Laptop went down, Email went down, then Andrea went down. Oh well.

[Andrea B.]

Very sorry to be absent so much recently!

 

My workhorse MacBook Pro went on the fritz after 7 years. Trackpad went bad & graphics card is going bad. I managed to pry up the trackpad for long enough to order up a nice shiny new Late 2019 MB Pro with 8 TB of flash mem for storage, a 16" screen and 32GB of operating mem. That ought to keep me in business for the next 7 years! (I certainly do hope so!!) It was a bit of an extravagance, but I use the heck out of these machines so went for most of the available bells & whistles.

 

I also had to finally face the reality that it was time to give up Capture NX2. (My goodness how we do CLING desperately to certain apps!) I had lost the use of many apps on the old MB because I did not want to upgrade the OS in order to keep NX2 running. So now I have to decide what to use for UV foto processing on the new laptop. That's worthy of a long discussion at some other time.

 

I'm still setting up the new MB as I haven't been ready to face the approximate 48 hours it will take to wirelessly transfer all the Stuff from the old to the new machine. (I should prolly cable them together for a speedier transfer.)

 

In the middle of continued unpacking and computer woes, my email went down causing a couple of snafus which required - it seemed - like days to fix. It still surprises me that any business (or person) thinks that email is reliable. It is not. And lastly Andrea went down for a few days with some uncommon side effects from a very commonly prescribed medication. Stupid stuff like this happens but can be a bit scarey.

 

All is well now -- knock-on-wood -- computer-wise and health-wise. :grin: :grin:

[Andy Perrin]

Well I'm glad you are healthy again! Please tell us how the computer goes — my 2014 Macbook is also looking like it's going to go the way of the t-rex pretty soon, so I definitely want to hear how things work on the new setup, especially since your computer needs are pretty similar to mine...

[Cadmium]

Welcome back, Andrea. I was wondering about you.

NX2 doesn't install with your new OS?

NXD seems to work pretty much the same as NX2, except the full frame 'marquee' white balance, you can still do small squares though.

Photo Ninja, I thought you had been using it most of the time for WB anyway, but it works too.

[Andrea B.]

My initial impression of the late 2019 Macbook Pro is quite favorable. Of course, when you turn on any MBP you are stepped through initial registration and set-up tasks very efficiently. So I was literally up and running in 5 minutes.

 

I'll report back when I get my photo apps set up about how they are running. There are multi-cores available on th ese new Macs. Ideally the photo apps would make use of those to speed up tasks. The 2.4 GHz sounds like a step-down at first. But it is a 2.4 GHz 8-core Intel i9 with some kind of Turbo up to 5GHz. (Whew! How is that possible? Must read up.)

 

The primary expense differentiator these days is not so much the amount of RAM (I got 64GB), but rather how much flash storage (SSD) memory you want. Seems like these days we all appreciate at least 1 TB of flash mem. My choice of 8TB was extravagant and primarily for my own portability needs. I like to keep a lot of my botanical work on-board.

 

I understand that in between my old mid-2012 MB and the most recent MBs, there were some keyboard problems. The latest keyboard is said to be an improvement and fix those problems. I did note a shorter key depression height, so I will have some minor adjustments to make. But the keyboard feel is nice.

 

The trackpad is much larger. That could be useful in long drag and drops? (I haven't used a mouse for 7 years now.)

 

The display screen is AWESOME! Something like 225 ppi (not sure of that) and 3072 x 1920.

 

This MB is my first with the new Touch Bar. I'm not quite sure whether I like it yet or not. I haven't figured some of it out just yet. So I'll have to report back at some later date on that. If apps make good use of it, I can see the potential.

[Andrea B.]

P.S. There is a display setting called True Tone which compensates for ambient light to give "consistent" colours. Photographers will need to think carefully about whether to set that or not when judging colour of their foto files. I have no idea just yet what I'm going to do with that setting! There is also an Auto-Brightness setting.

---

 

Cadmium, Capture NX2 has been unworkable now for several recent Mac OSes.

