Why do the majority of Graphic Designers and Printers use MacOS over Windows? I immediately got a Mac after High School because I knew Macintosh was the industry standard. However, other than OS fanboyism, why do the artists use Macs? It seems as though the art department is the only commercial facility that deploys Macs. Wouldn’t it be easier to use Windows to end client compatibility problems? or since recent benchmarks show that PC hardware is faster than Mac hardware with Adobe products? Just want someone with expertise and experience on this subject to explain to me this.
Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!
I am cool without a Mac. But I bought one anyway. I thought there is justification, not just for the "image". I am not one for a facade. Does anyone have a real response?
Mac are still used now in quantity because the print industry is very slow to change its habits… look at how slowly In Desing is replacing Quark(and the difference is that ID is superior to Quark) I thint that most places use PC and Mac indifferently. In the past there were valid reasons to dissmiss the PC (lack of color management being the biggest one)
most of the gfx apps like adobe’s offerings started on the mac, so its tradition i guess.
the line is blurred now…osx is more like windows, and has even picked up some of its annoying caveats just so windows users feel more at home. A step backwards in the name of progress.
In the beginning the MAC was superior in ease of learning, and brought the graphics industry into the computer age. Realize we were doing illustrations/artwork and keylining by hand with the aid of typesetting equipment for text, all parts were individually done and usually by separate people brought together by a designer.
The MAC was geared toward the graphics groupies and our industry. Printers began with MACs and we had to provide files that fit their scheme of things.
I don’t know if you are old enough to remember but PCs were designed for office use (you know accounting things), not art use, there was no PC for us to choose from. As the industry grew we became loyal MAC fans due to the consistent upgrading of hardware and software that made our lives much easier and faster ($$$).
Software was made and geared to us for years. Only within the past few years did the hardware/software companies make their crossover into PCs, making PC’s that was even remotely comparable to MACs. Also realize we would have to replace all of our existing software/hardware, which equates to huge $$$.
Unfortunately, I do think we are becoming 2nd class citizens in the computer world, when it was us who they cut their teeth on.
Thank you KLM for a reasonable answer to this question. I changed from XP to Mac OSX in October of 2003, primarily because, in 2003, I had three state-of-the-art Windows machines crash and burn because they could not handle the graphics and printer drivers. I have been using a Mac with Adobe PS CS since January with a Canon scanner and Epson printers and, so far, everything works very well. I still have the PC in the network and use it for accounting and correspondence, as well as Email, but the Mac is my Photoshop machine because it meets the graphic demands. When you have the PC crash half way through the printing process, which leaves you with dragging half a picture out of your printer, you will start looking for something else.
Macs have always been _much_ nicer to use for a ten hour day. And Macs are much easier and less costly to support, which is hugely important in small shops performing state-of-the-art networked graphics activities with no full-time IT support on site.
The real question is: Why did the world of generic corporate computer use evolve to MS-DOS (and continue into Mac GUI knockoffs called "Windows" running under MS-DOS)? That question would clearly be one for the Lounge, so I will not address it here.
Thank you KLM for a reasonable answer to this question.
You are welcome, it’s a shame that more people can’t get past themselves to help others in a respectful manner.
I think you will enjoy your Mac as it becomes more familiar. You will come to love PS CS. Yes, the issues with hardware are minimal or at least have workarounds. You may even get hooked and become a Mac loyalist.
You may want to also check out the adobe.print.design forum there are a lot of good people without the abrasive nature.
In addition to the positives listed in several of the other answers to your question, the fact is that the Mac OS is still easier and more intuitive to use than Windows. Why would you ever want a machine that makes you click on "Start" when you want to shut down?
I bought a Mac because MS Office was made for the Mac (do a search) it’s a Mac application originally. Then I discovered the wonders of graphics from Adobe. I bought a Mac because of the cool decal we all get and it’s on my car! I like the packaging. I like the GUI – as soon as I was exposed to it I was stuck 😉 I bought a Mac because my $2300 DULL running XP and 2000 (previously) was average at best with drivers and Plug n Play was a myth.
I now run Panther because F9,F10,F11 are lovely key commands.
Simply, I wanted looks, performance, reliability, and a good experience and everything profound stated by those before me in this thread!
Oh and PS, Ai, and ID run very well on a Mac and all I care about are "my" bench marks. Well there’s a little thing called AppleScript that’s about as powerful a tool as can be for automation.
I thought I had posted but cant find it. Well anyway I was just saying that I haven’t seen "here" a valid response to his post. I dont think the "image" alone or being cool is reason enough. I am also curious about this issue. I recently purchased my 1st Mac(17" g4 powerbook)Love the monitor but am looking for the more substantial reasons why all designers GO Mac.
I bought a Mac because MS Office was made for the Mac (do a search) it’s a Mac application originally.
Is that true? I bought MS Word 3 for DOS in 1986 (version 1 was at least two years before that–but it was copy protected). I bought MS Office for Windows in 1991. Was there a Macintosh version before then? (I don’t know, I’m just asking.)
I’m not a designer, I just use Photoshop for photography, both film and digital.
Beside the fact that I have been using Macs since the times when the Intel world was still mired in the pitiful MS-DOS environment, I can tell you that cost efficiency played a big part in my decision when I had to buy new gear earlier this year in order to run Photoshop 8.
