops are ripe for an upgrade to Intel chips, since IBM could not deliver a G5 chip that would run in a laptop. This is just a guess, but if you buy a PowerBook now, you will have to run it on a PowerPC chip, but in a few months time, there is the strong possibility of new models coming out. So you have a choice here.

That being said, the standard advice is to go with a strong machine that runs today and don't look back. My take is that this machine will last you 3-5 years, so it should not matter too much what's coming down the pipeline. Even I am considering buying a fast Power PC based Mac today, but I'd like to see if Apple is going to come out with dual core processors at MacWorld. I'm interested in seeing how fast these babies scream with that kind of speed.

Good luck in choosing your PowerBook. No matter which machine you get, I'm sure you'll be really happy in getting an OS X Mac.

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by stevem

In my case, its more of playing great games. Also I'm into programming and do heaps on the PC. Have never even looked into whats involved or what development environments exist on mac.

Games? Programming? Then a Mac probably isn't the right computer for you. I can play Doom on my Mac now finally though!

Not much of a code warrior, but you might like OS X, which is a Unix based OS that offers an integrated development environment. Most guys use Xcode, which is a 64 bit ready set of dev tools. These tools are free with Tiger.

Originally Posted by Apple.com

Typically, for OS X projects, the developer uses "Cocoa" - a set of object-oriented frameworks that support speedy development and high productivity for your product. Cocoa offers a full-featured set of classes which you can use to create robust and powerful Mac OS X applications. Cocoa is programmable in Java, Objective-C (a simple, object-oriented extension to ANSI-C) and AppleScript and allows easy integration with C, C++ and other languages.

With its Open Source, UNIX-based foundation, Mac OS X Tiger lets you script with your choice of languages: Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl and more. You can work with built-in development tools such as GCC, gdb, vi, emacs and pico and take advantage of UNIX shell tools such as grep, chmod, ps, crontab, top and tail. If you’ve written utility software on another UNIX platform, you can quickly get it running in Mac OS X Tiger.

In addition to leveraging the gamut of UNIX tools, you can easily extend the power of your software by using QuickTime’s complete multimedia architecture, including support for Flash 4, Cubic VR, RTP/RTSP video streaming, MPEG and a wide array of graphic file formats.

Tiger features a redesigned kernel and updated system software math libraries specifically for the 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor. The updated kernel delivers the most substantial benefits of 64-bit computing by breaking through the 4GB physical memory limit. The key functions of the system math and vector libraries have been tuned to take maximum advantage of new and faster math functions supported by the 64-bit G5. Moreover, unmodified applications that use the system math functions will get an automatic performance boost on the G5. The PowerPC chip was architected from the beginning to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications without the need for emulation or translation software. This means that 32-bit applications that run on Mac OS X today will run natively on 64-bit PowerPC G5 Processor-based Macintosh computers, without the need for recompiling or additional optimizations.

Java Built-in
Java has never looked this good. Built in to Mac OS X Tiger is the latest, certified release of the Java 2 Platform. With improved Code Sense indexing and Ant project templates, Java users can continue to use their standard Java packages and build tools coupled with Xcode’s key productivity features.

Of course, I have no idea what that all means. Maybe you do?

Have fun!

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by Tyfon

NO, they haven't. It just suck's in a different colour scheme.

Tyfon,
You've expressed to me before that you're not a fan of Macs....'nuff said.

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by swiftdave

I have an apple IIe, hooked up to a hydrostatic transmission and dual ailerons. I linked it to a Mig 26 and shot my dog.

Seriously, I looked at mac for my new computer but I just bought a Compaq p-4 3.08 GHz, 200Gb HD, Lightscribe DVD, loaded full of shit, 19" flat LCD monitor for under $800 CAD. For home office, Mac can't touch it for value.

55555! That was a good one.
True, PCs are really cheap nowadays. Hard to beat them on price-point. Hope you enjoy your new system!

I would not mind having a PC around for some stuff: games, 3D apps, NeatReceipts and other PC only stuff.

[stevem]

Originally Posted by Nid Noy

I've worked at some of the biggies in Northern California: Pixar, Apple, Electronic Arts

I take my hat off to you. I watch those Pixar animated movies with awe. Would love to be able to that stuff, totally facinates me.

[Nid Noy]

Originally Posted by stevem

I take my hat off to you. I watch those Pixar animated movies with awe. Would love to be able to that stuff, totally facinates me.