TechTuesday with Stephen

Hey everybody! So we here at Jess Robertson Photography are starting a new blogging event called TechTuesday with Stephen. Hi! I’m Stephen and today is Tuesday. On TechTuesday we will be taking a look, with a layman’s perspective, into many of the more technical aspects of being a photographer. These posts will come every Tuesday. We are excited to share what we learn along the way, be that a cool way of categorizing your images or a new backup device that is the cat’s meow(I SO do not know where that just came from). Anyway, we hope that these posts will be a help to you in your endeavors.

Today’s TechTuesday topic is the age old controversy of Mac VS. PC.

Quite some time ago, I was contracted to build a recording studio. At the time I was working for Borders, you know the big box book chain. Network Analyst was my title but as one of only two individuals who knew how to handle big tech challenges for a massive 600,000 sq. ft. west coast distribution center, my job description could really be written, “…any and everything that we say is your responsibility!” That is always fun.  Especially since I was on-call 24/7 every other week. poopie. anyway, back to the point of the story…

I grew up on PC computer platform. I remember looking at the DOS prompt as a young boy hoping to imitate the movie War Games, and just sat there in front of the computer staring at the screen waiting for the prompt to come alive and ask me, “Shall we play a game?” Suffice to say, I am evidently no Matthew Broderick (though admittedly, I have aged more gracefully than he has. pity really).  My parents got us our first system when I was 13. I loved it. I remember those big 5.25” disks you’d stick into the drive and toggle the latch to activate it. wow! sorry guess I got a little off-track. Anyway back to the point of the story, again…

So yeah, the recording studio. At the time, I’d heard that the Mac platform should really be considered when dealing with any type of audio/video production. Taking that piece of conventional thought, I did copious amounts of research examining bench tests on how the different hardware/software combinations performed under great stress. Being almost unsurprised that the Mac did out-perform the comparably equipped PC (though not by much), I made the decision to center the recording studio around the Mac. Well, this was ill-advised honestly, due to the fact that I had to learn a whole new universe and not jack up very expensive gear that comprised central nervous system of the recording studio.

Shortly after installing a Mac in the recording studio Mac OSX came out(for those of you who care OS 10.0 a.k.a. “Cheetah”). After booting my first MacBook Pro into OSX I was completely blown away with the graphics. They simply made every well-equipped PC I’d ever seen before seem like a bad joke. So to say the least, I latched on to this computer operating platform with a passion. I loved the look and the feel of the system. It was a totally immersive experience. Seriously, I am not exaggerating. Ok. well maybe just a little.

Over the years, I have come to a somewhat more educated opinion of operating systems. The strength of an operating system is truly user dependent. I would say that there are definitely some common denominators in play, but on the whole with the appropriate measures taken, deciding which platform to base your digital life around is simply a matter of personal preference. If you choose Mac, it doesn’t mean you will turn in to an urban hipster or if you choose to utilize a PC you’ll become some stuffy and somewhat boring business person toting your MBA in that vinyl briefcase you’re awkwardly proud of. You are who you are and your system should get out of your way, and let you interact with your work.

In the coming years I believe we’ll see a shift away from hard drive based operating systems. We will be using a operating system that is, ‘in the cloud’. Now, for those of you who are like “…in the what??”, let me explain. Imagine you created a word document and then uploaded that document to a server out on the internet somewhere. You ask, “why did I just upload that document to the internet?”. Just then a little birdie flies up and says “because you want to be able to access the document from any computer in the world that is connected to the internet.” Then imagine that document is an operating system like OSX or Windows 7. That is being, “in the cloud”.

However, we are not there yet (at least not for the masses). So, here you are, having to make the age old choice between Mac or PC and you don’t know what to do. Well, let me help out by saying: Go with BOTH!! If you choose this road, you can install Windows 7 on your MacBook Pro or your iMac or any other Mac for that matter. How? you ask…well this is simple. Currently there are two methods for accomplishing such a crazy task. Bootcamp & Software-based Shell Emulation. Don’t worry I will explain these.

Bootcamp

Bootcamp is a Mac-based utility that allows you to set up another ‘room’ in the house that is your hard drive.  That ‘room’ can be painted with Windows 7 without the house getting sick with viruses. This is a great utility provided by Apple free of charge. This is an option if your budget has seen better days.

Software-Based Shell Emulation

So let me quickly get to some proper names of this type of solution: VMWare or Parallels. I should say here that there are many other software titles that will facilitate this type of solution. Currently I run Windows 7 on a VMWare install. I love it! If I get a PC based virus that the installed anti-virus doesn’t catch and inoculate immediately, nothing touches my Mac OSX operating system. Another way to look at this solution is our earlier analogy when found ourselves “in the cloud”. Only with this iteration, the “cloud” is on your hard drive. Pretty cool eh? Total Win!

If you have any questions please feel free to hit me up on Twitter @digitalips or email me here stephen (at) jessrobertson (dot) com

Hope everyone is enjoying this Tech Tuesday!!

<!–21f43fad888340fe91d935c8b6b80911–>