I started looking at a G5 with dual processors, 8GB of RAM and two side-by-side monitors and quickly realized that I could not get a similarly equipped Windoze machine off the shelf anywhere, at any price. When pricing comparable custom-built Intel machines, it was clear that Apple had an advantage. Hands down.
I ended up with a Dual processor G4 Mac with 2GB of RAM, dual monitor video card, SuperDrive and Combo Drive, and four internal hard drives instead, because I happen to have a need to boot straight into Mac OS 9.2.2 often, Classic won’t do for me. But the above price considerations are still valid.
Additionally, I find that there’s a lot more information that can be shared among Photoshop users in the Mac world that is pertinent to my workflow.
The familiarity issue plays a role too, of course. I was doing typography and photography on the Mac when this was not even on Bill Gates’ horizon.
You may not believe this, but I don’t have a single friend or close professional acquaintance (in four different fields of endeavor in which I’m active: photography, the judiciary, multilingual translations and word processing, and chemistry) who uses a Winders machine. Not one. I only believe that Windows has a larger market share because I read about it in the press.
Especially in the area of multilingual documents, I find Windows applications next to useless. Actually, I should say utterly useless.
At my day job, I use both Windows and UNIX machines, but that’s strictly a matter of retrieving information.
Let me try some logic. Why do the press corp. stick to Nikon? Why are some locked into the Canon systems. I have used both systems but prefer the Mac as a result of long time familiarity. Also change over often not only involves dollars for software but some long learning curves which also translate to dollars.
And yes the Mac GUI seems to have an ease of use that most of us go back to. Then there is the loyalty factor which previous responses seem to show. Perhaps even a little on the fanatic side.
My philosophy is that tool are tools. The final photo, artwork, etc is what is important. Whether it is accomplished with a leatherman or snapon tool most won’t know or care.
Word was not even originally a Microsoft application at all. For many years, even after being marketed by Microsoft, it was developed entirely by an independent company (whose name escapes now). I don’t know at what point MS took over its development (and I’m assuming it has, I don’t know it for a fact).
You need to do the work (i.e. Search). (Kind of analogous to RTFM.) But then if you couldn’t find your original post #6 that you mentioned in #32 — I’m sure we all understand. <g>
My philosophy is that tool are tools. The final photo, artwork, etc is what is important. Whether it is accomplished with a leatherman or snapon tool most won’t know or care.
Of course; but how you get to the final product makes all the difference in the world as to what tools you choose.
I have absolutely no relation to Carlos Castaneda, neither by virtue of the last name he has forgotten how to spell (:)) or otherwise genetically, spiritually, culturally or philosophically.
I bought a few of his books out of curiosity but discarded them after reading a few pages of each.
History of Word. Originally written for DOS on IBM machines. The Mac version predates Windows but it was not originally a Mac program, according to this article (and othere things I’ve found on the web).
I bought a few of his books out of curiosity but discarded them after reading a few pages of each.
A hundred pages of exposition for every bit of information.
History of Word. Originally written for DOS on IBM machines.
From your link, it was surprising that the Mac version came in 1984, only one year after the DOS version. When they went to Windows, I believe it was a complete rewrite to make it more portable, and it took until something like 1.02 (that sounds about right) before it mostly worked. Later, I think much of that code became a new Word for Macintosh (3?)… with the same long series of patches and problems.
Excel, on the other hand, was a fairly portable program, released for Mac first, and then ported to Windows.
It’s interesting how my last name turns out to be so difficult for non-Spanish-speakers to pronounce and spell. Ronald just refered to Carlos "Castenada" [sic], and coincidentally someone sent me his résumé and a cover letter addresed to me as "Vermont Castenada" (presumably for Ramón Castañeda) a couple of weeks ago.
In Switzerland they often misspelled my last name as Kasganelli. Fortunately I lived there for less than a year. [Worst time of my life, too. Whenever they asked me what I liked best about Zurich, I’d immediately and enthusiastically reply "Der Schnellzug nach München!" (the express train to Munich!)]
Macs are generally cheaper to own (the initial purchase may cost a bit more, add-ons are the same for either platform, resale value for Macs is generally much higher), and are typically somewhat easier to set up and maintain. Except for brief three-month periods when one or another latest and greatest machine comes out, speed tends to be a total non-issuethe two platforms maintain approximate parity.
But I suspect that the main reason most people in the graphics world favor Macs is the sheer ugliness of the Windows UIthe crappy antialiasing and garish colors especially. I also notice a tendency for things WIndows to be either compulsory or prohibited…
For a short while in the mid-90s, my fastest machine was an Intergraph dual PIII. It smoked the PowerMac 8100/100 (of course, it cost about twice as much too), but I found myself using the mac for most handwork and relegating the Intergraph to executing actions because I couldn’t stand sitting in front of the damn thing for 8 hours (actually, given my work habits, probably more like 12).
When I was 17 I got a day-glo pink bass guitar. After about a year, I stripped it to a natural wood finish and it suddenly got much easier to play…
Actually, Bruce, that’s one of my complaints about OS X, the look of the interface. I’m tired of plastic buttons already. It’s very easy to customize the look of Windows XP (no other version of Windows is worth talking about). Mine has no garish colors and is reminiscent of the old Mac Platinum look. On the other hand I can’t even turn off the drop shadows under the text in OS X. What’s up with that?
