Daily Archives: January 30, 2007

Don’t believe everything you see on TV – PC vs Mac Commercials

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Apple’s TV ad campaign that makes you think the MAC is so much easier to use than the PC is not entirely true. I remember an ad where Mac and PC are talking and a Japanese girls walks in and Mac talks to her as she is the latest digital camera on the market… Let me tell you about my frustrations.

Back in August I purchased a Dual Core (Intel) Mac Mini PC so that I could see and try what all the fuss was about. Worst case is that my video editing pc has been down for a while (I need to do some upgrades and swap components around) so I figured at least I can use the Mac for that since it is suppposedly so much better.

I have found the Mac a little difficult to navigate around in but I didn’t want that to cloud my judgement as I am a long time PC user. So I muddled my wat through and am trying to learn it.

Today I am as frustrated as ever. I am right now trying to connect my daughter’s Canon ZR500 Vidoe camera up to the Mac to copy some of her tapes to DVD. Shoudl be easy right!. Plug the firewire cable into the camera, start IDvd and do a transfer after inserting a blank disk. Is it nooo. I followed the steps clicked Onestep DVD and nothing happened! OK I’ll try Imovie. Switch to camera capture mode. No camera. With a Mac there is no way (such as Windows XP control panel) to see if the camera is connected. I try shutting the camera on and off a couple of times, check help and still can’t get it to work. Hmmmm let’s try a reboot… Start all over and this time it recognizes the camera and works, finally!

This leads me to another “beef” I have with the system. When creating these OneStep DVDs the system stores everything to a temporary file. Well after creating 3 DVDs I notice I have no hard drive space left. OK i figure this is temporary files so I go to delete them. I can’t find them! From what I have so far determined there is no way other than rebooting the Mac to clear ou thte temporary files. I know I can do this in Windows so if you know how to do it on a Mac please let me know!

Other things are still confusing to me like how to install software etc.

I am trying… I am determined to give this little Mac mini a chance and will even spend a little to upgrade the Ram in it. From conversations I have had with other IT pros is that they find creative peolple (obviously I am not one of these) can figure out that Mac more easily than logical thinkers.

Oh well I will keep trying and if I finally give up you will see an upgraded Mac Mini available for sale here! At the very least I will dual boot it with Windows Vista and run that are a majority of the hard drive!

Stephen

Vista troubles

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For the most part I have been very happy with my Asus laptop with Vista Ultimate loaded on it. It has been stable and basic email, web surfing and my day to day applications have all worked fine (including Office 2007). My kudos to Intel, Adobe and Synaptic for having Vista drivers and software updates ready before the launch date.

 My biggest issue to date is some specialized applications and hardware that I use. I have a couple of applications that I use to control my Canon Digital Rebel XT camera for use when taking astrophotos (through one of my scopes). It appears however that the problem is not woth the application but with the Canon driver. I can’t seem to get the images off the camera to the application for focusing or post processing purposes. Even Canon’s own remote shooting application does not work properly. Canon has at least indicated that an update is being prepared now and to be patient.

Another specialized piece of hardware I have is a modified web cam that is used to take planetary images. At least with other cameras and such I have been able to load the drivers, not so with this camera. A call to the company earlier in December to ask about Windows Vista drivers did not go well. I was asked what was Windows Vista by tech support?

The above problems ave forced me to bring my old HP tablet out if the dust and reinstall the OS so that I could at least use something to take pictures. Hopefully it will be able to RIP again in the near future!

This is just an indication of what can happen if you are an earlier adaptor. If you do have specialized software or hardware make sure that you run the Vista upgrade advisor before going to see if there will be any issues or have a second PC that you can use for XP waiting. Within the next month or two we shuld be seeing releases from vendors updating software and hardware drivers for Windows Vista.

Stephen