Having heard the "toy computer" chant from the minions who thought DOS 3.0 made them superior for years, I can forgive a bit of good-natured jibing about the past and current shortcomings of the Windows OS.
The restriction of multiple monitors was far more likely a financially-motivated hardware sales decision (don't let iMac cut into PowerMac sales) than it was a system and engineering limitation or oversight. Apple had already proven the OS could support multiple monitors for years when the iMac came out.
That's like saying a PC-maker "cripples" their low-end laptops by not having DVI and support for every imaginable resolution. Extra stuff cost extra money, and the market determines the price-point and feature list. I'm sure Apple ate a lot of excess hardware over the years that had phenomenal expansion capabilities that the everyday user didn't want to pay for. The vast majority of computer users today don't even know you CAN attach multiple monitors to a computer. My current boss tells me my MBP & 23" Cinema display set-up would drive him crazy to look at two screens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
The one problem Windows had, and still has, is color calibration. It's a reason why doing color work within the OS is a real pain. Calibrating one monitor is a big enough problem, ding two isn't possible. There are supposed workarounds, but they really don't work.
MS has "tried" to fix this in Vista, but hasn't. There are problems with profiles, etc. Sadly enough, nothing useful has bee accomplished.
Not to say that there aren't some proprietary solutions, because there are. But they either only work with the specialized equipment that the manufacturer offers as a turnkey solution, or are just simply too expensive for much other than high end pro applications.
Here is just one article explaining the woes, something I've had to live with for years in my lab., a reason why, dual monitor support or not, Windows is a failure for the graphics arts, video editing, and photo professions.
Maybe that's true for print work and photography but it's not true for 3D design, animation, video and film work. As a platform, Windows 2000/XP/Vista are as good or better than the Mac for video and sound work. Nearly all 3D work is superior on PC too.
The color calibration stuff in link you posted doesn't apply to video and film at all because no computer monitor is ever used for judging color anyway unless the delivery method of the video is on the web... in which case the monitor calibration still doesn't matter.
IMO the only two things that keep the Mac relevant in the film and video industry is the tradition of using Macs and the software Apple bought (and subsequently killed the Windows/Linux versions) as defensive tactics. Those products being PixelShox (Motion), LiveType, FCP, Logic, Cinema Tools, and Shake). Even with Apple buying out those products Windows (and Linux) have made massive gains with professional video and film production. Hell, until recently Avid, Adobe, Discreet (AutoDesk), Sony, Pinnacle, Quantel, and Media 100 just told their customers to ditch their Macs and move to PC's. Only Adobe and Media 100 have decided to give equal development time to the Mac now.
Maybe that's true for print work and photography but it's not true for 3D design, animation, video and film work. As a platform, Windows 2000/XP/Vista are as good or better than the Mac for video and sound work. Nearly all 3D work is superior on PC too.
Yeah...its sooooo awesomely superior on PC. Like OMG wow superior.
Quote:
The color calibration stuff in link you posted doesn't apply to video and film at all because no computer monitor is ever used for judging color anyway unless the delivery method of the video is on the web... in which case the monitor calibration still doesn't matter.
Yeah color calibration NEVER matters...EVER.
Quote:
IMO the only two things that keep the Mac relevant in the film and video industry is the tradition of using Macs and the software Apple bought (and subsequently killed the Windows/Linux versions) as defensive tactics. Those products being PixelShox (Motion), LiveType, FCP, Logic, Cinema Tools, and Shake). Even with Apple buying out those products Windows (and Linux) have made massive gains with professional video and film production. Hell, until recently Avid, Adobe, Discreet (AutoDesk), Sony, Pinnacle, Quantel, and Media 100 just told their customers to ditch their Macs and move to PC's. Only Adobe and Media 100 have decided to give equal development time to the Mac now.
Yeah, those things are the only things keeping the Mac relevant in the film business. But not even. Forget I even said that. The Mac is irrelevant in the film business.
