Ok I have 2 questions, the first is this: I have a choice of a MBP 17" as the only computer or an iMac as a main comp, with my old Asus W3A as a lappy. The Asus is getting on in age and my imaging needs have grown....a lot. Is there a big differnce, besides the screen size, in performance? I know there is a HDD difference, but most of the storage will be 2 500gb externals. Any opinions here would be most helpful. The second is that I need a full transition. Office is a must, as is CS2/3 and Nikon NX. These aren't a problem, other then cost. But is there anything else I might be overlooking? I use Firefox/Thunderbird now, so that can move seamlessly. But I really can't afford for this not to go smoothly, since it is a big part of the workflow that pays my rent. There are a lot of little things, I'm willing to bet, that I'm not thinking of. Can anyone offer their thoughts on what I might be missing?
seems like you've got everything covered. how will you be handling backups? cs2 is not intel native and will crawl under emulation, so make sure you get cs3. as for the performance between imac and MBP, they both use almost exactly the same hardware, so they will be veeeeeeeerrrry similar. try and use firewire 800 as a interface to your external drives though. i would be inclined to go with the imac if you're not getting an external display - it will use a better panel.
yeah I have to find the externals with firewire. As for back ups, I'm hoping to set up an old PC as an NAS. I belive the Macs play well with others, no? As for the external display, I am reading the apple site now. This looks like the way to go. Now do I have it right, it's just a DVI conection? So I can use any high quality display? Edit: Ok I just thought of something. Since I live in an "international" city, I have software that makes my DVD player on my laptop region free. does this exist for the Mac? The little rental place here has a variety of regions in their stock, not to mention virgin megastore.
yeah is just a DVI connection. don't bother getting the apple panels as they're pretty identical in specs to the Dell panels. AFAIK macs play nicely with NAS devices. automounting shares under SMB has always been an issue though (it doesn't happen) and make sure you unmount any network drives before killing your network connection unless you want to wait 5 minutes while Finder locks up and times out. grr. i am unsure if this applies to NAS though.
IIRC, Firewire can be daisy chained, right? The MBP has only one FW800 and one FW400. Are there Firewire hubs availible or can I just chain them?
Go with the iMac 20" at least for a desktop replacement. As for software, NeoOffice can replace MS Office for mac, plus it's free and can do most/all of what Office can do tbh. As for NAS, I'm sure Gordy had a very good firewire NAS that he had directly connected to his Mac Mini (worth a look on eBay) or just convert your PC to a NAS with Freenas.
As much as I love free software, there is a point where you have to consider the implications of looking like an idiot in front of clients because your software can't do it right the one time you need it to. Office for mac is fully compatible and a proven solution. If I need to open a brief in .doc with embedded images, it needs to open. I think that a Firewire box with the option for a few HDD's would be nice. But in the sort term, freeNAS is the option for non critical items.
NeoOffice is fully backwards compatable with MS Office. http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=117 By all means though, buy Office Mac as it is very good once you get used to the layout.
wait for 2008! intel native! also give iWork a try if you just needword processing/presentation stuffs.
I have seen Keynote in use and was impressed with it, it seemed very slick compared to Powerpoint. But have had no contact with Pages.
Yup twin ide hard disc enclosure for firewire 800 works a treat. More info here: http://www.gordyhand.co.uk/news.htm
Keynote is fabulous. One of the nicest, but simple bits of software I think Apple make. Pages... I'm not sure about. Perhaps I'm too used to Word but I just struggled to get to grips with the way it does 'things' differently. In terms of other stuff you might want to use - Aperture is a lovely piece of software for digital photography but it's not the swiftest piece of software. I'm trying out Lightroom as a possible alternative. Personally I sold my iMac and iBook and bought a 17" MBP as a complete replacement. It does only have DVI but comes with a dongle to use VGA. My only complaint is how hot it gets, but in terms of power and functionality I'm hard pushed to fault it. Just don't skimp on RAM. EDIT: Only two USB's and one Firewire is sometimes a right pain in the arse though - I do miss my bevy of ports on my iMac.
Lightroom beats Aperture over the head with a smelly stick in practically every department. It's multiplatform too, which is nice, and, tightly integrates with photoshop. also let's not forget Aperture's less than par RAW conversion. funnily enough i've never really had an issue with only 2 USB ports. at home i run all my peripherals off an integrated hub/card reader, and i've never needed to plug more than 2 things in at a time when i'm out and about. johnny: about your DVD playback, AFAIK, VLC/VideoLAN is region agnostic on OS X. There are no RPC1 firmwares for mac drives but i guess that's the next best thing.
What I love about Aperture is that it's extremely powerful yet I instinctively knew how to do whatever I wanted to do with it. I just really love the interface and how deceptively simply it is to use. The fact it's a system resource hog however (even on a relatively powerful MBP) is somewhat irritating once the initial 'wow!' has worn off. My reservation about Lightroom is that it's not 'obvious' enough to use imho.
Well I use Nikon's Capture NX for my RAW conversions. Neither Aperture nor Lightroom can read and apply in camera settings to NEFs. Aperture does have a function where you can store the files on an external HDD yet keep a preview image on the OS drive, which is nice for showing clients work and results without having to drag multiple drives around. At this point image management is an issue, not editing. There are a few solutions I am looking at. Thanks for the VLC heads up, that is one of the last issues I was worried about.
photoshop lightroom for the win, does everything apeture does and a lot more in a very intuitive way, cant go wrong with that
Well having used both, I tend to disagree. Lightroom is very much (in my opinion) consumer level software, where Aperture was written for a completely different market segment. But, as stated, I use neither now for RAW conversion. And doubt I will use either should I go Mac. Capture NX plus CS2/3 is my workflow, and it yeilds good results. I just have to find a new image manager for Mac. And since I don't want this thread to decend into a Lightroom vs Aperture discussion, I think it can be closed now. Thank you everyone for your feedback. It helped me make my choice and I appreciate the feedback.
have you looked at extensis portfolio? it's meant to be pretty good for cataloguing things http://www.extensis.com/en/products/asset_management/product_features.jsp#portfolio8
Hey thanks for that link, it seems to be something I want to look into more. It might be what I need.
I bought a MBP back in Nov 06 and have never looked back. The iMac is great however whenever clients see you pull out your shiny MBP they will be impressed. The only problem I have ever come across is that it is very picky when i wants to wake up from sleep, which can be very embarrassing when you are in the middle of a meeting. These days I always turn it off completely and as soon as I enter the meeting room start it up (starts up alot quicker than windows).
