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LAYERS: The Complete Guide To Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature

June 23, 2008

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Written by Dr. Michael N. Roach · Filed Under Books, Editor's Choice, Graphics, Photography, Software, Top Story 

Common Myths for the Macintosh

June 19, 2008

There are lots of reasons that people don’t want to switch from Windows to Macintosh. I assume the most common reason is simply because Windows works for the people that are using it. The old adage "If it ain’t broke don’t fix it" tends to apply here. These people are not upgrading to Vista either, they’re staying with Windows XP or even Windows 98 and are just fine.
 
There are however an increasing number of people that are moving to Macs now - many of them people like me that hated Macs at one time. I believe there are lots of reasons for this, not the least of which is that people that are running Windows XP are faced with an upgrade to Vista as their next logical step and feel that maybe it’s okay to consider a Mac since they have to go through a full operating system refresh anyway.
 
One of the reasons I was not interested in Macs for a very long time was that I clung to many facts about the Mac that I felt eliminated it from contention. Well, as with many things in life it turns out the facts that I knew about the Mac were either hopelessly outdated or simply myths. What I wanted to do was tell you the ones that I was aware of and often cited when I dismissed Macs in the past.
 
Mac’s only use a single mouse button
I’m not a Mac historian, my history with the Mac being very recent but I’ve read that Mac multi-button mouse support has been around for some time. You may look at the MacBook keyboards and only see a single mouse button or a Mighty Mouse and think that it’s not supported. The reality is the MacBook track pad has an ingenious way of supporting right mouse clicks that I find better than having the extra little stub that is a right mouse button.
 
You simply press two fingers to the surface and click the button and it emulates a right mouse click. While the Mighty Mouse (which I personally detest) only appears to have a single mouse button it does indeed support right clicking. I just plugged in my Logitech mice and happily right click whenever I need to.
 
There are not that many applications for Macs
Windows does indeed have far more applications written for it than are available for Mac. What you have to do is look at the quality of those applications though. Many of the hundreds of thousands that are cited for Windows were written back in the 90s and few have been updated. Sure, most still work but that doesn’t mean they are still relevant. I have found no lack of software for my Macs - virtually anything I have needed is available in native Mac format.
 
Frankly, as a Mac n00bie I was shocked by the volume of quality Mac software available, especially on the consumer front. The number of Mac titles for business software, especially in the vertical markets for small businesses, is much smaller though.
 
Macs are closed machines that cannot be expanded
I have personally swapped out the memory in my MacBook inside of about 5 minutes. I upgraded my MacBook’s hard drive in another 5 minutes. That’s about all you can physically do with any laptop, whether it’s a PC or a Mac. My Mac Pro upgrades were even easier. That machine is designed to make expanding common hardware about as easy as it gets. It took me less than a minute to install a 1TB hard drive - so little time I grabbed my video camera and filmed how easy it was:
 

 
Sure, I can’t overclock my processor and the number of graphics card drivers that are supported by OS X is significantly smaller than Windows but to say I can’t put non-Apple replacement parts into my Mac is just not the case. The Mac Mini and iMacs are limited in their upgrade options, but the same holds true of the Windows machines from Dell and HP that have the CPU and display all packaged together.
 
Macs don’t work well with Windows machines on a network
I’ve got a GB switch at home and a variety of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Ubuntu and now Mac machines on it. Sharing files between the machines is very simple. My Macs can see my Windows shares and my Windows machines can see my Mac shared folders. I shared my printer attached to a Windows machine with my Mac and it was able to use it just fine.
 
Macs are more expensive
This is the one that I struggle with a bit. Yes, the Macs are slightly more expensive than PCs in general, but you have to look at what you are or more importantly not getting when you buy a Mac. Low cost PCs are often subsidized by bundled application software that is included with a new machine. When I recently bought a little HP that would eventually serve as my Ubuntu workstation it came so loaded with crap and Windows Vista that it barely even ran out of the box. The average consumer that isn’t a techie would be hard pressed to clear up all of the stuff that bogs down the average new PC.
 
For techies it’s a different story. You can go to places like Newegg and build a high performance system that has exactly what you want on it - nothing more, nothing less - and adjust expectations on price accordingly. But doing that means you are your own technical support clearing house. When the motherboard in my newly built gaming rig wouldn’t post I had to call the manufacturer and work through a series of steps before we found that the board was shorting out. I needed to RMA it myself and undergo the same process when the replacement arrived days later. It took me the better part of two working days to build up that machine.
 