And I’ve given up trying to get rid of Relative Dates permanently. There should be a control panel where you can turn that stuff off and never ever have to see it again.
On the other hand I can’t even turn off the drop shadows under the text in OS X. What’s up with that?
Because I wanted the new features of Photoshop 8, I recently moved up to OS X. I’m still not crazy about it and I often boot up into straight 9.2.2 and wish I had some of the features of 9.x in Panther. I’m confident that I will eventually adapt completely, and I’m doing my best to keep the system lean and well maintained to avoid the unspeakable grief I had under Cheetah, Puma and Jaguar on my old machine two years ago. I’m spelling this out to stress that I’m not an OS X fan, at least not yet.
However, I’m at a loss to understand what you mean by drop shadows under the text in OS X. Where do you see that?
Ah, now I see. You’re right, of course? Would you believe that I practically never see my desktop at all?
I size my windows to cover the entire screen. I’m not a double-clicker or a drag-and-dropper. I honestly had not paid attention to the desktop. I’m on the Graphite appearance with a pure gray desktop. I applied a gray Label to the drives for better legibility, and under these circumstances there are no drop shadows at all. I wasn’t trying to quarrel wit you; I honestly had not paid attention to that.
Additionally, I don’t have a single folder or icon on the main monitor, other than the drives. In the extreme right hand corner of my second monitor, I do have a folder with some clippings and aliases of text files for quick reference, like serial number, passwords, user IDs, etc.. That one doesn’t have a label, but on the neutral background I really have to squint and get up close to the screen to see the shadow.
In Photoshop the File Browser and the palettes cover the entire screen of the second monitor.
The drop shadows thing is admittedly minor, but I think a modern OS should make that stuff configureable. The Relative Dates is quite annoying though. Who thought this was a useful feature? And it’s the default! At least in 9 you could turn it off and (almost) never have to see it.
As part of our workflow we print out the window of the job folder and include it in the package before passing it on. We need dates in there, not Yesterday, Today, etc.
Until about two months ago we were using 9.2.2 and everyone was relatively happy. Now we are on OS X and it’s grumble time. Early, I know. I came to Panther fully expecting to love it. I had played with OS X a little before and it seemed fine. But I am disappointed so far. Day-to-day it seems less elegant than OS 9. It seems unfinished, almost amateurish. I don’t feel any more like it’s working WITH me. It’s early, so I’m really hoping my opinion will change and that they address some of these issues.
Slowness doesn’t help; neither does the fact that we have to run some things in Classic, or should I say Crashic. I understand that my Sawtooth G4 may not be quite up to snuff, so I don’t blame Apple for everything.
Meanwhile, in spite of the bashing I’m hearing, my three-year-old Win XP box hums along, never, ever crashing, giving few problems and doing what I want it to. It’s a pleasure to use. Sure, it’s not doing the heavy lifting graphics that the Mac is doing and maybe if it was it would be a different story. But I have to give MS credit for improving their OS immensely. In some ways it’s more Mac-like than the Mac is now.
And I’ve given up trying to get rid of Relative Dates permanently. There should be a control panel where you can turn that stuff off and never ever have to see it again.
Ed
There is a way to make them display as actual dates rather than relative dates.
Close all Finder windows. Open a folder. Menubar > View > As List View (checked) then click on Show View Options Make certain the radio button for "All Windows" is checked. UNcheck "Use Relative Dates." Close the folder.
Now all of your dates in list view will appear with the actual dates and not as relative dates.
The Windows XP box at work does crash. Often. Of course, they’re running WordPervert as a word processor and Lotus Notes as a mail client, with over 200 users on the (Novell) network, so I suppose it’s to be expected. Thank God I only have to use it for very short periods of time.
Obvious as it may be, I have to admit I am ignorant as I am impatient. I do need to learn alot and thank you all for your responses. Color management is for one. Thanks for the print forum suggestion.
It sounds as if your com.apple.finder.plist is corrupted.
Have you ever trashed it?
If possible it’s best that it’s trashed while booted from another drive or startup drive partitiion.
Be aware if you trash it you’ll have to reset some things in the Finder. (toolbar for Finder windows; trash warning; open ne window in separate window; spring loaded folders opening speed; icons on desktop)
I’ll check it out, but I have to tell you that several (as far as I know all) the machines at work have the same problem, which leads me to believe it’s a bug.
Have you gotten rid of Relative Dates permanently, for every folder and for every session, never to be seen again? Has anyone here?
As I thought. We generally shutdown each night though we aren’t required to do so. I’ve also noticed it when pulling folders off a server. In other words, the folder seems to retain the server’s Relative Date settings. I think.
If that’s the case OI guess I could ask the System Admin to change the server settings.
Shutting down at night prevents OSX from doing its 3 AM self-tweaking. Not recommended unless you are manually tweaking the OS using Cocktail or whatever every few days.
But I suspect that the main reason most people in the graphics world favor Macs is the sheer ugliness of the Windows UI…
Ahhh, Bruce I suspect you are 100% right. The mere looks and that seemingls native grayness and the over bearing XP look and any previous versions of Windows is oh so un-inspiring. ED, as far as getting rid of drop shadows, have you looked into any UNIX commands or Tinker Tool ? That’s always a possibility.
If one really wants to they can get freeware/shareware GUI customizing apps/utilities.
