It's my image...

Wowie... Aperture rocks...

Don't get me wrong, this title comes from a lot of enthusiasm and not yet from an indepth review of Aperture. I just installed it and gave it a go on my 1.67Ghz G4 - 2 Gig RAM Powerbook (which is like the minimum requirement ;-) It works even quite fine. It is sometimes a bit sluggish but not even at a bothering level. It is what it should do: The ultimate photographers tool. It is no Photoshop but really a mix of great control over raw files, all kind of library / image viewing capabilities but also a tool to meta archive complete collections. Something that is hard to start with if you have already 25.000 images from 2-10 meg filesize like me. But if photography is your work and retrieving the right images for the right customers in seconds can make it very worthwile.

I do not use my laptop for managing my photo's too much, therefore I had my g5 DP. But that one is sitting at the agency being a graphical design workstation. I might buy a new one when the company hits the right profit mark :-)

If you have any more question on aperture but did not buy it yet I can give you some more insight. It is very extensive and given my software expertise I already have a hunch that this one is gonna grow on you.

Apple thank you one more time... (no wonder stock went 800% up in the last two years,.)

My quality of life has improved...

Last week I got straight out of Shanghai my new Apple Powerbook 15" ... it has the new 1440x960 screen... and we got all the goodies in there: 2GIG ram and 100GB 7200 RPM ATA..

I read and read all these reviews in the last years about using a mac and how people had a AHA experience once they used it. It like the G5 DP which I still have but is sitting in the office and I use it only once in a while. The laptop I use about 12 hours a day. I got all my files on there and worked two days on it... WOW. It is really really true., the mac os x grows on you. I was at Philips today and just connected the PB to the network and immediately when I went to the printer window all printers where there and I could print straight away. Once of the engineers wanted to prove the Windows opposite. And of course as I new already (I tried it myself) he did not manage to do so because he was in a different workgroup, the loading of the printer list took for ages, etc... And the networking interfaces and tooling is great, there are numerous graphic tools... I am hooked...

Here is a pic (it enlights the keyboard accordingly to the light level in the room... very nice)

It has been decided...

Although Apple is just as low life as Microsoft with their marketing schemes it must be said: There is no company so cool as Apple when I see this new Aperture software that just came out today... They also (finally) updated their resolution of the powerbooks, making it a consideration to buy one (too bad that they do not have the 1920x1200 resolution yet, knowing apple that comes out the moment you bought the 1680x1050 version ;-)

Aperture is a RAW format editing tool . No replacement of Photoshop but more a Phase one kind of thing but with the intuition of an Apple interface. I love it, and will have a powerbook with Aperture on it by the end of the year.. :-)

Will take a look in the Apple store in San Francisco first week of November...

Improving the quality of life...

This phrase ofcourse should apply to anyone really needing clean water, a roof above their head, food and education. Happily we support organizationsdoing that...

My already extremely comfortable life has been upgraded a bit more. This has nothing to do with lifecaring stuff but my business partner brought me an IPOD 20GB from San Francisco. These are the new ones that used to be Ipod Color. We got them for the cheap dollar, so costing only 250 Euro's instead the 309,00 in the Netherlands. I knew it already but the usability of this thing is killer. The whole user experience is also really neat, one footnote is the contingency when unconnecting it or when you have not all software installed. I had a RTFM moment (Read the F*cking manual). Mine died after having it for an hour and it took me some time to recover. If I had only read the manual... ;-)

But now it works fine... the swiftness which you can scroll through your pics is amazing!

We'll see for yourself.. we also got some socks with it.. (Ilya has one too ofcourse.. real INNBERG tools)

Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 on a Dual G5 1.8...

I ordered Tiger OS X for my Mac and I have it for 30 minutes installed and I already love it!!!! And remember, I am a die hard Windows user so reasonable unbiased. The facts:

- Installation of the 2.4 Gig took not more than 20 minutes
- The smart mailbox is superb (was already a Win feature but this does more)
- The widget with the aqua ripple effect is for any visual oriented person like me, pantswettening I would say.. Long horn.. how cool must you become to outdo this (Gartner says apple is 1.5 year in advance and I underline this)
- The Smartfinder tool indexed my 80 GIG filled computer with 10.000's of files in 10 minutes... and is very easy and nice to use..
- I have the stupid idea that even my screen is sharper?

I need to play now but MAN this is some cool OS...

I will keep you all updated..

for more info: OS X TIGER