Posts Tagged ‘apple’

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A Digital Life

by Derek on October 6th, 2011
A Digital Life

If you read my comic regularly I don’t think you need to be told that I have a long history as a user of Apple products. Heck, my FIRST COMIC is about wanting an iPod.

Growing up with Apple products for me was largely parallel to the character of Jason from Bill Amend’s strip Fox Trot. Every time Jason got or lusted over a new computer I was usually doing the same.

I don’t remember the very first Mac that I used in elementary school, but it was very large and I used it to play Number Munchers. Later on we used Apple IIgs’ in class. My friends and I figured out how to get into settings and mess with the boot screen colors and screen shape. Also it used 8.25″ discs that could be flipped over. The best games were Lode Runner and Montezuma’s Revenge. In 6th grade we used a 2400 baud modem to communicate riddles with other schools in the country.

My oldest sister had a Mac Plus that she used for college. The keyboard connected to the computer via a telephone cord. I remember in order to run some programs we had to swap out floppy disks as it put programs into RAM because there was no physical hard drive. Then when we got our first hard drive that was around 13 MB!!! The first program I ever installed was “Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego?”

In junior high my next Mac was a Quadra 610 which had around 600MB of hard drive space, a 25mhz CPU and it ran Mac OS 7! It was also the first color computer I had at home. Playing Myst was quite a step up from the Mac Plus games.

In high school I had a Power Mac 7200 which was a 120mhz computer with around 3GB of hard drive space. Also it had a separate card that could run Windows on it. I can’t remember if this computer ever ran Mac OS 8, but I definitely downloaded appearance themes so it would LOOK like I was running it. Just imagine, some day you would be able to continue doing other things on your computer while it was doing stuff like copying files!

Then in college I got a Blue/White Power Mac G3 which was 350mhz and this is the computer I did my first video editing on using Premiere and Final Cut Pro. This one for me topped out on OS 9 because the 8X speed CD-burner I installed was non-bootable. This meant I was missing out on the super sexy apps coming out.

When I graduated college I got the 1st generation G5 which I used for SEVEN years before upgrading last year to a new Mac Pro.

Yup, it’s been a long road. I attended the opening of the Apple store in SoHo, went to their theater to watch keynotes. Watched live streams online after I got home from work. For a while I went to the Apple store pretty much after every major product launch. Also I went to the opening of the 5th avenue Apple store with one of my best friends.

While my Apple fanboy-ish tendencies have waned somewhat in recent years I’ve always remained a Mac user even if now I use an Android phone and am migrating my editing software of choice to Premiere Pro. No one knows what will become of Apple now but Steve Jobs created a hell of a legacy that I realize had a huge impact on my life.

Rest in Peace.

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iPhone For Now

by Derek on October 5th, 2011
iPhone For Now

I think the takeaway from the Apple iPhone 4S keynote is that every two years Apple fanboys will be very disappointed that their iPhone didn’t receive a complete overhaul. I wonder if any of the people who left disappointed would’ve been more satisfied if it was the same phone as the 4S but they just called it the iPhone 5.

Maybe some of them, and they could justify their expectations by saying that the iPhone 6 will be so much more amazing than even they thought the iPhone 5 was going to be. I saw a graphic that showed the state of Apple’s stock during the keynote speech. The places it went down were when Steve Jobs wasn’t the one presenting, the software features being shown and directly after they revealed that the iPhone 4S was the only thing they were showing.

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Your Words Betray You

by Derek on October 4th, 2011
Your Words Betray You

I sometimes go to the Best Buy at Union Square to play with the various different tablets. I’d like to have one of course but I can’t justify the cost for what I would use it for. I was playing with the iPad and this comic happened verbatim except for the wiseass remark. But this guy really tried to play off to his girlfriend that he didn’t have any interest in owning an iPad. I’m thinking his internal monologue was “It’s not that I want to own an iPad, it’s just that if I had one that would be totally awesome.”

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If Apple Owned Adobe

by Derek on September 22nd, 2011
If Apple Owned Adobe

I don’t actually have that many video editor friends who I can nerd out about editing software with. But I’ve been filled with a burning need to talk about Final Cut Pro X. I was trying to think of analogies that would work for people who don’t edit video. And of course all I did was swap one complicated pro app with another one. But still, if you know Photoshop, this is a little bit what Final Cut Pro X is like compared to the previous version.

I spent a lot of yesterday reading and watching people who liked Final Cut Pro X in an effort to understand why they liked it. One very telling thing I found out is that it seems in iMovie there was no possibility of having empty space between shots. Whenever you deleted a shot, the following shot would move backwards to fill the space. In FCP 7 and all other editing apps, when you delete a clip it leaves a space, because there’s a specific tool or command you’d use to delete a clip and leave no space. But it seems that iMovie editors think exactly the opposite. Leaving a space is the special case scenario and leaving no space is what you’d always want.

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iGiveUp

by Derek on September 7th, 2011
iGiveUp

Had this conversation with my mom last night on the phone. I was failing to articulate that the concept of “I” was really broad, far broader than the “I think therefore I am” phrase. I’m guessing Steve Jobs would want to go as big as possible with the scope of his ideas.