Macs just work better. As an artist/designer, I don’t have time to bother with blue screens of death and virurs’s. They would have to make a PC that doesn’t suck for smart people to use them.
For me it’s the overall interface. Working in the Mac environment is conducive to creativity. Also Macs are much for flexible for finding and moving files. I’ve used both and there is a huge psychological difference along with the physiological differences. Another thing I’ve noticed over the years is that the Mac just doesn’t seem to wear out. They keep on keeping on.
To be fair to PC’s, I have to say their hardware is cheap and easy to work on.
My disabled brother likes to tinker around on his cheapo Walmart 266mhz Acer. He’s been swapping out $3 2gig HD’s and RAM modules of unknown origin bought at thrift stores. Pops them in, reformats and away he goes.
I tell him he better use a wrist strap when he works. He tells me that’s BS and with peanutbutter laiden fingers commences work on his Acer taking other junk PC’s apart for their power supply’s, ram modules, processors and drives and trying them out. It takes him days and a bit of yelling and cursing to get it running, though.
Jonny: Have you noticed who gets all the viruses and worms? Windoze users! That’s because Mac users already have a creative outlet, and don’t need to be malicious.
I’m a graphic designer who will also work in-house, and I have refused work in shops where they were forced by some Windoze troll to use PeeCees. It’s not right, and we Mac users know it. Remember that the graphic interface we know and love was an Apple invention (stolen by Microsoft) for graphic designers.
Most of my clients have Macs that are networked to their PeeCee network with no problems, printing to the same printers and sending/receiving e-mail. as long as nobody tried to force their ideas on me, let them have theier problems.
And my dual-processor G5 beats the any PeeCee any day. 😉
<< Have you noticed who gets all the viruses and worms? Windoze users! That’s because Mac users already have a creative outlet, and don’t need to be malicious. >>
You might have a point there Louise. I was just the victim of a malicious windozer… when he was fired and forced to turn over a Web site to me by an attorney. I’ve been fixing html files for days.
Please! We’re entering the realm of bigotry here. Believe me, there are plenty of real jerks using Macs and plenty of wonderful people using PCs. And plenty of people who use and like both.
You’re right Ed. I should have put a smiley face there… no, actually I should not have posted #82… but I’ve been burned very badly over the past week and I guess I took the opportunity to vent… I really don’t feel that way about PC users in general… but this guy is bad… and I am still recovering from the sabotage
I have a G4 400 that still manages to hit them out of the park (ok, sometimes in slow-mo) and seems to get that little bit faster with every OS update. No OS housekeeping performed, seriously.
To think I’m running a dual 450 G4 and with every upgrade of OSX and various apps, I’ve maintained good performance and without any slowdowns.
That’s a testament to the over all design and hardware/software development that allows me to use the same Mac since 1999 and not feel I need a new system – although I do want one 😉
I can’t say the same about the PC setup here, which only seems to be more sluggish and unreliable so I’ve moved 99.9% Mac workflow unless I get the super rare "DOS" only CD.
Wish I could say the same. My G4 (466 mhz)has slowed significantly since switching to Panther (same for many other machines here. It’s three years old, sure, but so’s my PC with Win XP and that chugs along beautifully and never ever crashes.
Ed, I think the key to OSX on the G4’s is either a single G4 with at least 700+ MHz or a dual. The dual 450 is truly been flawless with 1.25 gig of Ram.
I miss OS 9
In the imortal words of John MacEnroe "You cannot be serious"!
Personally I’d rather work on my dual 450 OSX rather than any c onfig of a pc box. They just got me a 2.6 Xeon loaded with ram, and honestly have not used it- other than I can’t stand the look of Windows.
I have to use the machine they give me. But I think some of the glitches and unfinished sloppiness is not dependent on the machine. Too many things left out or clumsy implementation. It still strikes me as unfinished and amateurish.
Window’s look is very customizable. Mine looks quite spiffy without being obtrusive. Personally I prefer Platinum to glass beads. But that’s all beside the point if the thing doesn’t run well.
I’d like to like OS X but so far it’s not doin’ it. I can’t help but think that Apple took a wrong turn somewhere.
Unless "They" have up-dated you to OS 10.3.4; and will allow you to install, and use, Cocktail; they are forcing you to work with your hands tied behind your back!
Of course you could use "Terminal" to do what Cocktail does but it would be much more hassle — and you would have the opportunity to inadvertently create real havoc on your System.
From what I’ve been gleeming from hardware/sw issues off different forums for the past couple of years, hardware components-logic boards, graphic cards, power supplys, etc…seem to be at the heart of why some identical systems can mysteriously behave so differently regardless of platform.
I’ve read that combinations of system upgrade versions with certain components of questionable quality, workmanship and installation can create heat issues and even electronic resistive (ohm) problems inducing slowness, bad SW installs and corruption. Some even unfixable.
If you’ve spent anytime on Apple’s or any of the computer hardware specific forums, you’ld see what I mean. Strange things can occur with the same model that are resolved by someone reporting some obscure hardware manufacture defect no one ever heard of until somebody complained loud enough to the manufacturer. No one else had the same problem.
Troubleshooting computer misbehaviors is becoming more and more like brain surgery. It’s just cheaper and easier to trash the entire offending system and buy new or swap out irregardless of platform.
