When I started college way back in 2002, (as a mere slip of a boy, of course) I had never touched a Mac. I knew next to nothing about them and figured they were for elitists and niche programming geeks. Part of me was intimidated to learn a new platform after growing up using nothing but a PC. Six years later, as I’ve forged a career in video production and photography, I own two Macs and haven’t used a PC in years.

There are countless articles out there debating the virtues of each platform so I won’t get into that here. I do want to briefly explain the four main reasons that Mac works for me as a freelance photographer and video producer.

System stability – Working against tight deadlines is stressful enough without worrying about whether or not I’m going to get through my project before the next system freeze or blue screen of death. My MacBook is a workhorse and I need that.

Performance – A lot of times I’m rendering something in After Effects while editing a raw file in Photoshop and fine-tuning my timeline in Final Cut Pro. I can flip between programs quickly and easily and my Mac keeps chugging along.

Maintenance – Spyware, adware, drivers, viruses. These are all four letter words in my vocabulary. Fortunately this just has never been an issue since dumping my PC. I need my computer to fire up quickly and work quickly. If I’m constantly running spyware, hunting down pop-up windows and installing driver updates – this is lost time I could be working.

Reliability – The PC laptop I bought in college spent as much time in the shop as it did in my possession. My Macs almost always work when I need them to. Which isn’t to say that they’ve always been perfect. I had the motherboard go on my Powerbook right when I was about to start a massive editing project. But it was replaced quickly and no data was lost. Crisis averted.

PC’s have come a long way the last several years. One could certainly make the argument that they’re cheaper, more customizable, and potentially even faster. But when I’m grabbing my pile of camera gear to go on a shoot, I throw my MacBook into my bag and I’m ready for battle. It does what I need it to do and I’m geared up to fend off my next looming deadline with poise and determination. Now where did I put those car keys?

Thanks for reading my first entry here at Mactropolis. I’m a newbie around here and hope to contribute as often as I can from the standpoint of a professional photographer/videographer. I was employed at a tv station for several years as a video journalist but have recently left the machine to do freelance work. I’ll try to poke around the forums as much as I can so feel free to give me your feedback - good and bad. I can take it! (I think!)

written by Jarrod Tully \\ tags: Mac vs. PC, Making the Switch

The strangest thing happened to me last night. I was out with a few friends having a couple ‘thank god it’s the end of the week’ beers, when I decided to ’show off’ a few of the newer iPhone games I had installed. Being in Canada, a few of my buddy’s actually hadn’t seen an iPhone in person, so it was making its rounds around the table for sure.

I decided to open up ‘Raging Thunder‘, a really good racing game that allows you to steer your race car by tilting the device to your left or right. Overall it’s a pretty darn good game and I thought my buddies would enjoy. So, I opened up the app, but just as soon as I opened it I decided to close ‘er down as I could hear someone else talking to me. That’s when all heck broke loose.

The iPhone crashed, or something along those lines. The screen was still on, plain black, but with a slight glow to it. After about 3 or 4 minutes I could see the round ‘I’m working’ graphic on the screen, but even that wasn’t moving smoothly. Another 5 or so minutes later the iPhone had restarted and everything was back to normal, or so I thought.

A phone call came in. Cool.. Picked up the phone and started talking… the other end could hear me, but I couldn’t hear them! I knew someone was on the other end but I could hear absolutely nothing. Lets restart the phone I thought… this is strange.

Restarted the phone and this time our table set out to test what was going on. Sure enough, any incoming audio would not play out on the devices handset speaker, but all outgoing audio would transmit fine. All volume settings were fine, everything was as it should have been. A few more restarts and a few more tries, and still no dice.

I left the phone as it was for the evening, but upon returning home I set out to fix the problem. ‘Hope this will be easy’ I thought… and it was, thankfully. Docked the iPhone, opened iTunes and restored the unit. I did a fresh install of 1.1.4 and after that was done, restored settings from a recent backup of the phone. From there, I downloaded and ran the latest version of ZiPhone, and I was back in business. Tested out the phone again, and bingo bongo it was working like butter again. Ordeal over.

So what can we learn from this? Be cautious about third party apps…and backup your iPhone often! I’m not going to discourage you from using or installing anything (go for it!) But I think we all have to realize that 3rd party apps can and sometimes do funny things to the iPhone. In my case incoming audio stopped working for some unknown reason, triggered by a 3rd party app crash. Install 3rd party apps at your own risk, and accept the consequences. That’s the best way to look at it.

On the way home last night I had set myself up for the worst, ‘Well, looks like I might have a brick on my hands…’ Thankfully that wasn’t the case.

Anyone else out there experienced similar problems!? Would love to hear your strange and kooky iPhone horror stories!

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: iPhone, Raging Thunder, ZiPhone

iPhysics has been available for quite some time now for the iPhone. It’s a handy little 3rd party game engine developed by r4m0n. With it you can install quite a few games that have incredibly accurate and lifelike physics… Cool beans!

At last count there was roughly 50 or so different packages/games/level packs available within the iPhysics folder in installer.app. So there are lots of titles to choose from for sure.

I’ve only recently re-installed iPhysics, as I had issues with it running on 1.1.1 and 1.1.2. Currently I’m on a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone running 1.1.3 and it works beautifully. I’ve got 3 games installed in iPhysics (Crayon Physics, Sandbox, and iPinball), and I have to say I’m enjoying them. iPinball is pretty darn cool as you can see from the video below. Does have a few bugs, whenever I try to turn up or turn down the volume, the screen flickers like mad… But other than that, all good. r4m0n appears to be working on the flicker problems, as you can see at his Wiki here.

