CAT | technology
Please note: the video has a couple of “adult words.” (very briefly @ 3:32 mark)
I love it! There are some great anologies in the video.
OK, forgive me, but I’m still on this topic. PC vs. Mac. Putting aside my seemingly never-ending problem with Windows Explorer not responding, I have turned to doing what I do best — researching the hell out of something before making a decision. At the most basic level, I have the same reaction to Macs that I suspect most other people do. Ooooooh…ahhhh. It’s hard to look at, or put your hands on, a Mac without having some sense of technological or aesthetic arousal. They are sexy. However, just as I am with people, I’m not easily sold on appearance alone. I need to know what’s behind the “pretty/handsome face.”
I think where I am starting to look at the Mac over the PC is not for the aesthetic, or cult-like adherence by photographers, artists, and the like. Instead, I’m looking squarely at the stability of the underlying nuts-and-bolts. Principally, the operating system. This is what I want to understand more fully before making the leap. Is Apple’s OS just that much better than Windows? Or, is it a combination of the operating system and the hardware? (The question about the operating system is a bit rhetorical because not much research is needed to run across articles or reviews that effectively push Vista over a cliff.)
Though some may consider the design, look, and feel of the computer to be shallow; if you’re working on it daily, it is important. Given my penchant for minimalism (example: I subscribe to Dwell magazine), the Apple is perfect. However, I’ve not spent any time actually laying hands on the system. The tactile feel and response of the keyboard is very important to me. I type a lot–even more now that I’m blogging–and I need a comfortable and responsive keyboard. Considering all the bloggers I see banging out content on MacBooks, it suggests that the keyboard is good. I’ve read some reviews suggesting the keyboards on Macs are a little lacking, but I think there’s some subjectivity here because everyone has different typing styles. I’m a touch typist, so I may have a different perspective from someone who is a two-finger, hunt-and-peck typist. Moving to the physical product, I am not completely sold that Apple’s are the prettiest things out there. I’ve seen a number of laptops and desktops by Sony, Samsung and HP that rival, in my honest opinion, Apple’s aesthetic.
Turning the focus to the underlying system; this is an area where I want to be versed on facts not biases or hype. Whereas the look of the computer is rather subjective, the desire for a functioning operating system–free of mysterious alerts, bugs, viruses, etc., should be pretty objective. This is where I do tend to listen more attentively to Mac users, because what I universally hear is the satisfaction with the experience. Ask just about any PC user, and you’ll get a story, if not a tome, about problems. I seldom hear Mac owners saying, “God! This thing is a piece of sh*t!” If you could have been a fly on the wall last weekend, that would would have been the mildest expression uttered. Nevertheless, I don’t want to make a decision to change platforms in a knee jerk fashion; particularly when the switch to a Mac involves a pretty hefty investment. (I think Dave Cullen did a good job capturing the justification for the price differential between Macs and PCs in his video.) I would like to do a little more reading on the differences in operating systems. I would also appreciate, your comments. Whether objective or biased, it’s interesting to hear the perspective of people on both sides of the fence. I am particularly interested in hearing people who’ve tried both and why they made the decision to go with a PC or a Mac.
In fairness to my Toshiba; though there have been a few Vista hiccups that have given me fits, I’ve had a pretty good experience with the laptop. The programs that I have on the system work, and I’ve seldom encountered compatibility issues. From talking to friends, it appears that one of the major differences between the platforms is the ease of use for graphical design and layout. According to my fried Chris, iWeb would have cut the time redesigning my website in half, it not more. In fact, he e-mailed me the other day and said that had that been him dealing with all the freezing programs and convoluted graphic design; he would have been standing at the door at the Apple store the next morning. I shared some of that emotion. I just don’t want to be hasty. Not to mention, I don’t have several thousand dollars to spend on completely new equipment. Hence, I am being rather deliberate about this issue, with the freedom of having a system that works, albeit not optimally.
Again, I’m interested to hear your opinion. If you were a PC user that made a switch to Mac, please share your experience. Would you go back to PC? If not, why? I am also very interested to hear from people who have tried Macs, but decided to stick with PCs.
I had lunch with my friend Chris on Saturday. He is a creative art director/consultant, and I thought, “who better to get an opinion from about the graphics and layout of my site than Chris?” Principally, I had a question about the layout of the site’s portfolio page, but I wasn’t really settled on the home page. Well, it didn’t take long for him to move from giving feedback on the portfolio page to suggesting a cleaner design for the entire site. While Chris scribbled sketches of a new site design on the back of an envelope, I started to create a new site–using WebPlusX2. Of course, Chris is a Mac guy, and didn’t forget to give me a number of jabs about how easy the design of the site would have been on a Mac. (Sidebar: my computer is still having the faulty Windows Explorer issue. It has to be reset just about every third time I try to access something in the system tray. I may wander to the Apple store after work this week.)
Anyway, long after Chris left, and well into the night, I committed to revising the look of the site. I thought I would share “before and after” shots.
Before
After
I think it’s pretty straight-forward and clean, but I am interested to getting feedback on this layout. A link to the site can be found in the sidebar. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I want to hear reactions–postitive or negative. Let me just ask that if you a have less-than-favorable reaction or comment, please offer it in the form of constructive criticism.
I would be remiss if I didn’t give Chris an end credit. Check out his creative work at http://www.mchriscurry.com
My very close friend, Dotch, has been an Apple/Mac aficionado since college. I still get a hearty chuckle reflecting on him clearing space and polishing the corner of the dorm desk for his first Mac. Over the years, he’s stayed true to the brand, and I’ve never once heard him cursing at his computer.
Fast forward to the last few weeks with my (knock on wood) trusty Toshiba 17″ wide screen Satellite laptop. The machine itself has been humming along for nearly two years. What’s been giving me increasingly giving me fits, though, is the buggy Windows architecture. (I’m running on Windows Vista Home Premium.) It begin with an occasional hiccup here and there with program compatibility. I bought a few Windows Vista magazines and the tips provide in them seemed to tweak out the goofy stuff. Recently, though, I’ve been nagging little problems. I could see if this was a one off thing. Maybe something happened that my system didn’t like. However, the system alerts has been showing up with some frequency. It seems like nearly every time I point my cursor down to my system tray, I get the hour glass. A couple double clicks later…this stupid alert.
What the…? COME ON!!!!!
Notwithstanding Dotch’s testimonials for the last 20 years about Apple products, I’ve been relatively neutral on the platform issue. I’m not really one for peer pressure or so easily enamored with Apple products. Sure, they’re pretty, but, heretofore, had not discerned a difference in utility between the two platforms . So when I’ve receive a distinct, almost incredulous, “WHAT? You don’t have a Mac?” from follow photographers, I brushed it off. I enjoyed a quiet chortle, observing that all these Mac owners are running programs–Photoshop or Lightroom–that run on PCs in lieu of Apple’s Aperture. What’s the big deal?
At the sake of being redundant, this…
…is becoming a BIG deal!
Starting out in this business is costly enough with the expense of “photography equipment.” However, as I acknowledged in a previous post, in the age of digital photography, a computer is just as much photography equipment as are the camera bodies, lenses, lights and filters. I’m a very patient person, but I have a low threshold for equipment that doesn’t perform as designed. I can’t blame Toshiba, really. It’s the unstable Windows OS that I’m learning deserves all the criticism heaped upon it by Apple and countless numbers of technology writers. After all these years, I think I’ve reached the end of my rope with PCs. A MacBook Pro just may find a home on my lap in the near future.
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