That said, I did that because I enjoyed doing it, however that time comes at a cost. Is your time worth anything to you? If it is and you don’t find joy in doing this kind of technical troubleshooting then getting a fully tested and serviced machine that works out of the box is incredibly valuable. You get what you pay for in this case.
 
Macs can’t run my Windows software
Well, that of course is not the case. I can take a legal copy of Windows XP or Vista and without spending any money use Bootcamp (which comes with OS X) and boot into Windows if I have to. It’s standard PC hardware so it runs great. Better yet, grab a copy of VMware Fusion and run the Windows applications side by side with your Mac apps.
 
I haven’t tried playing any high-end games on my Macs yet. This blog has burned up my remaining free time so they are out for now, though that’s the most common complaint I’ve heard that I can’t refute. Perhaps someone can jump in here and clarify that one. Can you play high end games like Crysis on Mac hardware and get decent performance?
 
Macs are mouse centered machines. You constantly have to grab the mouse.
Macs not only have excellent keyboard support, the use of shortcuts is profound. About the only thing I’ve found that doesn’t work as well as Windows is the use of mnemonics in dialog windows that make it easy to jump to a field in a large form with lots of items in it. When a dialog pops up inside of a Mac I find that I generally grab the mouse.
 
On the other hand shortcuts on the Mac are consistent between applications and liberally sprinkled throughout. If you have ever seen someone that really knows the Mac well use a keyboard to do some work it’s an exercise in humility. It’s like productivity++.
 
So there you have it, the myths that I clung to that kept me from seriously considering a Mac for so long. I’m sure there are other reasons that people think switching from Windows to Mac is a bad idea - I’ve seen enough flame wars on the topic to know that it’s a religious issue for many.

Written by David Alison · Filed Under Editor's Choice, Parallel Desktops 

Switching to Mac isn’t right for everyone

June 12, 2008

When I was in California recently to visit my family I talked to my brother about getting my parents an iMac. Daryl had switched to Mac about 6 months ago and loved it and as you can tell if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time I’ve been extremely happy with my switch too.

 
Why not share that joy with my parents? It would be great for them to be able to see and speak with their grandkids 2,300 miles away more often and I figured an iMac would be a pretty good solution. iChat and the built in iSight camera are painfully easy to use and my Dad would finally have something other than the TV as a source for his news and information. We would set up a high speed connection with their local cable provider and they’d be good to go!

 
With that plan fully formed in my head I brought it up to my wife when I returned home from the trip.
 
Me: "Daryl and I are thinking about getting Mom and Dad a Mac!"
 
Wife: "Not a good idea. Don’t you remember how it went last time you got them a computer"?
 
I stopped and looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. At this point those little swirly clouds that appear in sitcoms washed over me and it was 1999 again:
 
I just bought a nice little Compaq computer for my parents, loaded up with Windows 98 and MS Office 97. I set up the entire machine before-hand, patching the OS and placing icons on the desktop to make it painfully simple for them to use the machine. I also bought a copy of Windows 98 for Dummies and Office 97 for Dummies. I even bought them a nice Epson inkjet printer and pre-configured it to work with the machine.

All this was nicely packaged up so that all my parents had to do was take it out of the box and set it on the desk, then plug it in. This was to be a stand-alone machine, no internet access. They really wanted to use it to write letters and my Dad had an interest in playing around with the technology.

The day after the computer arrived at my parent’s house I got a call from my Dad. He had my cousin come by to help him set it all up because plugging things in was just too difficult. My Dad was getting nowhere with the machine and he needed some help. I got questions like

Dad: "OK, the TV part has a bunch of little pictures on it. What do I do now?"

Me: "That’s called a monitor and the little pictures are called icons. They represent the applications I loaded on the machine for you"

Dad: "Uhhhh"

Me: "OK, let’s just fire up Microsoft Word so that you can type in some text. Double-click on the Microsoft Word icon on the desktop…"

At this point we had a little conversation about how to double-click. It wasn’t long before my Dad was frustrated by the pace of all this and sensed that I was getting frustrated too.

Dad: "Is there a book that we should get before Windows for Dummies"?
 
The swirly memory clouds disappeared and I was still standing in front of my wife, my plans to get my parents a Mac starting to sound a little crazy even to me. Providing basic support to my parents was something I had glossed over in my zeal to get them a Mac.
 