I just leaped 7 OSes from to 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) to 10.15.1 (Catalina).

[Andy Perrin]

I just leaped 7 OSes from to 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) to 10.15.1 (Catalina).

My goodness! Does ANY of your old software still run???

[nfoto]

It's good to have you back :)

[dabateman]

Great to hear you are back. Hope your health issues stay at bay.

 

Interesting to hear the Mac discussion. I never got a long well with Macs. But I am looking into getting a computer in the new year. Will have to keep an open mind.

 

[nfoto]

Leaving the discussion Mac vs the rest to their own, I was surprised a 7 year machine was malfunctioning to become unusable. Most of my (many) computers have been running for longer that that. I swap their hard drives for bigger and bigger SSDs over time, and max out memory. They are 16 or 32 GB RAM boxes at present and typically have 1 to 4 TB of SSD storage. There are dedicated units to handle the tedious processing for focus stacking etc. Not all tasks should be performed by a single machine. What do we have networked computers for?

[Andy Perrin]

nfoto, if those machines are desktops, they will last quite a lot longer than a laptop on average.

[GaryR]

Andrea,

That's a lot to deal with, all at once, but glad to hear that you're on the mend. Earlier this year, my purchase of a Lenovo P1 workstation laptop didn't turn out as I had hoped. Fantastic machine, but unfortunately the 4k display didn't work well with my trusty, old copy of Adobe CS6. I ended up going back to my home-built PC desktop, which will likely outlast me.

[nfoto]

nfoto, if those machines are desktops, they will last quite a lot longer than a laptop on average.

 

They are Thinkpads of various vintage.

[Andy Perrin]

Yeah, the old ThinkPads were built well. I find it hard to imagine any modern laptop doing as well. They try to pack everything very tightly now and even glue things.

[nfoto]

Well, they are not *that* old. W- and X-series. Considering a P-series next time.

[Andrea B.]

I was happy with 7 years of use from the old MB Pro. It had hard use as a portable traveling to several countries, being used "in field", enduring some bumps and bangs, etc. The repairs would (will be?) minor if I decide to fix it. But it was time for upgraded storage and speed. And I decided I wanted the slightly larger screen, yet still stay portable.

 

I had a wonderful Thinkpad portable for a while. It was built like the proverbial brick outhouse. Loved the thing, but it weighed way too much for true portability though. I donated it to a local school before moving. They were happy to give it a Windows upgrade and will get some good use from it.

 

Now that I have the space, I might try to go for a desktop setup because a large monitor would be quite enjoyable to use. We'll see. I'm not a professional photographer in Birna's sense, so really have no need of networking like her very cool system. I've looked at the NEC monitors with wide gamut and tunable color. Very nice.

 

If anyone does want a new Macbook, there are crazy good deals out there now on 2018 models. Or on refurbished models from OWC.

 

FWIW, according to the Consumer Reports Buying Guide for 2020 the Apple Macbook laptops are the most reliable laptops. Specific models are mentioned, but too much to copy here.

[nfoto]

Why not spring for *two* nice, big monitors? One can never get enough of screen estate it seems. However, the limit is set by rotation angle of one's head :)

 

I normally use 2 or 3 monitors per work station.

[Andy Perrin]

Now that I have the space, I might try to go for a desktop setup because a large monitor would be quite enjoyable to use.

Andrea, you can (and I do) use a large monitor with my laptop.

[DaveO]

I have been very happy with my NEC Multisync P221 which is quite old by now but has always worked very well, especially when used with NEC Spectra ViewII and an X-rite i1Display Pro calibrating gadget.

[Bill De Jager]

They are Thinkpads of various vintage.

 

I just semi-retired my Thinkpad W-series which has given me 6.5 years of trouble-free service. To replace it with a more capable laptop for taking on more ambitious computing tasks I ordered a custom P-series directly from Lenovo. With workstations, they offer several base models that can be customized to a considerable degree including the option of a 4K nearly-100% Adobe RGB screen. The resulting clarity has made my daily computer use easier on the eyes, aside from offering an excellent color gamut.