Mac Book Pro for Photoshop?

[Peter Korsten]

Op 17-12-2012 09:50, Gert van Santen schreef:

> Yeah, well, mmm, you're probably right. But I needed a new PC for my
> translation work, and decided to go Mac for this one too, since all my
> recent PC's were so full of ^($% and trouble and have cost me weeks of
> problem solving.

That's just you, you know. Recently, I decided to re-install Windows 7 
because I got an SSD. There was trouble with the specific driver for the 
Razer mouse I installed (the vanilla driver that Windows provides 
doesn't take care of all the extra buttons and on-the-fly sensitivity 
changing), but that's Razer's fault, who spend considerably more money 
on appearing cool than they do on software. But I digress.

Other than that, Windows has always been super-stable for me. It's 
crappy drivers that make it less stable.

> Joost was here this weekend and put in a 512 GB SSD drive plus 16 GB of
> RAM. It's a beast. Really. I will be doing a dual setup soon:
> OSX/Windows 8.

The big difference between Windows 7 and 8 that you'll notice first is 
that Windows 8 is *fast*. On my 3.2 GHz i7 (an older model, so more 
modern i7s with a lower clock speed are probably still faster) and a 
Samsung 256 GB SSD, from the mainboard logo disappearing and the Windows 
8 start page showing, it takes something like 6 or 7 seconds. Also, they 
got rid of Aero, which speeds things up as well (although that shouldn't 
make any difference with my graphics card).

The second thing you'll notice is that it's radically different from any 
Windows (or Mac OS) that you've seen before. You get the start page, 
with a bunch of tiles. There's already a bunch of free and non-free apps 
available, but my feeling is that they don't all use the options that 
Windows 8 gives you. See, in my view, an app is a service, one specific 
thing you want to do. It could be GMail, it could be Facebook, or maybe 
the Music Bar. But many applications don't use the 'live tile' option, 
or they change it so often that you get an epileptic fit.

This is very different from traditional Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and 
Android apps that don't provide a widget. These think in terms of 
applications, not services. But even with the Windows 8 apps, you see 
that most developers still think in terms of applications. For example, 
there's a Windows 8 Skype app, but it doesn't start automatically, as 
far as I can tell. Which is a bit stupid.

All in all, I'm still on the fence when it comes to Windows 8. I think 
it has enormous potential, but it's not there yet, by a long stretch. 
And the way that 'traditional' applications run, and the way that apps 
take up your whole screen, is just cumbersome. Also, the way you have to 
move the mouse to the corners of the screen to do something, or to shut 
it down, is inconvenient.

Having said that, you can buy it now for €30, and that's a good investment.

- Peter