I then remembered that my parents still had that $1,200 Compaq I bought them and they do actually use it. The Epson printer - which has never actually printed anything - serves as a bill and magazine holder for my Mom. If you fire up the machine it’s got an entire screen full of shortcuts for Solitaire on it. My Mom has a tendency to click Start and accidentally drag the Solitaire icon to the Windows desktop every once in a while. After 9 years there are a lot of icons. Turns out that’s the only application that’s actually been run on the machine.
 
So I paid $1,200 for a machine that has effectively become the equivalent of a plastic inbox tray and a deck of Bicycle Playing Cards. I shudder to think what would happen to a shiny new iMac if it was put in the same situation.
 
My Mom is quite happy with it just the way it is. Maybe I don’t want to mess with that after all.

Written by David Alison · Filed Under Editor's Choice, Parallel Desktops 

Whatever Happened To The “Decisive Moment”?

June 9, 2008

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Written by Jan Anderson-Paxson · Filed Under Editor's Choice, Photography, Top Story 

Seven Key Techniques For Taking Your Images From Flat To Fantastic

June 2, 2008

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Written by Dr. Michael N. Roach · Filed Under Books, Editor's Choice, Photography, Top Story, Workflow 

Why I bailed out on Windows and switched to Macintosh

May 29, 2008

Why I bailed out on Windows and switched to Macintosh
It’s kind of funny how things work out. When I originally bought my MacBook three months ago I viewed it as a complimentary machine. Something that would be added to my menagerie of computers. I had been using Windows for so long and it’s use was so deeply embedded into my workflow that I couldn’t imagine another OS displacing it as my primary operating system. I just wanted something new and different.

 
 

So what was wrong with Windows?

 

I guess after 17 years of Windows I became more than just a little tired of it. I watched new versions comes out with only incremental improvements in usability and more often than not, changes to things that just took some getting used to. Windows became larger and larger, more memory dependent and requiring more processor just to be functional. I accept that great new features and functionality will come with a larger footprint but it didn’t feel like I was getting that much great stuff out of it.

 

 

I was really hoping that Vista would reenergize my Windows experience but it did not. It was… meh. It felt like Microsoft was simply wrapping more and more layers of security on top of Windows, not really improving the Windows user experience. I loaded Vista on to my HP nw8440 laptop, a decent, high end machine that had 2GB of memory and a good graphics card. Vista ran fine from a performance standpoint but had some serious stability problems. Windows XP ran like a champ on the machine but Vista would lock up on me at odd times and if the machine ran for more than a day it could not be shut down - I would have to hold down the power button for an extended period of time to get it to turn off.

 

 

In October of 2007 I went out and bought a little HP Slimline PC. I wanted a nice little low power usage machine that could run Ubuntu for me. As power machines go this was not one of them: A little AMD 64 X2 dual core processor and 1GB of memory. It was all of $550 at the time - clearly a bargain class machine - and I had so many BestBuy credits from other purchases that my cash outlay was only a couple hundred dollars. It came with Vista capable logos all over it and had Windows Vista Home Edition installed on it. I knew I was going to wipe out the OS and install Ubuntu over it but I decided to play with it as a Vista machine for a bit. What a mistake.

 
 
Vista was dog slow on that machine, nearly unusable. It may have been because HP had so much extra crap on the machine to subsidize the cost but damn - it seemed like a waste of money. I considered just taking it back to BestBuy and getting a refund. Instead I went ahead and installed Ubuntu on it and lo and behold the machine’s performance was excellent. It is a great, complimentary machine for my purposes. The latest version of Ubuntu (8.04, Hardy Heron) is fantastic on the little HP. It looks even better and performs as well as the previous version I had.

 
 


The Last Straw

 
 

The last straw for me was the issue of viruses. I had run for years without virus protection on my PCs because I knew how to take care of my machine. Sure, I put things like Norton Anti-virus and PC Tools on my kid’s and wife’s machines but that was because they didn’t know how to stay out of trouble. I did so I knew I was safe.

 
 
I only installed software from well defined resources. I never even looked at attachments from people. I felt streetwise and here it was, 17 years into Windows and I had not gotten a single virus on my own machine.

 
 
Then, early this year I was doing some research on a programming issue I was having. I Googled up some web sites that appeared to have an answer and clicked on one that looked reputable. Even though I had popup blockers installed the site managed to open a popup on me. I closed the popup and left the site but before I knew it popups were happening to me randomly, even when the browser was not loaded. Clearly my machine had been infected by something.

