MacPro

Apples core professional community has always consisted of artists. By that I mean folks that take pixels and make something amazing out of them on a daily bases. This might be photos, editing or simulations in Houdini or compositing in Nuke. Apple has always served the artist. In the nineties SGI was the king of doing this. Image compute speed and disk I/O at all costs. Matador and Cineon are some of the fastest image processors I have ever seen. The interactivity was great. These only run on IRIX boxes. The Foundry wishes its paint is as fast and interactive as Matadors was.

In 1997 SGI released the Octane. This machine was built for speed more importantly graphics speed. There was no 5.25 inch disk bay( they were all the rage). No CD-ROM drive. There were 2 full length PCI slots and 1 half length one. You didn't check Facebook on a Octane. There was a reason Sony Imageworks had stations for artists to use the internet. These machines were fast and even faster for drawing images.

In 2013 Apple released a new MacPro. This machine had SGI written all over it. Small, the GPU is fast. Fast disk I/O. The MacPro is pretty, but behind the design is a cooler core that can run faster longer. This means more power for a longer time from the CPU. Get what ever is in your head out on the screen no waiting. The Octanes GPU was a designated card from SGI. Sound familiar, it should the GPUs in the MacPro are also designated by Apple. They will also need the software developers to support OpenCL. From what I have read OpenCL is the the next step but it's happening slowly. Even Nvidia now supports OpenCL. No Optical drive is also similar. ThunderBolt is the new PCI slots and the internal drives bays.

The amazing thing about the new MacPro unlike like the Octanes is it can also email clients, make Quicktimes for clients, word processing and web browsing as well. A far step from the Octane. Sure you could check websites and send email on an Octane but nothing like how the new MacPro handles those tasks.

This isn't a machine for people who just want the fastest Mac for no other reason than being the fastest Mac. This is about solving image related problems and getting them done as fast and as precise as possible. The new MacPro isn't about text or fonts, it's not about Retina or your iPhone. It's not even about playing games. The new MacPro is about image compute speed which is really important to Apples core community.

Lion

Not my favorite. Everything is harder to hit.

With Lion, Apple has changed OS X interface and how we interact with the computer.

It's easier to invoke mission control or launch "pad" with a mouse. Apple moving away from a system that works well with a mouse. It now works better with your fingers.

Most days my hands fly across the keyboard and move the cursor with a mouse, or a drawing tablet pen. Not with a track pad. I have never wanted to control Nuke, or Shake for that matter with a track pad. It's terrible. Ask any digital artist if they use a track pad, they don't.

As a Nuke artist I'm still not getting used to the new operating system, Lion.

Reeder

A friend of mine just got a iPhone. He is coming over from a Blackberry. He asked me to recommend some apps. Here is part one. I will also be posting about web services that intergrate well with the iOS.

Reeder does exactly that. Reeder reads RSS feeds. Your favorite sports team, maybe a family member has a photo site. The photo bit can be a huge game changer for a couple who just had a baby.

To use reeder you need a google account. The Reeder app will ask for your google account info.

If you would like more info on getting google reader working click here

Then its game on. Go to your favorites sites. I'll get you started.

Fxguide

Why is reeder a game changer. Reeder is quick. I need quick. I have 3 minutes[rendering, we have a render farm its awesome], but sitting there staring at rush is waste of time. I can glance at Reeder and whatever catches my eye I will start to read.

Enjoy,

UI

Complaints or not iCloud has been good to me. Nothing has changed. Calendars still sync. My wife and I have the same calendars and that works fine. Contacts/Address Book keep all my contacts up to date. With reminders app I can share reminders with my wife as well as dates and grocery lists or multiple stores. For the most part things are great.

The thing that I find frustrating is the syncing. I have no idea that it's happening or is it going well. That's what Apple wants?

Dropbox works so well my dad doesn't get it. You do what? It does what automatically? Strangely dropbox has a Apple like UI element that Apple can't use. MobileMe used the spinning dashes. But Dropbox doesn't so much better. It's a feel it not see it element. It's really good.

Backwards

I recently took off 3 weeks of work. It was a great time. [Look here] [1] for all the images you will ever need.

Right before I took time off I had upgraded my MacbookPro to Lion.

Most of the reason why i did this upgrade had everything to do with iOS 5 and iCloud. Not because I wanted versioning or reversed scrolling. That in itself is strange.

When I came back to work my MacPro is running Snow Leopard. Such a contrast previous versions of Mac OS X.

Nuke with reversed scrolling turned on? Navigating the DAG takes thought again. Up for out and down for in.

Apple, please do not forget about your pro users. We love our software. But only
When it gets work done.

[1]: http://mbfx.me/photoblog/month/november-2011 "Photos For Nov."