I so agree with Ron that OSX is better. I can’t understand how you feel otherwise Ramon… unless it’s because you still use Classic apps. Do you think OS 9 is more stable? Faster? What? 🙂
I do have some applications that will only run in native 7, 8 or 9.x (a $32,000+ TSS custom application; Fontographer; MacKeymeleon; a chemical formula display program; just off the top of my head). Yes, 9.2.2 is stable as a rock for me, once I weeded out the known trouble makers; no repairing of permissions, no cocktail waitresses or janitors. On the old Frankenmac, Photoshop 7 does run faster in 9.2.2 than it did on OS X. Of course, Photoshop CS on the new machine is a gazillion times faster.
I’m slowly adjusting to OS X, after hiding the abominable dock and switching to Graphite, but if Photoshop CS ran in 9.2.2, I’d regress in a second.
Okay, well I can understand being able to use older OS applications… but other than that I would never want to return to the old OS. But then I had nothing but trouble with OS 9.2.2. Matter of fact I’ve never been this trouble free as long as I can remember… other than certain apps that want to quit on me from time to time… and as Ann points out, probably font related.
It took me awhile to feel comfortable with OS X also (I’ve been using it for a few years now since… I believe 10.0.5 or-there-abouts).
OS 9 wasn’t ‘bad’ as long as you didn’t introduce too many variables (i.e. shareware, etc.), but OS X is lightyears better. (e.g. on a laptop — Expose alone — is enough to make some people’s jaws drop and large thumbnails I couldn’t do without — I don’t always want to use Portfolio or the PS browser).
And when Ann started singing its praises… well… that should be enough to convince anyone. 🙂
I tried all versions of Puma, Cheetah and Jaguar, through the second release of Jaguar for about half a year. I can in good conscience say that all of those OS X versions were, in my book, unmitigated pieces of garbage, beta versions of a half baked system at best. No one will ever convince me otherwise. That’s why I reverted to 9.2.2.
I freely admit that Panther has indeed come a long way since those abominations, and it performs nicely, except for the huge routine maintenance hassle. I still hate the OS X interface, that won’t change. But with the Graphite appearance and the Dock totally hidden, I’m adjusting to it. I’m not complaining any more.
Only about a month in. Maybe OS X is better than 9, but I’m not seeing it. Slower definitely. Doesn’t crash, but apps freeze. Maybe if they get me a new machine (someday).
I am not crazy about the look either. Perhaps I’ll try Graphite. But that’s not so important to me.
Hate Expose. I don’t mind the dock (very Windows-like).
I wish there could be a control panel or something where you could set your folder views and make them STICK! This should be a basic feature of any mature OS. I think instead they wasted their time on silly gimcracks like Expose and magic Genie minimizing and dropshadows on text. All junk IMHO.
I have been working from one folder the last week and every time I open it I have to reset it to Column view. Very aggravating. I leave it in teh dock most of the time but sometimes I forget and close it, and when i open it again–Doh! And I’ve given up on eradicating the moronic Relative Dates.
And so on. Hope I get used to it. Are they fixing any of this stuff in Tiger? Doesn’t look it from the Apple website.
I like Tiger’s new search. If you type CMYK it’ll pick up CMYK images. Stuff like that. And within other apps too.
The Dock is from NextSTEP which was pre-taskbar. I find it better than launcher since you can see all the apps you have open at once instead of only the front most app.
Meh, the icon view is kinda off. It’s a problem with .DS_Store files over riding the default setting. And columns view doesn’t set itself in the .DS_Store file since it’s weird like that. You can set in Finder for the Columns view to be the preference though. But unlike you I hope it’s fixed in 10.3.5 rather than tiger.
But the metadata search makes Tiger worth-while to me. It’ll be über sweet.
The Launcher and the Control Strip were two of the things I hated in 9.x. I trashed everything related to the Launcher because I found it ugly and unnecessary. The Control Strip is one of the first things you need to get rid of in 9.x because it’s the root of a lot of instability, second only to the nasty Desktop Printer Extension. Once you get rid of them, and a few other things like IdleTime, TSM Fix, etc, 9.2.2 becomes very stable.
I never said OS9 was unstable. For me it has been somewhat more stable than X (mainly because I don’t run problematic stuff). I think OSX has done greatness integrating launcher in the Dock and Control strip in the Menu Bar (menu extras).
Just watching the keynote now and the Image Core stuff looks pretty cool (real-time image effects, hopefully integrated in Photoshop 9 filters ;P)
If you haven’t watched the WWDC Keynote do so, it’s neat.
Also what I find funny is the number of OSX themes available for Windows. Apparently Apple must have done something right as quite a few Windows users now have screenshots that look identical to OSX.
Nothing says you have to upgrade to OSX. You can use OS9 for the rest of your life if needed. But the bottom line is that Apple would probably have gone out of business without OSX. Jobs even predicted Apple’s demise before being rehired through Apple’s NextSTEP acquisition.
Personally I’ve found Exposé really handy. Expcially on smaller notebook screens such as 12" or 15". Having multiple Photoshop+Illustrator windows open show side by side in a "thumbnail" view has been really great for comparing files. I honestly can’t use Jaguar anymore on the school’s lab computers because of it. Panther has made fonts a little easier than Jag, which is good because of the brokenness between X and 9 with the easiness of fonts.
I can see your frustration though, as it’s often hard to teach an old dog new tricks (no offense btw). I just hope you can find the fun and ease with OSX.