Maybe that's true for print work and photography but it's not true for 3D design, animation, video and film work. As a platform, Windows 2000/XP/Vista are as good or better than the Mac for video and sound work. Nearly all 3D work is superior on PC too.
The color calibration stuff in link you posted doesn't apply to video and film at all because no computer monitor is ever used for judging color anyway unless the delivery method of the video is on the web... in which case the monitor calibration still doesn't matter.
IMO the only two things that keep the Mac relevant in the film and video industry is the tradition of using Macs and the software Apple bought (and subsequently killed the Windows/Linux versions) as defensive tactics. Those products being PixelShox (Motion), LiveType, FCP, Logic, Cinema Tools, and Shake). Even with Apple buying out those products Windows (and Linux) have made massive gains with professional video and film production. Hell, until recently Avid, Adobe, Discreet (AutoDesk), Sony, Pinnacle, Quantel, and Media 100 just told their customers to ditch their Macs and move to PC's. Only Adobe and Media 100 have decided to give equal development time to the Mac now.
As most video work is done for Tv, is does apply there. You'll find most Tv work being done on Macs, and that's one reason.
Film is different, but, even there proper monitor calibration is a concern.. a concern because of cross monitor consistency, which
Windows doesn't assure without those proprietary solutions I mentioned.
Avid was saying that ten years ago, not recently. Mac customers have been, and are even more so now, Avids largest customer base, and they know it. Years ago, Avid had to reorganize their company because of losses generated in the attempt to move their customer base to NT. That was a failure. It was also one of the reasons why Apple bought the assets of Astarté, and came out with FCP. I think they should have bought Avid.
The ONLY reason why NT became the prefered platform for 3D was because they had bought the most popular program in the mid=range of the business. do you remember which one? They then sold it after establishing NT as a viable platform, and discontinuing support for all the other platforms.
Does Spaces allow you the option of a desktop pager? I mean icons of your virtual desktops that are always there on your desktop, without having to hit a hotkey. I have become used to Codetek virtual desktops (I know they don't work on intel machines but I'll be upgrading as soon as leopard is released). I don't like the idea of having to hit F8 in order to get a snapshot of my desktops.
For awhile I missed losing the desktop pager's birds-eye view after switching from CodeTek to Virtue but eventually got used to not having it.
I may try using a hot-corner trigger for the Spaces overview, like kim kap sol suggested, since the bottom-right corner is available; the others are used as Exposé triggers. Invoking Exposé with keyboard feels clumsy to me and the same may be true with the Spaces overview.
I've never had reason to use the "Show desktop overlay pager" trigger in Virtue because windows can't be moved in it and it's faster using other trigger shortcuts for desktop switching. But being able to move windows in Spaces' "overlay pager" (whatever its called) can make it useful even if only for that purpose.
This is a bizarre history. Virtual desktops go back to the 1960's; they were neither invented by PARC nor by Apple. PARC patented a particular aspect of it, and I can't think of any particular contributions by Apple.
This is a bizarre history. Virtual desktops go back to the 1960's; they were neither invented by PARC nor by Apple. PARC patented a particular aspect of it, and I can't think of any particular contributions by Apple.
Didn't you know? The victors always write the history books. How else could the US have gotten away dropping not one but TWO atomic bombs on Japan?
History is like a bit like fiction. You've got a whole bunch of people trying to recollect what really happened years ago through heresy and bits and pieces of evidence collected of people and events of that period who all had their own realities of things. It can never be perfect and it'll probably always get modified.
It doesn't really work that way. There's one desktop, one menu bar, and one Dock. Switching spaces just slides all the windows off and replaces them with another set. You don't really move from one desktop to another.
That's not really true. Its more of the norm for virtual desktop managers allow background image to change with each virtual space. It a useful visual cue to indicate what desktop your on.
I was actually quite disappointed that Apple did not add support for this. I'm hoping they have plans to do so.
