Apples & Airstreams

[Davydd]

I use my Mac at home and a Windows XP Dell at work. I'm left handed. With my Mac I handle the single mouse with my left hand. With Windows I use a three button mouse with my right hand. :::strange:::

At work it is Microsoft Office Outlook, Word, Excel and Powerpoint, Internet Explorer, FileMaker Pro and a CAD program, Bentley Microstation AND Lotus Notes. That's it.

At home it is Microsoft Office Entourage (Outlook eq.), Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, Internet Explorer, Safari, FileMaker Pro, a CAD program Engineered Software's PowerCADD, AND Adobe Photoshop, iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, Final Cut Express, Roxio Toast 6 Titanium, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe GoLive, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Adobe InDesign, Reunion 8 genealogy, Painter, and tons of stuff I have no time to get to.

I got two Macs set up on DSL wireless in less than an hour with minimal instructions and clicking a one button mouse and only typing in a user name and a password.

At work, after 12 years going through MS DOS, IBM OS2, Windows NT and now Windows XP it all still remains a mystery and a call to the Help Desk whenever something goes wrong. "Computer Guy" has to come in to set up anything different.

I live in both worlds. Needless to say I enjoy using my Mac because of my graphics applications and just the pure joy of computing. My very big corporation uses Windows PCs except for the Advertising group. They use Macs because of the graphics applications too.

[idahosafari]

Originally posted by Davydd
I use my Mac at home and a Windows XP Dell at work. I'm left handed. With my Mac I handle the single mouse with my left hand. With Windows I use a three button mouse with my right hand. :::strange:::

If you like that three-button mouse and it has a USB connection you can probably use it with your Mac.

I've got a garden-variety PC mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel that I bought at Office Depot for $25 that I use with the Mac. It works great. After using it for week, one thing is clear: I'll never buy another single-button mouse again.

- Charlie

[Davydd]

I don't like the three button mouse at all. I like my wireless one button mouse on my Mac. Always have. Rarely on the Mac OS is there a need for more than one button. That is the beauty of the operating system.

Some CAD programs can benefit from multi-button meeces but I learned long ago to work differently. The most bizarre I saw on the PC was a CAD station mouse with 16 programmable buttons in use with a gridded off programmable mouse pad.

[Silvertwinkie]

I do love that 2 button mouse. I know the keyboard shortcuts, and even gave some feedback when I was out in Cupertino a few months back, but the answer I got was.... "We'll most likely not see a multibutton mouse in our future."

When asked why, I got... "Steve wants it that way."

Personally, I think it's a mistake considering the OS accepts and uses the 2 button, so I just buy 3rd party mice.

Still find it strange that the OS allows the use, yet the company won't sell or change the hardware.....

I suppose there are worse things....given the ordeal I had getting this blasted PC running, there are worse things that the Mac could do!

[crazylev]

All one has to do is take a look at the directions for installing software on a PC and on a Mac. The mac has three steps, the PC has 8.

As far as viruses, that can go either way. For now there are many more PC users, so virus writers get more bang for their bomb. It will be just a matter of time before the Mac gets hit, I think.

By nature of my business, digital photography, I am constantly dealing with cross platform issues. Microsofts color pallette for the PC is not the same as the MAc, which means when I look at something that looks great on a web site that I have been working on the mac, it looks dark and terrible on a PC. Of coarse there are work arounds, but can't our pallettes all get along???

Microsoft did not even recognize TIFF as a legitimate file until a few years back!!! Tiff files are what I commonly deliver to my clients for use in graphic and page-layout.

And it was just within the past few years that you were able to name a file using something longer than the 8.3(xxxxxxxx.doc).

Try and print out a folder directory on the PC. As far as I can tell, there is no easy way to do this.

BTW: for those of you wondering where that function is in OS X.x.x, download a small utility called Printwindow from Searchware Solutions.
http://searchwaresolutions.com/

Os 9.x.x don't need this.

Also BTW, I just purchased the Itrip for the Ipod. Works really well, and no wires!!! Also boughrt the Belkin Media reader so I don't have to schlepp a laptop around with me when on vacation. It is real slow on the transfer to the Ipod, but works as advertised.

Jonathan

[Silvertwinkie]

I was wondering how those wireless iPod units worked....the guy at the Apple Store last week also said they are very good. Do you have the one that can pick a station or is it the one that has one or two fixed stations it broadcasts from?

Eric

[crazylev]

Eric.

I assume you are talking about the itrip.

A couple of things to note: the sound quality is not as good as the cassettetape adapter thingie that goes into a deck. I bought the itrip ($35) because the Bambi that we ordered has a CD/AM-FM unit, and I didn't want to downgrade to a cassette player or buy an after market stereo for the new trailer.

The itrip is really cool. Most of the music I listen to was recorded from 1300AD-1975AD. The quality of the original recordings were just not as good as today's recording technology, so the sound issue is not a big issue for me as it might for someone listening to a symphony playing Mozart, Bach, or Ludwig Von.

Then again, I'm also pretty sure that the speaker system in the AS are not JBL's or whatever the state of the starte is for those, though, I'm sure that someone has toyed or replaced those speakers with something better.

