New Macbooks - Mostly Hits, One Miss

The new Macbooks are pretty sweet.

They've improved in almost every category: better screen (with LED backlighting); svelte, lighter aluminum bodies; and of course faster processors and video cards. Oh, and there's that really cool-sounding enlarged iPhone-ish trackpad thingie. I say "cool sounding" because I really haven't had a chance to play with one yet.

One thing, however, has a lot of the Apple faithful scratching their heads: the new Macbooks no longer have FireWire (FW) ports. Not FW 400, not FW 800. Nada.

If you don't know what FireWire is, then I guess you may not miss it.

But the rest of us will miss:

• FireWire's speed vs. USB. With all other things being equal, a FireWire connection to an external hard drive is WAY faster than USB 2.0
• Migration assisant via FireWire. Upgrading a new Mac sure is a lot easier when you can just hook up your old one via FireWire, run Migration Assisant, and let your new Mac do all the work of bringing things over from the old system. Apple has updated the migration utility and supposedly it now works with USB, but see point number one regarding speed.
• Hooking up our video cameras to our Macbooks. If you've got a camcorder and its connection to your Mac is FireWire, you're out of luck. So if you're in the market for a new Macbook, you'll have to either skip the Macbook in favor of the more expensive Macbook Pro, or get a new camera that uses USB. Or stay put. This is the most aggravating problem with regard to dropping FW, especially considering that new Macbooks still come with iMovie. How do they expect people to get their footage from the camera into iMovie?! (Steve Jobs made the point that new cameras are dropping FireWire. C'mon Steve, we know that Apple wants to already be where the standard will be for everybody else a year or two down the road. But this move doesn't give anybody an alternative. At least when Apple dropped the floppy drive years ago (and people complained about that), you could get an external USB floppy drive if you really wanted one).
• Using audio gear with our Macbooks. I don't do this myself, but a lot of audio pros take Macbooks into the field because they're so small, light, and dependable. And Macbooks can run audio software such as Logic and Protools quite well. But guess what? A lot of that expensive hardware is FireWire based.

All of this points to why Mac fans are calling this one of the dumbest moves in a long time. Especially when you consider that Apple made FW famous - and that other computer manufacturers have been adding, not removing, FW. How embarassing for us now, when our Dell-toting friends can hook up their FireWire devices, but we can't. And for those with a substantial investment in FW hard drives and enclosures, I feel your pain.

I have yet to hear a good reason for dropping it from the Macbook. At least they could have made it optional; I'd pay an extra $25 for the FW port - which probably cost a buck to include in the first place.

There's an interesting thread about this on ars.technica, if you want to hear what others are saying about Macbooks sans FireWire.

Crossover - another Windows solution

Parallels and Fusion are great applications for running Windows programs on your Mac, but how about this:

There's also a way to run Windows programs on your Mac...without Windows!

It's called Crossover, and it's based on WINE technology. WINE is not the same thing as virtualization; it stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator." I guess it doesn't matter to you or me what the technical distinctions are, really.

Anyways, Crossover is really handy for some of the same reasons Parallels or Fusion are handy - but in one regard, it's more handy. You don't have to boot an entire virtual operating system (XP or Vista, etc). You can launch just the Windows program. I use Crossover most for Internet Explorer - I can test web pages with it, and I find that certain Web sites (like our company's Outlook Web Access) work better in IE than anything on the Mac. For some reason, GoToMyPC works better using Internet Explorer, too - so much better, that this alone makes it worthwhile to me.

Below is a capture of my desktop, where I'm running Internet Explorer and Microsoft Publisher 2007 using Crossover. No Windows XP operating system is loaded, just the programs - which actually saves a good amount of RAM. I'm only using the RAM these programs would normally use, with no overhead for the OS.



Again, I could do the same thing using Parallels, and sometimes I do if I've already got Parallels loaded, but if I want to quickly just check my company's web mail system, IE is just a few seconds away.

Or maybe I couldn't do the same thing with Parallels. What if I no longer had a PC and no longer had a Windows XP installation CD, but I still had my Office 2003 discs and serials? I could still make use of them with CrossOver.

Now, Crossover is a little more "wild west" than Parallels or Fusion. It only supports certain Windows programs. You can try programs not on the official Crossover list, but you're on your own at that point and the good people at Crossover make no guarantees about their stability.

Some things are really, really hard to get working right in Crossover. It's hard to explain. If a program depends on certain Windows components aren't really there, then it could get hinky. I've had trouble getting network printers to work right with certain Windows programs running in Crossover. Another example would be updates, like Microsoft Office updates. Because the Microsoft updating system is so dependent on the operating system - which isn't there - you have to wait for the Crossover people to release their own versions of the updaters. I know, it can make your head spin.

But for quick and dirty Windows program work, this could be a nice thing to have in your bag of tricks. CrossOver's standard version costs $40.00.

DSLR or Point and Shoot?

"I want a digital camera - but I'm not sure what to get? Should I get one of those fancy DSLRs or will a point-and-shoot (compact camera) be enough for me?"

I get this question a lot - but never as much as when the Christmas holiday is approaching.

The answer depends on a lot of factors - but mainly, it comes down to how you plan on using your camera. What kind of photos, and in what sort of environments, will you take? Casual snapshots? Photos for your eBay store? Your kid's baseball games? Nature?

Once you have a good idea about your photography needs, then you can evaluate the differences between the two and determine which will best meet your needs. With that in mind, here's a quickie overview of the differences that are important to most people.