If you can’t find iPhysics in installer.app, try the following steps:

1. Start Installer.app
2. Click on Sources
3. Click on Edit button, then Add button
4. Enter this URL: http://iphone.r4m0n.net/repos
5. iPhysics should now appear in Installer.app

My iPhysics appears in its own category as ‘iPhysics’. If you’re having trouble locating it, or making it available in your installer.app, let me know and I’ll be glad to help.

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: installer.app, iPhone Software, iPhysics, iPinball

Our very own Simone Renee checks in with her thoughts on the iPhone as the next big gaming console.

written by Simone Renee \\ tags: Gaming Consoles, iPhone, iPhone Games, Mobile Gaming

It would seem that all signs are pointing to a large international roll-out of the much ballyhooed iPhone 2.0. Why? Let me give you the skinny.

Vodafone confirmed yesterday that it has secured distribution rights for the iPhone in 10 countries… Yes, 10 countries. The countries are: India, Australia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. I’m particularly happy for the folks in Greece… as one of my digg fans recently pointed me towards this site: www.wewantapplegreece.com. Greece is clearly ‘jonesing’ for the iPhone, as is a large majority of the world.

T-Mobile has recently confirmed that it will introduce the iPhone in Austria, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia and Latin America.

Rogers Communications in Canada also recently confirmed their intent to launch the iPhone in Canada during the 2008 calendar year. Canadians, can I get a w00t!? (pray for reasonably priced data plans)

See how everything appears to be lining up for a huge international launch? I’m glad I’m not in charge of co-ordinating such a thing. However I would think that getting carriers on board in the above countries would not be such a hard task… at least not compared to China.

*smooth segue*

China would be the next monster to tackle. According to our friends at MacRumors and AppleInsider, the latest version of iPhone Software 2.0 has handwriting recognition for Chinese.

Exciting stuff indeed. 2008 is looking more and more to be the year of iPhone Proliferation… er, the year of the International iPhone… um… well you know what I mean.

[via MacWorld UK]

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: iPhone, iPhone 2.0, Rogers Communications, T-Mobile, Vodafone

I was sitting in my office the other day, working away on my MacBook Pro. Let it be known that I love my setup. 15″ MBP with a 23″ cinema display leaves me in dual monitor heaven… However, I got to thinking, man, I wish I had a pimped out Mac Pro to take things to the next level.

As you may or may not know, I do a lot of web and print design… and it is not uncommon for me to have Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, a few FTP programs, my handy newsreader, and about 24 Firefox tabs opened at the same time. While my MBP performs beautifully, the thought of a brand new Mac Pro makes my arms numb, and it’s not because of the fatty foods I’ve been eating recently.

‘Well, lets go check it out’ I thought… and off I went to price out an ideal Mac Pro for me. I didn’t want anything too crazy, just something that could perform to the level I needed. I would of course have to pick up another display to keep my ‘duelies’ going. Lets see what I chose and what the pricetag was!

Ok, lets head to Apple, click on Store, Mac Pro starting at $2799… Ok I’m there. Now lets configure this bad boy:

1. Processor: I’ll be needing Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core) ($800 upgrade)
2. Memory: 4GB should do me nicely ($500 upgrade). Stock is 2GB, and you can upgrade all the way up to 32GB for another $8600!!! Why must memory be so darn expensive through Apple?
3. RAID Card: Yep, I’ll take one of those. ($800 upgrade)
4. Hard Drives: Well, lets get 2. One main drive and another used for storage and backup. Lets upgrade the first to 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s (a $50 upgrade) and ditto for the second drive as well. I should note, on a Mac Pro there are 4 hard drive bays.
5. Graphics Card: Ok, things are starting to get a bit pricy, but I’ve got to go with the mid-road 3 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB ($260 upgrade).
6. Displays: Yep, I’ll need an extra 23″ Apple Cinema Display ($899 upgrade). Already have another 23″ here in the office.
7. Extra Optical Drive: Nah, I don’t do a lot of burning, think I’ll leave this one out.
8. Airport Extreme Card: Yep ($50 upgrade).
9. Software and Extras: Fibre Channel Card, modem, Mighty Mouse, Keyboard, OS X Server, plus all of the other software up for offer… I think I’ll pass.
10. Apple Care Protection Plan: Lets leave this out for now. I can always purchase it at a later date ($249 upgrade).

So what’s the damage? $5,558 USD. Expensive!!! If you subtract the monitor ($899) and RAID card ($800), the system all of a sudden comes in at a more respectable $3,859. Much better. Still expensive, but I would think manageable for those out there that are considering a serious step up in performance.

Anyone I’ve talked to that owns a Mac Pro swears by it. The system is lightning quick, solid, and extremely expandable and upgradeable. They are expensive, but in my books you get what you pay for. For the design professional that needs a solid in-house system, you can’t argue with the Mac Pro. For a design geek like myself that is often on the go, and needs the extra portability, you’ll have no problem getting by on a MacBook Pro… as long as you have a nice big monitor to go with it when you’re at your home base

I wish I could justify spending that amount at this time… While Apple does have business financing options, it’s not something I’d consider at this point, especially when you consider my system is running fine (knock on wood). Only bad thing is it does ‘chug’ from time to time when I get the spinning marble of doom.

So, are there any other Mac Pro users out there that have any advice for me? Keep what I’ve got going here? Or would you rather see me go ahead and drop the cash, take the leap, dive off the deep end?

Discuss in the Forums >

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Dreamweaver, Graphics, Illustration, Illustrator, Mac Pro, Photoshop, Web Design