Thanks for the update, i was so busy researching all day, iMissed this completely. Another great piece rich in information and full of cutting edge detail!
I've used Virtue Desktops with Tiger and one feature I liked was the ability to make Finder windows appear in all desktops.
Is this possible with Spaces? So far I can't figure it out, and I think it would be quite useful.
Dragging the Finder window I need from space to space seems rather tedious...
Yes, in the Spaces preferences, you can select apps that you would like to have open in all spaces.
EDIT: hmmm.... but this doesn't actually seem to work? Wait, does that preference mean that you can open a new window in that app without going back to a particular space or that open windows in that app are mirrored across all spaces? Because neither seems to work for finder.app.
EDIT2: ooops... it does actually work, and it does what you asked for bryanus. I had accidentally set my address book to every space instead of finder the first time I tried it... :embarass:
Yay. Cool. I knew the Finder was an "app". I just couldn't recall where it was. Thanks. I'll try this when I get home...
Following various posts regarding Spaces, I've got a new need. I was using 3 displays and just added a Wacom Cintiq (12) which I want to use at certain times for Illustrator. Problem is, I need the Menu bar down on the Cintiq in my lap for pen work. I created a QuicKeys macro to move the menu bar to specific displays (via Displays Preferences), but all windows on the other displays jump down or off-screen.... I'm wondering if Spaces might be the answer to quickly switch back and forth between Cintiq pen and mouse work.
A first glance at Spaces was discouraging since Apple chose to bounce me around between spaces in, seemingly, response to many actions (I have a lot of special keyboard shortcuts, etc.), so at present I've reduced system to ONE space, and thinking about trying 'DesktopManager" to avoid the automatic space-switching in Leopard.
Comments
Having heard the "toy computer" chant from the minions who thought DOS 3.0 made them superior for years, I can forgive a bit of good-natured jibing about the past and current shortcomings of the Windows OS.
The restriction of multiple monitors was far more likely a financially-motivated hardware sales decision (don't let iMac cut into PowerMac sales) than it was a system and engineering limitation or oversight. Apple had already proven the OS could support multiple monitors for years when the iMac came out.
That's like saying a PC-maker "cripples" their low-end laptops by not having DVI and support for every imaginable resolution. Extra stuff cost extra money, and the market determines the price-point and feature list. I'm sure Apple ate a lot of excess hardware over the years that had phenomenal expansion capabilities that the everyday user didn't want to pay for. The vast majority of computer users today don't even know you CAN attach multiple monitors to a computer. My current boss tells me my MBP & 23" Cinema display set-up would drive him crazy to look at two screens.
The one problem Windows had, and still has, is color calibration. It's a reason why doing color work within the OS is a real pain. Calibrating one monitor is a big enough problem, ding two isn't possible. There are supposed workarounds, but they really don't work.
MS has "tried" to fix this in Vista, but hasn't. There are problems with profiles, etc. Sadly enough, nothing useful has bee accomplished.
Not to say that there aren't some proprietary solutions, because there are. But they either only work with the specialized equipment that the manufacturer offers as a turnkey solution, or are just simply too expensive for much other than high end pro applications.
Here is just one article explaining the woes, something I've had to live with for years in my lab., a reason why, dual monitor support or not, Windows is a failure for the graphics arts, video editing, and photo professions.
http://www.outbackphoto.com/tforum/v...p?TopicID=2518
Maybe that's true for print work and photography but it's not true for 3D design, animation, video and film work. As a platform, Windows 2000/XP/Vista are as good or better than the Mac for video and sound work. Nearly all 3D work is superior on PC too.
The color calibration stuff in link you posted doesn't apply to video and film at all because no computer monitor is ever used for judging color anyway unless the delivery method of the video is on the web... in which case the monitor calibration still doesn't matter.