(Automater looks good, but I don’t see me using it for anything yet, unless batch RGB>CYMK is possible ;P)
I believe you can set a preference in Finder for new windows to open in column view, but for pre-existing windows, uh-uh. And since that’s mostly what I work with, I’m up the creek, unless I make a new folder, drag everything over, rename, etc.
No reason at all why this shouldn’t be part of the OS from the get-go.
You can also delete all the .DS_Store files on a disk. An app called Cocktail (search macupdate.com for it). That should get rid of your existing window problem. I’ve just gotten use to icon view and using the key commands for new views as I need them. Cmd+1 = Icon Cmd +2 = list Cmd+3 = Columns. I also think Windows has the same file. It’s because the invisible file .DS_Store takes predominance over the system default. It’s kinda a flaw with a built in feature messing up what most users want. Sometimes people pick a default windows style and decide to customize a few folders as a different view. The problem is that any window you open in Icon view or list view saves this pref in the folder’s .DS_Store file. Column doesn’t save this because I think it’s a special view in someway. Anyhoo, I think it is a problem and .DS_Store files shouldn’t be written to disk unless the user specifies so. Until then you can use Cocktail to delete the .DS_Store to reset all your window preferences to default.
Hope you find a solution. ;P
EDIT: ick mail now beeps with every new post ;P Oh and I think I’ll go back to columns view. Seems cleaner. I stopped using it because of Panther’s Network goofiness. Now that is fixed I should go back.
I’ll be hounding our tech folks about Cocktail, cause it ain’t just me. I can’t just install anything without asking. Likewise they might not like me messing with .DS_Store files.
By the way, I will give Mac high marks for their search functions. Far better than Win, and the new one sounds great too.
..DS_Store shouldn’t hold anything important. Tell them it will increase your workflow, ;P.
IT is shareware, but free to try for like the first 10 launches (it even has an uninstaller. When you (or they) run Cocktail the .DS_Store deleting thing should be on Files then in the tab called "DS Store." Good luck with the tech people, at least you can do this on a personal machine if need be. I just went back to column view and it went smoothly. Just make sure finder has Column setup as the default for new Windows. Aslo Mac CDs will open in their view because most likely the CDs were created with a .DS_Store on them so that should be "normal." Windows has a similar problem with the invisible desktop.ini files and Thumbs DB files. I just hope Apple finds a way to fix it without having to delete the .DS_Store files. The easiest way would be for if Columns view is set to default would be for the system to ignore .DS_Store files.
Again, good luck with the tech people in your place of work! ;P
for me it wasn’t so much that the Launcher and the control strip were causing problems, it was more that they were useless pieces of junk (IMHO) cluttering up my screen.
I delete logs, cache files, .DS_Store files and run cron scripts. Sometimes I turn on invisible files. You can’t break anything with Cocktail, since there is an uninstaller that will restore everything.
The Dock is functional because you can see all the open apps and close them without having to bring them to the front (crtl+click on their icon in the dock). Personally I hide mine so I can get more screen estate of course. In OS9 I usually forget about apps and find out later that they have been open. The Classic MacOS originally didn’t have multitaskabilty and thus the design was flawed when one could open many apps at once. The launcher was just a patch for a larger wound. However, some people like this…
….it performs nicely, except for the huge routine maintenance hassle.
Ramon
Ya-gotta-be-kiddin’-me… OS X has been the lowest maintenance and most trouble free OS I’ve ever used.
Sometimes I wonder what people are doing to their computers.
I’m thinking that often (not necessarily in your case though) that there are other users on the same system that muck it up.
The only maintenance I do is to run DFA and to Repair Permissions before major installs (of the OS or major apps). Then after the installation I Repair Permissions again. That’s just about it and it literally only takes minutes. Other than that every few weeks I run DiskWarrior, and I leave my system on most nights so I don’t even run MacJanitor more than every few months now (and I probably don’t even have to do that).
The only maintenance I do is to run DFA and to Repair Permissions before major installs (of the OS or major apps). Then after the installation I Repair Permissions again. That’s just about it and it literally only takes minutes. Other than that every few weeks I run DiskWarrior, and I leave my system on most nights
Totally unnecessary in OS 9.2.2.
Ya-gotta-be-kiddin’-me… OS X has been the lowest maintenance and most trouble free OS I’ve ever used.
No, I’m not kidding you. You are kidding yourself.
I run maintenence with OSX once in a blue moon. Generally.. never unless there’s a problem, which is rare. I don’t think I’ve done any kind of script running or permission repair in at least 6 months.
I don’t buy into the whole "Run this weekly, daily, monthly" notion.
A good machine needs a little grease in it, Clean it too much and it doesn’t run well.
And no, I don’t have crashes, font problems, freezes, unusual delays, or any other typical problems.
I’d be pissed if I bought a car that needed it’s oil changed every week… or every day.
I run the those cron scripts when I’m reminded to. I don’t leave the machine on 24/7, and I don’t shut it down. Everyone has a different workflow, and there are many different maintenance policies to suit those workflows.
I verify disk/repair permissions occasionally.
On Windows, I check the disk occasionally, then right after that I defragment it. And defragment again. And again. (Why doesn’t the defragmentation tool consolidate free space?)
Buko: Are you using GoLive CS? If so, how much? Do you ever have crashes with it?
Nope.
I let my G4 733 run 24/7 if it gets a little sluggish I run Cocktail.
If it starts acting goofy I run Norton off a partition that is setup with 10.2.6 still.
since I run 24/7 so do most of my apps including the Premium Creative suite which includes GoLive. I don’t have any crashes to speak of but if something does crash or act goofy I fire up my repair partition and run Norton. I have found that most goofyness is from bad descripter maps and allocation blocks ect…
Okay… thanks! I don’t have Norton but I have DiskWarrior and TechTool Deluxe. Nor do I have Coctail.
I do run CacheOutX daily, MacJanitor maybe three times a week, and Permissions two or three times a week. The others I run occassionally or if I have a problem.
I have very few problems with GoLive 6 but GoLive CS crashes constantly.
Ed so don’t use it. It’s not likeit’s in your face. Besides I ask, what’s to hate?
You have 5 or more images open in PS and you hit the F10 key, you don’t see that as a good tool ? c’mon exposé is great if you decide to utilize it as it’s meant to be. Other wise don’t hate what’s something that doesn’t actually impose on you unless you activate it.
I very rarly need to run Norton
Rarely is too much too.
I have not defraged/optimized my drive ever since I installed 10.1 to present, 10.3.4. The dual 450 runs 24/7, OSX takes care of it’s self and I haven’t had to reboot (other than an app or OS update requires) in over 1 year and 2 months.
I keep away from 3rd party utilities like the plague other than Cocktail for my PBG4. Even then I like using Terminal(for a goof).
I like that I haven’t spent a dime on any major utilities
I’ve never defragged my drives either. but the descripter maps do get messed up and Apples disk utility does not fix this, Norton Utilities does.
There is nothing wrong with Norton Utilities as long as you run it from a repair partition or the CD. System Works is a waste of money and can seriously screw you up if you install it because of all the extra crap it loads on. I would never load Norton or any 3rd party disk utility software on my main partition anyway.
I like that I haven’t spent a dime on any major utilities.
CygnusX1… same here… with the exception of DiskWarrior I haven’t bought one disk utility in several years.
Ramon… you’ll also note that I said "…and it literally only takes minutes."
I’m glad for you if you never had to spend at least this much time with Conflict Catcher, but I certainly had to spend more than a few minutes with it.
Ed… You may want to try the hot corners for Expose if you have one available (at least for the ‘wipe desktop’ feature). I have one set for wiping Desktops… works great. (And since Expose I got rid of APE and Windowshade.)
True, at the beginning Conflict Catcher was a necessity in 9.x, but once the offenders were ferreted out, I even uninstalled Conflict Catcher. That’s how confident of the stability of my 9.2.2 I became. Even at the beginning, it wasn’t a daily or even weekly routine.
When you get old enough to consider your life expectancy in terms of hundreds of days rather than tens of years, "only minutes a day" matters.
Now GoLive 6.0.1 is crashing… I’m going to try DWMX again. I still would like a report from Scott on DW… which version and if it ever gives him trouble.
You can do otehr things while doing OSX maintenance, Only thing it seems to slow down is writing to and from the boot disk. So the "minutes a day" doesn’t even seem to apply. And I would change that to minutes a month actually.
Larry, The interface is different on the two programs. I learned GL back with Vs3. It’s hard getting used to DW even though I’ve also owned it since Vs3. I guess I just need to make myself use it for a month so I can give it more of a chance. I really do like the UI of GoLive though. I also love GoLive’s Point & Shoot feature for linking.
Questions about Coctail: It is warning me about journaling. Do you disable journaling before you run it? Also do you quit other programs first or run it while still working?
I’ve had most my crashes when hitting F12 (preview in browser) in Dreamweaver MX. Whch can be troubling if you’ve worked a while without saving. In DreamweaverMX2004 they added a save alert when you press F12 without saving so that pretty much takes care of that problem. Or at least constantly reminds you about it.
Oh and Linda, the only crashes I have are due to an easily reproducable thing in Indesign CS. Now, whether that’s due to IDCS or the tablet driver I’m not certain. But other than that.. my system is solid. I will occassionally leave it on over night. So there is the possibility that automated scripts are running. However, I’ve also pulled a couple 36 hour sessions and not noticed any scripts running ever.. so… who knows. That 3 am cron thing might be a myth. Or may be cancelled if the machine is in use.
Basically.. if it ain’t broke, I don’t try and fix it. I’ve always been lucky with Macs like that. OS8.6 and OS9.1 and 9.2 were rock solid for me too.
Scott, It’s great that your systems have been so solid. You must be doing something right. OS 8.6 was good to me… and thankfully so is OS 10.3.4.
36 hour sessions? Hope you don’t have too many like that. The most I can handle is around 20, and that’s pushing it.
I trust you are happy with IDCS, over and above Quark. InDesign CS has proven to be very solid for me. I don’t remember it ever crashing… not saying it hasn’t, just that I don’t remember it. Photoshop CS too.
In order to retain column view in previously created files/folders, all you have to do is open the file/folder, change to column view, and close the finder window, making sure you don’t navigate anywhere else after choosing column view – just close the window immediately. The next time you open that file, it will be in column view. It will stay in column view until you repeat the above process and choose a different view. This is in answer to post #114.
Every folder everywhere has it’s own view.. yeah you could open all folders and change their view one by one.. but wouldn’t a system wide preference be nice.. if it worked?