Back to the itrip: there is a disk that you install with the itrip that has about a hundred "stations". These get installed in your itunes library. When you sync the ipod, it puts those "stations" in a playlist. You first find a station on your radio/receiver that is just static, an unused frequency. In my case I chose 97.5. Then on the Ipod through a series of steps, you activate that station on the pod. And there you go.

The transmission seems to be pretty good evwen when I am 20 feet away from my receiver.

Jonathan

[Silvertwinkie]

Thanks...that's exactly what I was looking for!

[idahosafari]

Originally posted by crazylev
By nature of my business, digital photography, I am constantly dealing with cross platform issues. Microsofts color pallette for the PC is not the same as the MAc, which means when I look at something that looks great on a web site that I have been working on the mac, it looks dark and terrible on a PC. Of coarse there are work arounds, but can't our pallettes all get along???

Jonathan

Jonathan, I strongly recommend a shareware app called "SuperCal". It is used for calibrating your monitor. After using this program to calibrate your Mac's screen, you will be amazed at the improvement. Setting the font smoothing style to "strong" may help a little bit too. You can find out more about "SuperCal" here: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12756

- Charlie

[Davydd]

I thought color calibration was the Achilles heel of Windows systems and probably the number one reason Mac still dominates in the advertising, print media, and graphics businesses.

I know that our Windows PCs at work are an adventure in printing on our various color printers and plotters. You never know what you are going to get so you have to learn by experience and create matching tables. This is an exagerration example to make a point but you might have to show green on a monitor to print red. So it doesn't matter how you calibrate your monitor on a PC. It is still too difficult to figure out your output.

[Silvertwinkie]

Kind of dating myself here, but back in the day, didn't folks use monitors that calibrated? Not really a graphic arts person, but I used to sell those things to folks back when I was in computer sales in the 90s. They still around? Did they even work?

[Davydd]

Yes, on the Mac you still have calibration, but don't ask me how with OS X because I haven't bothered. The LCD right out of the box on my Powerbook looks outstanding so I haven't fiddled with it.

[Silvertwinkie]

They are stunning aren't they!

Have you noticed at all that if the panel is put to sleep that it can take a bit of time for it to heat back up.

I mean, I've noticed a dark area that appears on mine (lower left about the size of a tennis ball) when I wake it up from a full screen sleep (not CPU sleep). That area takes about 30 seconds to get back up to brightness.

Just wondering if anyone else has maybe seen this as well.

[crazylev]

Charlie, Eric, and Davydd.

The Egg shaped Apple studio displays have/had a built in calibration system, for whatever that is worth. Yes, there are lots of calibrating gadgets on the market today, and I have tried a bunch of them. The problem is not whether I am calibrated, it is the rest of the world that concerns me. Here is a post on the Rob Galbreath digital imaging web-site about some thoughts:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/ubbthrea...ev=#Post212847

Let me know if this link works or not. As far as calibrating an LCD, fugedaboutit....there is one adjustment for an lcd, brightness.

As far as "calibration" in OS X, you will find that seting in Sytem Prefs/Displays/Color

For a general user with a decent inkjet printer, my rule is make a test print first with out any adjustments to the original photo and then compare your print-out with what you see on your screen. If your picture on the display looks great right off, but your print out looks to dark, then you know for each and every image, you have to lighten the image, which of coarse on screen will look to light, but your print out will be good, which is the desired result. This is my low tech way.

I am glad to know way more about this stuff than I do about trucks and SUV's!!!!

Jonathan

[idahosafari]

Originally posted by Silvertwinkie
Have you noticed at all that if the panel is put to sleep that it can take a bit of time for it to heat back up.

I mean, I've noticed a dark area that appears on mine (lower left about the size of a tennis ball) when I wake it up from a full screen sleep (not CPU sleep). That area takes about 30 seconds to get back up to brightness.

Just wondering if anyone else has maybe seen this as well.

Oh yes, the uneven illumination is a much-discussed issue on Apple's discussion board, specifically the Aluminum 15" PowerBook forum.

It seems to only be a problem when the screen is dimmed way down and left that way for a while.

Bringing up the brightness resolves the problem quickly.

As for my 15" AlBook, I don't have that problem. The machine is perfect. I've had it since December, '03.

Much to my wife's dismay, I do tend to spend a lot of money on PowerBook accessories, though. Just this morning I bought a sleevecase for it at http://www.sfbags.com/

- Charlie

[crazylev]

Charlie and Eric.

I have one of those Waterfield "Sleevecases" for my 15" Tibook. They are really nice, provided that the only thing you need to put in there is the laptop. I know mine is a very tight fit, and I could maybe only get a folder or some papers in there, but that's it. I actually had to call the company when I got mine and thaey told me with use it would loosen up a little bit. If you need more space, a Targus or something....

I ussualy pack this case in some other case when I am traveling on location.

Jonathan

[Silvertwinkie]

I have the Brenthaven backpack....works well for me. That is a bummer on the display thing. I too have my brightness all the way up. Once it's on for about 30 seconds though all is good.

[Davydd]

Originally posted by Silvertwinkie
Have you noticed at all that if the panel is put to sleep that it can take a bit of time for it to heat back up.

Eric,

I don't have that problem. So far my 15" Alum Powerbook seems to be flawless.