Point and Shoot / Compact Cameras

Point and shoots (PS) have come a long way over the years, and most of them in the $300-$500 range take really nice pictures (with some caveats, however, which I'll touch on later). They're small and they have great battery life, making it easy and convenient to take lots and lots of pictures - at parties, reunions, school plays, etc. They have large, clear displays you can use to frame your shots and review your photos. P-S cameras, because of the kind of lenses they use, often make great macro (close-up) cameras.

P-S cameras generally don't pre-suppose that you have any photography expertise. Most people just fire-away in "Auto" and are fine with the results. P-S cameras also offer various "Scene" modes that adjust the camera settings for you based on your current situation - sports, portrait, nightime city scenes, snow, etc.

They're fairly inexpensive, come in different styles and colors, and there are a huge variety to choose from.

Now to the negatives. Most P-S cameras have the same drawbacks. The first which most people notice is the long lag between shots. If you want to take photos of anything moving faster than, say, a kiddie pony ride at the county fair, you'll have to rely on your own timing to "get the shot." By the time you snap an action shot and your P-S camera is ready for the next, the action will be over with.

Also, your P-S lens is the only lens you'll have, so you're stuck with whatever its limitations are. They're usually OK on the wide end, but you won't be zooming in on football action like a Sports Illustrated shooter. You're also limited to the camera's onboard flash, which is usually harsh and underpowered.

Digital SLRs

As you can guess, the weaknesses of the P-S camera are the strengths of the DSLR, and vice-versa.

First, the glass. DSLRs give you a lot of choices and flexibility when it comes to lenses. You can change lenses - add a high-powered zoom for sports or wildlife, or a wide-angle lense for indoor shots. If you've got the money, you can buy fast lenses that let you shoot in low-light situations without flash. I've got a 17-55 f2.8 Nikon lens that stays on my camera most of the time because of its very useful zoom range and great low-light capabilities. You can also add filters to your lenses, for changing the color cast, polarizing, etc.

DSLR cameras can also take photos in fast bursts. My Nikon D300, for example, can fire-off about 7 or 8 frames PER SECOND. So when action is headed my way, I can hold the shutter down and get a whole sequence of frames from the action. There are usually one or two keepers each time I do that. With P-S cameras, it often comes down to sheer luck.

DSLRs also offer RAW image formats as well as JPEG. RAW is something worthy of its own post, but suffice it to say that it gives you a lot more flexibility AFTER the picture is taken, when working with imaging software such as Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. You can make adjustments to your images in an entirely non-destructive manner that might not work so well with standard JPEGs - changing the white balance after-the-fact, pulling details out of shadows, excellent black and white conversion, and so forth.

The ability to use a speedlight or external flash cannot be overlooked, either. Speedlights have more power and more flexibility, allowing you to rotate the flash head so you can bounce the flash or light from different angles. You can increase or decrease light output, too. They can be used off-camera with a bracket - or even ten feet away, totally removed from the camera, via a wireless connection. Depending on the camera, you can even use multiple external flashes to achieve some pretty great lighting effects.

The downsides to DSLRs? Well, size and weight. I've opted for taking the family P-S camera to Hershey Park because I didn't want to lug-around the "big guy." If you're just after some quick snapshots to record the moment, you don't want to carry around 10 pounds all day. Five or ten pounds doesn't sound like much, but believe me - I've done some gigs where I was sore for days after the shoot.

DSLRs are easier to use than ever, but they still assume a certain level of expertise unless you just want to stay in "Auto" all the time. To really get the most of your DSLR, you may need to invest some time in understanding concepts and settings and topics such as aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, ISO, and so forth.

Expense is often the biggest consideration. A quality DSLR from Canon or Nikon, with a good starter lens, storage cards, etc., is going to set you back at least $1000. And if you're new to DSLRs and photography, understand that after a while you may get the urge to look at all sorts of accessories - new lenses, tripods, speedlights, vertical grips, etc.

Hear this advice and hear it well: when it comes to DSLR photography, "the poor man buys twice." You want a new lens for your camera, so you start to shop around. You see some pretty big differences in price. One lens looks pretty decent, and costs $400. Another, with (seemingly) similar characteristics, costs $1600.

So you go for the $400 lens. Lots of people do that, and are perfectly happy with their choices. But if you really, truly, firmly believe that photography is something you really want to get in to, if you're improving your skills and even pondering making some bucks from it here and there, don't opt for the cheap lens. Wait. Save. Buy the good glass. Camera bodies come and go. But a quality lens can last decades. You might upgrade cameras five times but the lens stays with you.

And besides the photographer, it's not so much the camera body that makes for a quality image. It's the lens, period. I'd rather have my old, first DSLR back again (a D70) with my GOOD lenses, than a brand new D700 with cheap glass.

That saying about the poor man buying twice? It refers to people (myself included) who ultimately buy the better lens AFTER buying the lesser one, and either end up with a bunch of unused lenses sitting on the shelf, or taking a loss by unloading them on ebay or at the local camera shop. And boy, do you take a loss on cheap lenses. The market is flooded with them, so you might get 25% of its original value. A quality lens, on the other hand, holds its value very well.

Now, you might not be able to afford expensive lenses, and photography might not be a serious endeavor for you, and that's fine. But I think it's helpful to at least keep this dynamic in mind when getting started.

There are a TON of other things I could discuss here, but this is already getting pretty long. If you have questions or want specific advice, please, by all means post back to this blog. I'm a Nikon guy, so I usually recommend and am most familiar with Nikon DSLRs. But I've heard that Canon makes superior compact cameras.

Here are some additional resources to help you decide:

YouTube Video - Digital SLR versus Compact Camera - start here, great comparisons.

Camera envy? Tips for using a Point and Shoot Camera

Digital Photography School

Happy shooting!