The Big Events CES, Mac Expo

So, both of the big consumer electronics events of the first of the year are over and all I have to say is, meh.  Neither show had much to offer as far as innovation and real excitement. 

Apple announced a new micro laptop that is yes really cool looking but it’s not new, it’s just Apple’s take on a laptop without an optical drive.  We’ve seen this before this is just a little prettier.  You sacrifice a lot with this laptop too.  You only get one USB port, slower data transfers over wireless, no video out if you wanna use something other than the very small 13 inch screen, and limited audio capabilities.  Also the hard drive is pretty tiny so if you wanna rip DVD’s (since there’s no optical drive) and put them on it for travel you’ll have limited space.  For some people this will be a perfect laptop, for road warriors nah.

As far as the new movie rental abilities of Apple TV, all I can say is Netflix.  In a brilliant move just before the Mac event started Netflix announced that Netflix subscribers will now be able to watch as many films on-line as they want.  So, with this one monthly fee you get DVD’s in the mail and all you can eat on a computer, also in hi def.  I’d jsut hook one of my computers to my plasma TV and I’m good to go at a cheaper price than the Apple TV.  If you ahve an Apple TV it could still be pretty cool, but again not innovative.

CES didn’t do any better.  This show was just “wow look at my big TV”.  When the exciting new gadget at a show like this is a dancing MP3 player you know something is really wrong.  The one interesting thing I saw were these modules from a company called Bug Labs.  These modules can be combined to build a bevy of devices including motion detectors and GPS devices.  When you build the device of your choice you have to actually write the program that drives the device.  This is a really cool hobby but again not a mass audience innovation.  Old time CES fans know that consumer electronics don’t innovate as quickly as computers do so for many the lameness of this show wasn’t a surprise.  Many journalists say that you should only attend this show every 5 years.  There was one big announcement at the show and that was that Warner Brothers is committing exclusively to Blu-Ray.  So, the hi def format war rages on…

I think Microsoft is saving announcements for the XBOX for the Game Developers Conference and the cell phone companies are saving their big announcements for the cell phone specific conferences happening this year.  So there’s still time for some innovation, it just didn’t happen yet.

My Life With a Mac

OK, so I’m a multimedia content creator (wow that sounds important) and I’ve done all of that work on PC’s for the last 10 years.  I have a friend who’s insisted that I should move to a Mac and if I did not only would my productivity rise but my quality of life would improve.  The second part is one of the reasons that I stayed away from Apple products.  My computer is a tool, the other things in my life such as my family and friends actually define my quality of life.  The “cult of Apple” is a real turn off to me and my friend makes it all sound even worse. 

Now, recently my video work has expanded to the point that I needed to make my equipment universally compatible in case I have to outsource some editing.  So, I put together a Mac Pro editing suite.  I’ve been using it around 8 months now and I believe if it was going to improve my life it would have happened by now.  The harsh reality is, to be compatible output wise I’ve actually had to spend quite a bit of extra money because I’m using the Mac rather than a Windows based PC.  Here’s the other reality, on average, editing takes LONGER with Final Cut Pro than with Adobe Premiere due to the excessive rendering required for Final Cut.  Here’s the other thing, the programs within Final Cut Studio aren’t as well integrated with each other as those in the Adobe Suite.  When using Premiere, Photoshop, after Effects, and Encore you feel like your just using one big program.  That’s not the case with Final Cut Studio.  There’s still a lot of importing and exporting that happens between those programs.  When comparing Premiere to Final Cut Pro as individual programs they are virtually the same.  They do the same work in almost the same ways.  I will say that I actually find myself forced to make more clicks with many basic tasks in Final Cut over Premiere.  I do believe that Final Cut Pro was on the cutting edge ahead of everyone else for years but it looks to me like Premiere has leapfrogged Apple’s product.   

Now, this I have to say about Final Cut Studio, Motion and LiveType are far superior to what you can do in Premiere and After Effects.  I have been blown away by these two programs.  I’m sure anything you can do in Motion you can probably do in After Effects but I don’t find After Effects to be user friendly enough to find out.  It’s for these programs that I continue working on the Mac, plus I spent hundreds of bucks on Flip4Mac so I can export a wider variety of very standard formats not available within Final Cut Studio.  Also, generally on the Mac, Garageband is a fantastic piece of software for making music and doing podcasts. 

As far as day to day use I was able to work exclusively on the Mac for about 4 months before I was forced to get a KVM switch to be able to use my PC as well.  The Mac OSX interface is easy to use and again not that much different than what I’m used to on Windows other than the fact that I can’t easily get in and tweak the OS as easily as I can Windows.  I had to get my PC going for so many basic programs that I can’t even count them.  For example I can’t even sync my phone with something like AvantGo without hacks on the Mac.  In the end the Mac pro and Final Cut Studio cost 4 times what the comparable PC with the Adobe suite cost and I have to say it wasn’t worth the money.  I have it now though, and I’m still waiting for my life to change…. 

Help me Bono you must know the answer!

The New Year Brings the End of an Era

Not so many years ago the Internet was synonymous with Netscape Navigator.  I remember the first time I moved from the locked down AOL interface to the wonder that was the true Internet via the first Netscape Navigator web browser.  Microsoft saw the potential and Internet Explorer was born and through some true advancements and some questionable business decisions, which as we all know landed them in substantial hot water.

I did switch to IE, not because of bundling or anything else, but simply because the websites just looked better in the IE environment.  They continued to look better in IE until a few years ago when I finally got rid of Netscape for good.

Netscape fans can take solace however in the fact that Firefox was born from the open source code released from Netscape and now continues to grow market share.  Oh, and websites actually look good in Firefox.  It’s what I use these days.  Even though I haven’t used Netscape in a long time it’s still a little sad to see it no longer exist.  Must be really sad for AOL who paid a ton of cash for it just a few years back.