Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

First off, they run wonderfully!

(Warning: this entry contains “geek speak.” If you don’t care, skip over those parts.)

Last week I received the MacBook Pro and AirPort Express (now with 802.11n) that I purchased from Apple. I am neither independently wealthy nor overpaid, so I used money that I saved in a separate account for the purchase (and did not spend), over 3-5 years ago, when I worked for Sun Microsystems and was “on call” a lot.

Why did you wait (they ask)?

Aside from wanting to keep cash reserves, I was waiting for an optimal time (chip, chipset, things done in hardware rather than software, etc.) in the development of both hardware and software, and I placed a large bet that the time is NOW! The laptop has the Intel Penryn processor (2.5 GHz) and a 250 GB Serial ATA hard drive spinning at 5400 rpm. My business was waiting for a machine with the “right” capabilities and features (for me). Your situation may be different. If so, you may choose to wait. Some thoughts that went into the purchase:

• Business needs: My photography business has needed a new machine for some time, to keep up with demands by the software that I need to run. As you can see from above, I have waited awhile! Since this was a business (rather than personal) purchase, I made more conservative choices than I might have made otherwise, but I tend to bet conservatively when I am using my own money. You probably do, too! For you businesses out there that, for whatever reason , want to run Microsoft Vista, you may want to read this Popular Mechanics article in which the conclusion of their tests was that the fastest hardware platform for Vista was Macintosh.

• Security: I run Macintosh for good reasons. Having experienced a wide variety of desktop platforms (while working for corporations), I no longer see a need (for me) to run anything OTHER than Macintosh on the desktop. If you need to run some Windows-only apps, there are several ways, from Boot Camp to virtualization software, to do so. Even so, the first thing that I did with my new MacBook Pro, BEFORE adding it (via wired ethernet) to my home network, BEHIND a hardware firewall, was to install a SOFTWARE firewall (that works with Leopard’s firewall) on the machine.

• MacBook Air: The MacBook Air is too “light” for my needs (I had the word “Engineer” in my title at a couple of companies), but it may serve yours well!

• Montevina: The Montevina platform from Intel will come out later this year. Without inside information, I see the Montevina platform to be the beginning of another “hardware-driven cycle.” It may be awhile before the software that I need for my business “catches up.” In “the biz,” hardware drives software most of the time. (Hey, you have to run on SOMETHING!) (Note on July 29, 2008: I saw this CNET article last night, echoing AppleInsider that new MacBooks, due in 6-8 weeks, may have a chipset from someone beside Intel and that Apple may (gasp!) skip the Monevina version of the chipsets. How do I feel? Great! I am very pleased to have obtained a great laptop with a “known entity” as far as cpu and chipset go. There will always be new hardware – that’s how hardware works! As the Zen Master in Charlie Wilson’s War said, “We shall see.”)

• Adobe Systems: The “CS3”-level of Photoshop is the first that is native for Intel. I bought the upgrade to CS3 with the hardware above. That purchase puts my important Adobe apps at the CS3 level. According to Macworld, the next version of Photoshop, CS4, will not be 64-bit on Macintosh, so CS3 seems to be a good place to be right now. (Update July 8, 2008: I cannot seem to find some of the canned Actions [especially for “framing”] in the /File/Scripts/Image Processor/ section of CS3 that existed in CS2. I am not sure whether this resulted from my using the Upgrade version for Photoshop only, in the increasing segmented [and pricey!] options for upgrades/purchases from Adobe. I use the Actions I need from CS2, but I wanted to pass along the caveat…or maybe the Actions are in an unexpected place….)

• Price/Performance: My choice of a 2.5 (rather than 2.6)-GHz processor was based on cost. My choice of a 250 GB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400 rpm (rather than the 200 GB [smaller!] at 7200 rpm [faster] or the 300 GB [larger] at 4200 rpm [slower]) was based on an educated guess of price/performance and future needs. I DID try to research data-transfer rates for the 3 drive types but came up pretty empty. Most things that most of us do on personal computers are limited by Disk I/O. Since this was a business purchase, I chose the “middle-of-the-road” choice with the most commonly tested mix of CPU and hard drive. Now, with regard to RAM…I chose 4 GB of Apple’s expensive RAM (had this been a personal purchase, I might have added other RAM later, but this was a business purchase, and you business folks understand that much more than technology goes into your decisions). UNIX (some of you may not know that Mac is UNIX) loves RAM! Adobe apps ADORE RAM, possessively! ‘Nuff said.

• Display: I chose the MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution NON-glossy Widescreen Display. There have been recent studies that confirmed my belief that more “screen territory” helps people be more productive. The display has no arsenic or mercury and is lit by LEDs (slightly better battery life). I am not narcissistic enough to want to look at myself in a glossy display for hours on end when I am editing photos (besides, the quality of my photos might suffer). By the way, the NON-glossy display is UTTERLY BEAUTIFUL (a characteristic we have come to expect for Apple-branded displays). When shut off, the display is black, rather than gray, probably to assist with display of richer blacks to overcome a general weakness of LCD displays.

• Reference: For more information on this generation of MacBook and MacBook Pro, see the May 2008 issue of Macworld, page 40. For information of choosing the Mac that is best for YOU, see the June 2008 issue of Macworld.

• AirPort Express: There was a tiny article in Macworld this spring that the AirPort Express ($99) is now at 802.11n. If you don’t want to know WHY, just understand that it is a “good thing.” As the Apple page on AirPort Express currently says, “Faster is better.” The AirPort Express is slightly larger than a deck of cards and can travel with you. A year ago, (Macworld July 2007) I read an article that I knew I would eventually need. The article explained how to run separate 802.11b/g and 802.11n networks, without the “slow” network slowing the “fast” network down. I left the issue of Macworld open to the page, on the top shelf of my desk, for the last year. The “short form” is that I set up the AirPort Express running 802.11n with a variety of types of security employed in less time that it took to set up the original AirPort Extreme network (which took almost no time at all!) running 802.11b/g, and the networks do not interfere with each other. Those of you who buy less expensive, user-unfriendly wireless routers may want to balance purchase price with how much your time is worth.