applications

apple pro apps and mac+intel

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it’s been some time since the introduction of the first intel based mac systems started shipping. first it was the imac, next came the mac mini, and starting to trickle into the market is the macbook pro. oddly, the only universal versions of apple software beyond the operating system, was ilife and iwork. now, almost three months after the mac+intel adventure, general purpose applications like final cut studio, aperture, and logic are scheduled to arrive on the apple scene.

from reports, the rosetta technology is effective in translating the powerPC code into intel core duo speak, but the performance has not been up to snuff with native algorithyms. of course, safari, mail, ichat AV, itunes, and ical work great, and the expectations of final cut studio and announced features of aperture 1.1 on intel will live up the the partnership apple and intel made last june 2005. we all want the transition from G5 RISC to core dou X86 heritage.

the next generation of chips, based on the intel core microarchitecture look even better, as they will integrate rich x64 architecture, industry leading performance per watt specificiations, and bring the intel processors on par with AMD opteron and athlon processors. intel might have been a little late to the 64-bit party, but with the juggernaught of resources and engineering gusto, late 2006 will be the time apple+intel shines.

universal binary woes

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as apple transitions from freescale and IBM powerPC processors to intel core duo processors, mac OS X developers must deliver universal binary versions of their applications, which allow native processor performance on both the powerPC and intel platforms. it all seems fine, except once you consider that if you have legacy powerPC version of an application, it becomes completely obsolete once the developer moved to the hybrid universal version.

apple computer has announced a crossgrade program for their pro apps including, final cut studio, logic, and aperture. when these application ship, if you do no fork over the crossgrade fee, your application version will be retired. developers will not continue to support three customers: powerPC only, intel only, universal. that’s too much work to test, so you’ll need the universal version to work properly. most likely major applications will move to the universal code on the next major revision to avoid these upgrade issues. hopefully at NAB 2006, apple will revise all their applications to the next version to make moot the move to universal unnecessary for powerPC workflows.

adobe revises video production studio

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for the mac user, any announcement from adobe use to receive the same cheers and shouts that an apple product release would receive. that was before apple began releasing products built from the ground up for the mac. apple has more mac developers than anyone on the planet, trying to make the mac the most relevant platform for media production and creation. because apple does not worry about operating peculiarities (worrying about apple quartz extreme as compared to microsoft directX technology), they can customize their applications to sing on mac, instead of concern themselves about a dueling operating system strategy.

when it comes to media development, the mac is the way to go with final cut pro, motion, DVD studio pro, shake, logic pro, soundtrack pro, and aperture. adobe has after effects professional, premiere pro, photoshop, audition, encore DVD, and illustrator. of the adobe production studio, only after effects, photoshop, and illustrator work on the mac. if one needs to edit sound using audition, or authoring a DVD using encore DVD, or even editing a project using premiere pro, you have to use a windows based PC.

the lines are blurring in the coming year as both the mac and windows PC will utilize the same GPU (NVIDIA or ATI), CPU (intel core duo), and motherboard architecture (intel chipsets), so the apples to oranges comparison will no longer hold. no more will we have to guess what operating system based on the powerPC or intel core duo will reign supreme. when we have similar applications that run equally well natively on microsoft windows as well as apple mac OS X on the more or less the same hardware, we will know who makes the better machine.

i look forward to seeing where adobe takes its mac development, as the operating systems will determine the moves and motivations of customers, instead of the decisions of IBM versus intel, or freescale versus AMD. It’s an intel world now. May the best OS win.

upgrade to joomla from mambo

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dot upgrades are simple, but platform upgrades take some time. i was able to switch from mambo server to joomla server without much data loss, but i did loose a day of hits. sure, the default locations of my installations had changed, so the quick upgrade was out of the question. here are my steps going from mambo 4.5.3 to joomla 1.0.3 for those who want to try.