My point exactly. You would think this would be easy to do. You should be able to set all folders or folders individually and have it stick. Like in ahem….harumph, errr….
Maybe I’m missing something here, but ALL my folders open exactly the way I want them to (whether it’s in column view, icon view, list view, or any combination of these) in accordance to my preferences – every time – including after rebooting.
You’ve got a one in a billion system then Nancy 🙂 All three of my systems suffer from the "Open-this-window-in-the-most-annoying-view-possible" option.
Recently with 10.3.4 I have been leaving 6 or more programs launched including PS CS with documents open. I have had no problems. My system seems to be very solid!
Ed’s quite keen to tell us that Windows remembers Explorer view settings as well, but on Windows NT 4 and Windows XP Pro, aliases to folders that I’ve placed on the desktop don’t always remember their list view settings either. Initially, the settings stick but it seems that after about a week or two, the settings revert to icon view.
Nancy: I don’t think Ed was talking about going navigating into each folder and then closing it, he wanted to make list view the default for all newly opened folders. The last time I checked I couldn’t get it to work. (I’m not going to try again because I don’t want to alter my present system of view preferences.)
Using XP Home, I’ve had both folders adn shortcuts to them that I set over two years ago that open exactly as I set them, always. When I make a new folder it opens in the view I set as default for all folders.
Nancy,
I’d love to kknow how you do it. I’ve tried the method you described many times to no avail. Sometimes it sticks for a while and sometimes not. I see no rhyme or reason to it.
And of course, Relative Dates insists on popping up after a reboot. Does anyone find thes "feature" useful? Why? And why is it the default?
I’m seeing the same results as youare Ed. Sometimes it sticks sometimes it doesn’t. I’d LOVE to find out how to make that Finder preference "Open all new windows in column view" actually work for a change.
Oh yeah, here’s another one. Remember how it used to be if you had a folder open (like a server with lots of files on it) and you wanted to find a certain file or folder quickly you could just type the first number or letter of the file name and you would be brought to it instantly? Seems to be gone now, am I right? Was that just too useful a feature or what?
See what I mean from my last post. Unexplanable behaviors of varying degrees across similar systems. Maybe it is rocket surgery.
Ed, it’s probably not worth the time, but have you checked the Apple forums on this issue? It doesn’t make sense why it happens on your system and not someone elses.
After additional experimentation, it works for me in local folders but on the server letters work but not numbers. Which is too bad because all our files are numbered.
Have to look into this more deeply. Maybe it’s an X-Serve issue.
Not just typing the first letter, but as many leading letters as you care to type accurately & quickly. The server issue is an interesting anomaly. Why would selecting a file by characters make a difference?
Now were back on the original subject… Why don’t we all just use PCs?
Then we could all drive the same type of car, wear the same clothes, have the same poxy haircut, shop in the same boring supermarkets, listen to the same dull music, go on the same sheep holidays, eat bloody McDonalds everyday, and drink the same crappy beer every night.
Or we could have a bit more imagination and enjoy the varieties of life.
I regularly use both Macs (OSX and OS9) and PCs (Win2k, NT4,) and at different times am able to love and hate them all equally. Viv
I know most creative houses like to stay with Macs so that they have the hardware and software that their creative hiring pool is most experienced with. However, Mac OS X has a considerable learning curve for people switching from Mac OS 9.x.x and earlier.
When ad houses are considering switching their whole graphics departments to Mac OS X they might be tempted to switch to Windows XP and Adobe products for Windows instead because adopting Mac OS X requires newer hardware purchases and software learning time. So, one might think if I have to get new machines to move up to OS X, why not just buy PCs and cross-grade over to Windows versions of Adobe’s graphics and publishing apps?
I have used my Dad’s Windows notebooks and I don’t like their frequent freezes and crashes.
Mac OS X seams to be rock solid when it comes to stability. Companies that are entirely Mac based claim to spend only 25% in IT support costs compared to Windows based companies.
I guess a company’s choice in platforms for their creative departments mainly boils down to familiarity and OS loyalty to their existing installed base. A number of Windows users have chimed, in the Adobe InDesign forums, that they are having a great experience using InDesign CS on Windows XP. I, myself, am happy using the Adobe CS apps in Mac OS 10.3.4 Panther.
It seams like when ever Microsoft and Apple upgrade their OS’s they become more and more similar to use. This makes it easier for a workgroup of Windows XP users to switch to Mac OS X and vise versa.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but ALL my folders open exactly the way I want them to (whether it’s in column view, icon view, list view, or any combination of these) in accordance to my preferences – every time – including after rebooting.
same here
Recently with 10.3.4 I have been leaving 6 or more programs launched including PS CS with documents open. I have had no problems. My system seems to be very solid!
That’s the beauty of X. I have a PB 1.5 with 1gig ram and launched and running Ai10, ID2, PS7, Word, iTunes, Art Directors tool kit , Suitcase and iChat at all times without any issues at all. Plus it’s running the 20"LCD as a second monitor.
The system doesn’t lag, it wakes from sleep reliably it runs exactly as advertised and even after hors of work, it’s snappy and doesn’t slow down.
I believe I focussed on why the creative industry embraces the Mac platform but I tried to also express why some prefer the PC as a creative workstation — that is where I believe I delineated from the topic.