IMO the only two things that keep the Mac relevant in the film and video industry is the tradition of using Macs and the software Apple bought (and subsequently killed the Windows/Linux versions) as defensive tactics. Those products being PixelShox (Motion), LiveType, FCP, Logic, Cinema Tools, and Shake). Even with Apple buying out those products Windows (and Linux) have made massive gains with professional video and film production. Hell, until recently Avid, Adobe, Discreet (AutoDesk), Sony, Pinnacle, Quantel, and Media 100 just told their customers to ditch their Macs and move to PC's. Only Adobe and Media 100 have decided to give equal development time to the Mac now.
Maybe that's true for print work and photography but it's not true for 3D design, animation, video and film work. As a platform, Windows 2000/XP/Vista are as good or better than the Mac for video and sound work. Nearly all 3D work is superior on PC too.
Yeah...its sooooo awesomely superior on PC. Like OMG wow superior.
The color calibration stuff in link you posted doesn't apply to video and film at all because no computer monitor is ever used for judging color anyway unless the delivery method of the video is on the web... in which case the monitor calibration still doesn't matter.
Yeah color calibration NEVER matters...EVER.
IMO the only two things that keep the Mac relevant in the film and video industry is the tradition of using Macs and the software Apple bought (and subsequently killed the Windows/Linux versions) as defensive tactics. Those products being PixelShox (Motion), LiveType, FCP, Logic, Cinema Tools, and Shake). Even with Apple buying out those products Windows (and Linux) have made massive gains with professional video and film production. Hell, until recently Avid, Adobe, Discreet (AutoDesk), Sony, Pinnacle, Quantel, and Media 100 just told their customers to ditch their Macs and move to PC's. Only Adobe and Media 100 have decided to give equal development time to the Mac now.
Yeah, those things are the only things keeping the Mac relevant in the film business. But not even. Forget I even said that. The Mac is irrelevant in the film business.
Also...I'm retarded.
Maybe that's true for print work and photography but it's not true for 3D design, animation, video and film work. As a platform, Windows 2000/XP/Vista are as good or better than the Mac for video and sound work. Nearly all 3D work is superior on PC too.
The color calibration stuff in link you posted doesn't apply to video and film at all because no computer monitor is ever used for judging color anyway unless the delivery method of the video is on the web... in which case the monitor calibration still doesn't matter.
IMO the only two things that keep the Mac relevant in the film and video industry is the tradition of using Macs and the software Apple bought (and subsequently killed the Windows/Linux versions) as defensive tactics. Those products being PixelShox (Motion), LiveType, FCP, Logic, Cinema Tools, and Shake). Even with Apple buying out those products Windows (and Linux) have made massive gains with professional video and film production. Hell, until recently Avid, Adobe, Discreet (AutoDesk), Sony, Pinnacle, Quantel, and Media 100 just told their customers to ditch their Macs and move to PC's. Only Adobe and Media 100 have decided to give equal development time to the Mac now.
As most video work is done for Tv, is does apply there. You'll find most Tv work being done on Macs, and that's one reason.
Film is different, but, even there proper monitor calibration is a concern.. a concern because of cross monitor consistency, which
Windows doesn't assure without those proprietary solutions I mentioned.
Avid was saying that ten years ago, not recently. Mac customers have been, and are even more so now, Avids largest customer base, and they know it. Years ago, Avid had to reorganize their company because of losses generated in the attempt to move their customer base to NT. That was a failure. It was also one of the reasons why Apple bought the assets of Astarté, and came out with FCP. I think they should have bought Avid.
The ONLY reason why NT became the prefered platform for 3D was because they had bought the most popular program in the mid=range of the business. do you remember which one? They then sold it after establishing NT as a viable platform, and discontinuing support for all the other platforms.
Apple took a page out of MS's book later on.
Does Spaces allow you the option of a desktop pager? I mean icons of your virtual desktops that are always there on your desktop, without having to hit a hotkey. I have become used to Codetek virtual desktops (I know they don't work on intel machines but I'll be upgrading as soon as leopard is released). I don't like the idea of having to hit F8 in order to get a snapshot of my desktops.