always start with a current backup of the mySQL database exporting all relevant tables and in the structure tab selecting add drop table, add auto_increment value, enclose table and field names with backquotes, complete inserts, use hexadecimal for binary fields, save as file, with no compression. from there you might have to change the default location of the site and run a the installer script on the original mambo SQL called migrate_Mambo4523_to_Joomla_100.sql to make the administrator panel work again. after a few hours of recovery, you’ll have your very own joomla server up and running. goodbye miro and mambo.

using phpmyadmin i also had to cut and paste the text into the script window, since the browse text file failed every time.

next two weeks

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on the mac front, look for some exciting times. this week opens the largest mac gathering in europe called apple expo 2005. oracle open world 2005 exhibits opens this week. DEMOfall 2005 opens this week too. these shows and investor meetings have typically produced many new advancement in the history of technology.

sprint launched their ION system many years ago, while start-ups charge ahead with new software advancements. i think google picasa premiered at DEMO, but i may be wrong. look to cloak media to cover the relevant topics after these shows close.

nemetschek and autodesk

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i am a nemetschek vectorworks customer, and for the longest time have been waiting for the nemetschek companies to start sharing their technology portfolio.

one compelling reason autodesk is a strong industry leader, is they leverage their entire software library and sister companies. autodesk acquired both discreet logic, maker of 3DS max and combustion, along with revit technology corporation and their revit application. when they exhibit, at the american institute of architects or other tradeshows, they show all their applications and a great workflow moving though the entire product suite. i hope nemetschek follows this trend, using allplan, vectorworks, and cinema 4D to make a fantastic suite than can compete with any autodesk offering.

i am interested in taking cinema 4D and vectorworks combined to generate human scale animations and presentations. i talked with maxon at the siggraph 2005 exhibition, and was told that each business arm of nemetschek operated independently, so much duplication of effort instead of collaboration. so autodesk rules the day with a great suite, and maxon, nemetschek north america, and nemetschek AG wither on the vine.

end of HTML editors

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i read with a grin the release of adobe dreamweaver 8. i’ve already completely transitions to the new media publishing systems that both wordpress or mambo offer. these web applications, based on open standard mySQL and PHP, offer tremendous advantages to any adobe breeze application, or say even adobe golive application.

where HTML or XML editors are going is away from the world wide web, and to the handset, where i don’t know of any 3G or 4G backend applications. i’m sure at the upcoming CTIA wireless IT and entertainment 2005 conference at the end of september 2005, they’re be all kinds of new applications, but until then maybe that might be the singular use for golive or dreamweaver. now adobe flash will continue to reign as a front end to a database or image server, but what good is a non bookmarkable file format (.swf)? i cannot usually even read a flash based webpage, since the fonts are hard coded into the elements, and i run my display at something larger than the designed 1024 x 768 resolutions (i’m usually at 1600 x 1200).

sites have become to complex to administer or author using text based tools. the web is about information, and both mambo and wordress offer a idealized platform for collaboration and sharing, unfathomable a few years ago.

junk filtering

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for the last two months i’ve had spam filtering turned on, and the floodgates of junk mail have finally turned off. i used to receive over 10,000 e-mails a week, and took it upon myself to sort through them about every two weeks. it certainly felt like a needle in a haystack finding a e-mail that was not junk, and actually is a bit fun sorting the 50,000 e-mails into subject and sender, and when 10 to 30 e-mails came from the same location, it was easily deleted.

unfortunately, it also took a few hours to get through all the digital debris. so now with spamassisin on, i get 2,000 junk mails a month, and it’s a little harder to sort, since the subject lines seem legit. i think i might actually open 15 of the 2,000, and it takes 20 minutes, instead of 20 hours. i rely mostly on mac OS X mail.app fine junk mail filter to get through the chore of finding the new needles.

mac classic case

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when you do the math and add the dollars on all the software i’ve accumulated over the last 14 years, how can i give up on my legacy? of the list of software, these titles will not load at all, or are very disabled if i don’t boot into classic.