Extremely Detailed Review of the rMBP

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “Do I have to apologize on this forum for off-topics?”

Maybe, but definitely not to me.

[Walter Soyka] “The computers all stay on DHCP and that IP and hostname are assigned them by the router when they connect.
“

I see. I don’t think I have that capability unless it’s called “static routing”.

And then I’d need a MAC address too right?

So basically, this sends a specific IP to a MAC address via DHCP?

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Actually, we are talking laptop and paid work, and life work.

While I work on my laptop sometimes, I also have my life stored on there as well, and I think that’s what David is saying.”

Yep, that’s right.

I do all my paid work on my laptop. I also use it for unpaid work. And non-work. Stuff like fun and life and personal things. All my email, photos, music, iphone apps, etc. etc. The work pays for everything else, but it’s only a part of what the machine does for me. I’m way too comfortable with the Mac OS ecosystem to dump it all for Windows. Maybe Windows 8 will be awesome and Lion will turn me off so much I’ll want to switch but I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Macs have never really been the fastest or most expandable. 🙂

The retina is fast, but it also has some really new features, and it’s not cheap. “

Yes true. Never the fastest compared to the entire PC market. Maybe I should qualify by saying I want the fastest Mac I can get in my desired form factor. It used to be that that would be good enough to get the job done. Now, for the the first time, I’m starting to be a bit more concerned about hardware limits slowing me down.

The 2008 Unibody was an easy buy decision for me. It was exactly the machine I was waiting for. Even after the upgrades in 2009 and 2010, I was still happy because I have an Expresscard slot which I use with an ESATA port multiplier to run up to 5 ESATA drives. It’s kept me going a long time.

But the new line up is a lot trickier. As Andy points out, the non-retina can be built to perform virtually as well as the retina. So the retina is really about the bleeding edge of display and form factor. But it points the direction of the future and that’s a tempting place to be. My gut says it will be much better next year when the chips catch up.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Seriously though, I’d wait to see if someone has used cs6 with it. I’ve heard prelim reports that openCL kinda works. It will of course take an official update from Adobe to “bless” it but in since Ps CS6 was shown, it must be on their radar. “

Yes. The other reason to wait is that by next year, updates like this will be less of an issue across the board. Apple’s change in display technology is pretty radical and it will take a while to ripple across the industry. I think it’s ultimately a good thing but it won’t happen overnight.

[Jeremy Garchow] “You can still buy refurb 17” that has official openCL support. “

I’ve never been a fan of the 17″ form factor. To me it’s too small to replace my 24″ screen but too big to be comfortable to carry or use on a plane. I know lots of folks like it but it’s not for me.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “So basically, this sends a specific IP to a MAC address via DHCP?”

Yes.

[Jeremy Garchow] ” I don’t think I have that capability unless it’s called “static routing”.”

Static routing is something else — it’s a way to connect multiple routers. Basically, you manually describe the next hop a packet must take leaving one router and going to another instead of letting the routers determine that dynamically.

The feature I’m describing is a feature of your DHCP server, and may be called something like reserved addresses or DHCP reservations.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “So basically, this sends a specific IP to a MAC address via DHCP?”

Jeremy, it’s super easy. Here’s how I do exactly what Walter suggests with my Airport Extreme. The laptop IP address is reserved via MAC address:

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “The feature I’m describing is a feature of your DHCP server, and may be called something like reserved addresses or DHCP reservations.”

My router is probably bogus, then.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Lawrence] “I’ve never been a fan of the 17″ form factor. To me it’s too small to replace my 24″ screen but too big to be comfortable to carry or use on a plane. I know lots of folks like it but it’s not for me.”

I see. Then a regular and new 15″ should be perfect for you, minus the ExpressCard slot. They also still sell 15″ refurbs of the older model with thunderbolt that are CS6 blessed. You’d still have to get the Sonnet thingy.

The only reason I consider a retina is that I don’t want to go to less resolution than 17″ (which I have been using since forever).

Here’s an FCP7 retina report: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1161034

And the official Adobe stance: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/926591#926591

[Jeremy Garchow]

Thanks, David. Our Airport Extreme is only for non SAN’d wireless clients.

Everything else goes through the main router and adjacent hubs.