 
 

I installed PC Tools and it found and eradicated the problem, some class of Spyware / Ad Malware crap. Rather than take the chance of that happening again I left PC Tools on and running. This unfortunately was a problem because now when I ran Visual Studio and went into a debugging session my machine slowed to a crawl. So I had to disable PC Tools in order to do my actual work. This was tremendously frustrating and happened to coincide with me looking at a MacBook.

 
 


The door was open and the Mac stepped in

 
 

Now that I’ve converted to using Macs for everything I am really enjoying it. You can read through my blog and see how this has developed over time - lots of ups and a couple of downs.

 
 

Funny thing is, I run into people all the time that are Mac users and they have similar stories. They were frustrated PC users that tried out and fell in love with Macs. When you ask people why they like their Macs more than Windows (if they have switched) many will recite the Apple line "it just works". Either Apple has figured out a way to get people to recite their marketing messages to others or they managed to tap into why people really like the machines.

 
 
Yesterday my youngest daughter had a friend over to work on a school project together. She brought her Dell laptop and was trying to access our wireless network. After setting everything up properly she just couldn’t seem to connect - she got a good signal but could never seem to get an IP address from our wireless router. I ended up disabling the wireless networking tool that Dell provides and used the native Windows version - this worked after a couple of minutes. When I attached my MacBook to this network it worked flawlessly the first time - as did my oldest daughter’s Mac when she connected it.

 
 
Just this morning I had my MacBook sitting on my lap and typing up this blog entry while waiting for my wife at the doctors office. A gentleman came over and asked some questions about the machine; he was considering getting a Mac for himself after his daughter was accepted to a graduate school and she decided that she was going to get a Mac. It was an interesting conversation because I immediately started to show off some of the Mac’s features, firing up VMware Fusion and loading up Windows XP to show how quickly it runs.

 
 
 
In three short months I’ve gone from curious about Macs to a newbie user to a switcher that promotes Macs to strangers. I guess my conversion to the dark side is now complete.

Why I bailed out on Windows and switched to Macintosh

Written by David Alison · Filed Under Editor's Choice, Parallel Desktops 

The Nikon D3

May 26, 2008

The Nikon D3I was always an F kind of guy. My first Nikon pro camera was the original F - a 1971 black body FTN. It supplemented my FM2 and I had it until just a couple of years ago when I sold it to a close friend, who bought it with the understanding that I might occasionally need to fondle it… call it conjugal visits.

A few years later I found a really nice F2 that I still have… I skipped the F3 and F4 entirely Read more

Written by Britt Stokes · Filed Under Commerce, Digital Lifestyles, Editor's Choice, Hardware, Photography, Top Story, Workflow 

2 Days to A Better Website.

May 21, 2008

When I first got out of school it was still common to run around with your portfolio containing tear sheets and photographs. It was always a pain to collects these, the few copies in hand were precious and almost irreplaceable. I cannot count the times I lost my portfolio. More often than not, I wouldn’t bother to replace the evidence of the work. Oh, the drama. I would end up losing gigs because I didn’t have the tearsheet for this or that. 20 people lined up for a gig, the last thing an art director wanted was to call to verify you had actually done a job like "that". Read more

Written by madBADcat · Filed Under Commerce, Digital Lifestyles, Editor's Choice, The Not-So-Daily Edition, Workflow 

Find Your Passion…

April 27, 2008

Being artists, we tend to be more passionate about things than those using the other side of their brains. Of course I am not saying you can’t be passionate about numbers, but I have a feeling my accountant gets his kicks away from his nine to five. We are blessed in that Art can truly bring out the passionate side in a person who can see it for what it is.

What is passion exactly? Read more

Written by Wendy Arnold · Filed Under Commerce, Digital Lifestyles, Editor's Choice 

The Nikon D300 Camera at Work

April 21, 2008

My job as a Still Photographer in the motion picture industry requires me to get the best possible images for publicity purposes. This requires me to constantly update my equipment when new and better technology is developed.

Such is the case with the Nikon D300 camera which hit the market in Dec 2007 and is now available without the waiting list that it had for several months. I had been using the Nikon D2x and the Nikon D200 cameras for several years, and a Nikon D100 and D1x prior to that. Read more

Written by Van Redin · Filed Under Digital Lifestyles, Editor's Choice, Featured Stories, Photography, Workflow 

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