28 August 2011

OS X - LION


I didn’t exactly feel the need to run out and get Lion the day it was released, not after the problems I had with Snow Leopard not too long ago. The new laptop I bought didn’t come with Lion either, though I expected it too, and that was more a relief then a point against it. Apple did offer a free upgrade for the laptop and eventually I did take them up on it. I did this after I was sure I wouldn’t be needing the laptop for anything crucial for a while.

Backstory over, the upgrade went extremely smoothly. No compatibility issues so far at all and it all seems to work as advertised. Getting the code for the free upgrade took over a week, a common problem I discovered, but since I wasn’t in a hurry, it didn't really matter to me.

Lion does seem to slow down start-up a little bit, shut down is just as fast as before. I like many of the new features I’ve tried... the «versions» feature I have no idea where it is or how to use it yet.... the multiple desktops are much more useful than I thought and «Launchpad» is just a little less useless than I feared. I like the gestures for flipping through webpages and I really like the new calendar, Address Book and Mail updates.

I had no PPC programs on my laptop, I suspect there may be 1 or 2 on the tower though so I am not upgrading that too soon. Also, the gestures, full screen apps etc are all pluses with the portable computer... less so or useless to me on me 2 screen office computer. I also discovered the «Airdrop» feature which lets you easily transfer from one computer to another will not work with the towers, who don’t have a wifi card installed. (I recommend a software called «Drop Copy» for that anyway).

Lion, as a little plus, fixed a bug with the «Dream Chronicles-book of air» game I was playing as well!

15 August 2011

one more


before I start putting the bulk of photos on Flickr this week.

12 August 2011

Provincetown




In Provincetown for the week taking photos and relaxing with friends. Experimenting with some techniques and finding the HDR is not the best thing for sunsets.. at least I haven't figured it out yet.

01 August 2011

Mac Book Pro 13 inch


My macbook pro from over 4 years ago finally got to be too much for me. Overall it still works very well. Some dead pixels, a little slower than I’d like, not enough ram, typical stuff for an older computer. It had one terrible defect that presented itself awhile ago that finally get the better of it and made replacing it a must. It seems this model, after several years, wears down the connection between the keyboard and the rest of the computer and the only way to get it working is to smack the battery area really hard. You can imagine how professional that looks.

Since I might have some hard core work to do while I am away on a trip coming up, I bit the bullet and bought a bottom of the line macbook pro. I am pretty surprised how much I like it and how much improved it is over the older (but higher end model) I had.

The screen: is simply incredible for a laptop. there some falloff but for a portable, I’m really liking it. Going from 15 to 13 inches was no big deal either. In fact I hardly notice it.

The body: The new macbook pro is literally as thin at my old one, minus the cover. The one piece design is pretty easy to hold and the smaller form is preferable, to me anyway. I like a portable to be... portable. This is a “while I’m not in the office” computer, not a replacement for a desktop. Not having a million dollars lying around I didn’t try any of the new “thunderbolt” connections or external drives. I’m not lacking anything I need to connect to my current devices.

Operation: The transfer from old to new was so simple, even by Apple’s standards it was sort of surprising. A couple of software issues that were easily fixed by re-installing. In use it’s much, much faster than the older one, starts up extremely fast and opens software, even slow pokes like Photoshop and IN design much more rapidly than my Mac Pro tower does. The trackpad... which in general I don’t like in principal, has little odd glitches I find annoying. It’s hard to click on things sometimes or open software from the dock, instead you get the pulldown menu. Might be me not using it right but it’s not as intuitive as I’d like. The faster graphics card, 5 gigs of ram and larger hard drive help a lot.

Overall a great new tool to take on the road with me.