For awhile I missed losing the desktop pager's birds-eye view after switching from CodeTek to Virtue but eventually got used to not having it.
I may try using a hot-corner trigger for the Spaces overview, like kim kap sol suggested, since the bottom-right corner is available; the others are used as Exposé triggers. Invoking Exposé with keyboard feels clumsy to me and the same may be true with the Spaces overview.
I've never had reason to use the "Show desktop overlay pager" trigger in Virtue because windows can't be moved in it and it's faster using other trigger shortcuts for desktop switching. But being able to move windows in Spaces' "overlay pager" (whatever its called) can make it useful even if only for that purpose.
This is a bizarre history. Virtual desktops go back to the 1960's; they were neither invented by PARC nor by Apple. PARC patented a particular aspect of it, and I can't think of any particular contributions by Apple.
Didn't you know? The victors always write the history books. How else could the US have gotten away dropping not one but TWO atomic bombs on Japan?
History is like a bit like fiction. You've got a whole bunch of people trying to recollect what really happened years ago through heresy and bits and pieces of evidence collected of people and events of that period who all had their own realities of things. It can never be perfect and it'll probably always get modified.
oh...wait...you've got 1 post?
Didn't you know? The victors always write the history books. How else could the US have gotten away dropping not one but TWO atomic bombs on Japan?
Please, don't start with that.
Please, don't start with that.
I won't.
It doesn't really work that way. There's one desktop, one menu bar, and one Dock. Switching spaces just slides all the windows off and replaces them with another set. You don't really move from one desktop to another.
That's not really true. Its more of the norm for virtual desktop managers allow background image to change with each virtual space. It a useful visual cue to indicate what desktop your on.
I was actually quite disappointed that Apple did not add support for this. I'm hoping they have plans to do so.
Is this possible with Spaces? So far I can't figure it out, and I think it would be quite useful.
Dragging the Finder window I need from space to space seems rather tedious...
I've used Virtue Desktops with Tiger and one feature I liked was the ability to make Finder windows appear in all desktops.
Is this possible with Spaces? So far I can't figure it out, and I think it would be quite useful.
Dragging the Finder window I need from space to space seems rather tedious...
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app
I've used Virtue Desktops with Tiger and one feature I liked was the ability to make Finder windows appear in all desktops.
Is this possible with Spaces? So far I can't figure it out, and I think it would be quite useful.
Dragging the Finder window I need from space to space seems rather tedious...
Yes, in the Spaces preferences, you can select apps that you would like to have open in all spaces.
EDIT: hmmm.... but this doesn't actually seem to work? Wait, does that preference mean that you can open a new window in that app without going back to a particular space or that open windows in that app are mirrored across all spaces? Because neither seems to work for finder.app.
EDIT2: ooops... it does actually work, and it does what you asked for bryanus. I had accidentally set my address book to every space instead of finder the first time I tried it... :embarass:
That just means that the app can be opened in any of the spaces, it doesn't create the same window in every space.
Nope, you are wrong, my friend.
It does, in fact, make ALL windows of that app visible in every space.
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app
Yay. Cool. I knew the Finder was an "app". I just couldn't recall where it was. Thanks. I'll try this when I get home...
Following various posts regarding Spaces, I've got a new need. I was using 3 displays and just added a Wacom Cintiq (12) which I want to use at certain times for Illustrator. Problem is, I need the Menu bar down on the Cintiq in my lap for pen work. I created a QuicKeys macro to move the menu bar to specific displays (via Displays Preferences), but all windows on the other displays jump down or off-screen.... I'm wondering if Spaces might be the answer to quickly switch back and forth between Cintiq pen and mouse work.
A first glance at Spaces was discouraging since Apple chose to bounce me around between spaces in, seemingly, response to many actions (I have a lot of special keyboard shortcuts, etc.), so at present I've reduced system to ONE space, and thinking about trying 'DesktopManager" to avoid the automatic space-switching in Leopard.
Any suggestions?