I knew that originally the “i” in iMac was intended to mean “internet,” but Wikipedia says it also means “individual” which could also make sense.

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Big Internet Scoops

by Derek on September 6th, 2011
Big Internet Scoops

Tech rumor sites can be pretty ridiculous when reporting about features of upcoming devices or trying to do investigations in order to know what something is going to be before it comes out. Apple rumor sites by far take the cake for the extremes that they go to in terms of abstract facts of things like the iPhone 5. I used to check those sites religiously until I realized that it didn’t really amount to anything, I just needed to know what it was and when it comes out is the best time to know that.

But that doesn’t stop the sites from creating artist renderings, taking photos of battery connecting wires, measuring third party accessories to deduce the form factor of the final product etc. It wouldn’t surprise me if people soaking up this knowledge are planning everything around this device, maybe getting a new wardrobe that will perfectly hold it. Basically like buying stuff for a bedroom when you’re about to have a child. Except that this is just for a phone. Yup.

 

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Apple’s Favorite Child

by Derek on June 24th, 2011
Apple’s Favorite Child

Okay, ONE more Final Cut Pro X comic. A friend of mine got his hands on FCP X and very quickly got over his initial excitement for the software. Apple has always been about making stuff for everyone and talking about the experience over the specs. Then on the side they had their pro applications which were as impenetrable as most Pro apps are. FCP X is definitely a change of philosophy and from the reviews it’s clear that they accomplished their mission of pleasing the non-professional editors all of whom have glowing reviews for FCP X.

It’s quite bewildering how Apple is and isn’t supporting professional software. Apple a while ago bought a top end compositing software “Shake” which was used for Hollywood feature films, but then discontinued it in 2009. They also purchased the “Color” app which used to be a $25,000 app and discontinued it in this new generation without rolling its features into something else. With the new release of FCP X they also pulled all support or ability to purchase old versions of the software.

This means that people like my friend are put in the difficult position of not being able to expand their workplace with computers and having to either try to use FCP X or change over to a new software entirely that their staff might not know at all. In the industry time is certainly money and training staff means a lot of downtime, so sure people can stick to the old software for now, but eventually it’s going to catch up and if FCP X hasn’t been updated enough by then, it’s gonna be rough times.

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Final Cut Pro EX Minus Alpha

by Derek on June 22nd, 2011
Final Cut Pro EX Minus Alpha

Yesterday Apple released their new Final Cut Pro X software. I don’t normally do video editing related stuff in my comics because it’s a very specialized field, but it’s something that relates to my work/hobbies so I couldn’t not. Unlike the forward-thinking scenarios of the floppy and Intel chips, Apple thought a bit too forward and at the same time forgot to think of others. Namely the P’s in FCP. I read in a pro video blog that they talked to Apple and Apple basically said that they’re aware of what’s missing, they’re working on it and plan on having more frequent updates to their software from now on.

After the demo a couple months ago we were all super excited for the new features, but of course assuming that they would merely supplement what we’re used to doing already. Actually it was more intended to supplant our old way of editing with a new philosophy driven from the iMovie software.

I still haven’t got my hands on it, but from the sound of it Apple designed the software for iMovie users to transition to (the first window when launching it asks if you want to import an iMovie project). There are some very very key features missing which I won’t bore you with the specifics of, but their omission effectively makes it impossible for many professional post production houses to use it as their primary software.

The most compelling argument against this “out with the old, in with the new” philosophy is that professional applications are about choice. It’s something I’ve had to explain when telling people that Final Cut Pro doesn’t capture video like iMovie does and separate shots into clips for you. In Photoshop you can do several things in dozens of ways and how it’s used it a very personal style thing. But so far FCP X seems to be “my way or the high way” which is pissing people off.

Also, a comparison I haven’t seen made yet is that FCP X’s new file management system is actually very much like AVID’s. Because traditionally you’ve had to organize all your files on your own, but when using AVID you just import and let the software worry about organizing everything, and you know to never go digging into the files it creates lest you mess everything up. This is what FCP X’s system is like, just like how iTunes and iPhoto can organize your music and photos for you. But again, lack of choice and flexibility is the problem here.

If you made it this far then you’re probably an editor because otherwise you’d be asleep or on another web page by now. I still want to get my hands on FCP X, but it looks like it won’t be until Apple gets some sense slapped into them and they get the version up to 1.5 or something.

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Geek News Day

by Derek on June 6th, 2011
Geek News Day

Yup, starting around 12:00 pm today I’m probably even more glued to my computer seat than usual because it’s nonstop presentations of new software, games and hardware. Then I freely admit I’ll probably watching Giant Bomb’s livestream of their discussion of the day’s events. What did I do before all this media was available in real time? Probably be productive and just skip to the commentary part.

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Ipad 2

by Derek on March 3rd, 2011
Ipad 2

Once again, if I see an iPad 2 in a store I will definitely go and play with it, but as a computer power user without discretionary income to spend on something I really really really don’t need I don’t see an iPad anywhere in my near future.

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