Tim Wilson
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Apple’s replacement might not support multiple GPUs if Apple remains true to their design as they have since the return of the g3 tower.”
Historical footnote: my brother-in-law is partly to blame for the dawn of the 3-slot era. He was asked by Steve to research the average number of slots in use across that tier of the product line, and the answer was 1.1. Steve said, fine, round it up to 1.5 and double it: 3 slots.
My boy is a pretty humble dude, and I can’t imagine he’d make something like this up — especially because he only told me this story after I was ranting to him about Apple cutting the number of slots. (My Mac at the time had six slots, five in use.)
Sweet guy, but nicknamed The Executioner. He also killed off Apple’s printers and scanners. People got very nervous when he became the head of their group….
Anyway, we actually walked the floor together at NAB in 1998, where I brought him to the basement to see the demo of Macromedia Final Cut running on Windows. They were throwing out t-shirts and said “Last one!” — and he grabbed it for me. A true mensch. I still have the shirt.
He didn’t even mind me yelling at him about the slots…probably because I yelled about so much in those days. Believe it or not, I’m much calmer now.
Anyway, that’s my boy.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Craig Seeman] “At the very least we should get discounts on our annual COW membership dues. ;)”
You’re right.
It’s a free forum from now on!
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Steve Connor] “…it’s so much FUN to speculate even when you’re wrong some of the time.”
Are you kidding? It’s AWESOME. That’s why this forum is the most fun you can have on the net with your clothes on. Or with your clothes off but we don’t have to see pictures of you.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Chris Conlee] “I’m betting that Apple did indeed plan on killing off the Mac Pro”
Even if they told us, I’m not sure we’d believe them — but I still can’t imagine that’s true. TALK about it, yes. Of course. PLAN on it? Not a chance.
Did nobody look this up? Same interval now as between the first two models of the Mac Pro.
This actually used to happen with FCP too. It settled into a rhythm of two years apart, almost to the day.
2003: New version.
2004: Apple is killing FCP!
2005: New version.
2006: Apple is killing FCP!
2007: New version. Of course it turns out that this is the release where Apple killed FCP. They just kept selling it so nobody noticed…but still…
2008: Apple is killing FCP!
2009: New version; aka, patch release provided as FCP was in fact circling the drain.
2010: Apple is killing FCP!
2011: New version, the one that hopefully made clear that FCP was EOL’d in 2007….but still…the two year interval.The point being that 2 years is a very important interval, one that has been repeated many times — including between the first 2 models of the Mac Pro…and the previous one and this one.
Of course there’s still plenty of time for Apple to make us look like idiots. They’re masters at making EVERYONE who predicts ANYTHING be at least a little wrong about SOMETHING.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
No soup for you. There would have been much less to talk about if you people had believed me all along. And I doubt that little if any of the talk next week is about how I was right all along. Hahahaha!
And no kidding guys, this has been no longer than the wait between the first two Mac Pro models. Too bad that after all this time, though, it won’t be as mightily configurable as a Windows box. Hahahaha!
But I think you’re right that we should increase ad rates in this forum. Let me speak to one of the responsible adults who works here.
Hahahaha!Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[TImothy Auld] ” It was born out of necessity. Otherwise I would still be happily scratching my chin and spending a lot more of my time worrying about what I really get paid for.”
LOL! I certainly didn’t mean this in a bad way. I’m glad you didn’t take it that way. It’s like the song says, “I wish I didn’t know NOW what I didn’t know THEN.”
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Chris Harlan] “Windows had a freedom to it that exposed its lower end to all sorts of crap. And, early “plug-and-play” was a nightmare.”
This is a big deal. Looking back at poor Vista, a big part of the problem is that Microsoft wanted it installed on every system, and you actually could. MSFT did a decent job of pointing out which features were and weren’t going to show up on which machines, but that was a lot to expect most people to care about. To put it charitably, not every expectation was met on the majority of machines that weren’t very new.
As frustrating as it to be to sometimes have to buy a new Mac if you want a new OS, it’s one aspect of a smoother Mac OS experience: incompatible combinations simply aren’t allowed.
See? I said something nice about Apple. 🙂 Something to be said for “we know best” when they actually do.
But as others have pointed out, the 64-bit version of W7 on a properly configured machine is easy for most openers of adult beverage cans to master fast, even if tolerating the experience might require the drinking of said adult beverages.
[Chris Harlan] “This reminds me of the talks I used to have with Avid-only editors about how “unresponsive” FCP was. It took a while, but it finally dawned on me that most–if not all–of these guys had only tried FCP with a firewire i/o, and that they had no idea that an AJA or Decklink hookup would make editing just as responsive.”
Speaking as somebody who spent a lot of time around Avid editors, some of them could be pretty inflexible, and so focused on editing that they didn’t need to be especially tech-savvy.
Once Media Composer became cross-platform just before the turn of the century, it wasn’t uncommon to take a tech support call, ask someone which computer they were working on and be told “Mitsubishi.” That was the name on the two monitors that were part of the standard configuration, editors saw the nameplate all day every day, and it was the only name that popped into their mind besides Avid.
In a little fairness, it also speaks to the extent to which, once you’re in a comfortable editing environment, the OS stuff doesn’t matter much.
Seriously, if you can learn, say, After Effects, nothing in your entire life seems hard. Changing a tire, CPR, adding a new circuit to your home electrical system: after AE, it’s all just “stuff.” Even FCP is challenging enough to make most home theater set-ups feel simple in comparison.
New OS? Please. Piece of cake. EASIER than cake because Windows 7 is gluten free. They should probably put that on the box.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Devin Crane] “Actually the Mac Pro has 8 slots depending on single chip or dual chip.”
Quite so. Thanks for the correction. I’ll be more careful.
I doublechecked the ProMAX ONE though — still has 16. 🙂
Thanks again,
TimTim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
The thing that amazed me about that comparison: a Mac Pro has FOUR slots for memory, the ProMAX ONE has SIXTEEN slots. Running with memory in the same neighborhood as the Mac was like fighting with, uhm, three hands tied behind its back.
[Daniel Frome] “That machine is a monster. Throw in a quadro card…”
That’s the thing. You can do more with it.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
The best advice I ever got was “Don’t tell me what you want to do. Show me what you’ve done.”
This was in the context of screenwriting. He was a writer/producer (Urban Cowboy was his biggest, and quite recent when he was speaking), and people would regularly say, “I’d love to be a screenwriter.” He’d say, “Great, show me something you’ve written. I’d be happy to offer some tips.” “Oh no,” they’d say, “I want to maybe be one someday.” His reply was, if you’re not writing, you’re not a writer.
So how this worked for my wife and me: we wanted to do real estate videos, so we made one of our house, and shopped it around, and got a lot of really nice jobs out of it.
We wanted to do some non-profit fundraising videos, so we picked a place we were already volunteering for, and did one for them. We wanted this to be the heart of our business, so we couldn’t do it for free…so we filled out an invoice for the price we wanted to charge everyone else, and marked it paid in full. They were able to tell other people the price with a straight face (“Hang on, I’ve got the invoice right here….”), which led to some of our favorite jobs, with virtually no fuss about the price.
You can come up with some other examples, but that’s the gist. Figure out what you want to do, DO IT, then use it as a calling card.
And to Nick’s advice: when you’re not working for money, work on your skills. This is true for anybody at every level of work. I don’t know if this means anything to you, but I’ve been a fan of James Taylor’s for over 40 years, and he still takes voice lessons. The best never stop trying to get better.
Fill in your own example of artistic superstar and the same lesson applies. When you’re not doing it for money, do it for fun. And if it’s not fun, do something else.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou
