Category Archives: Photography

Enough with the Cloud, already

Computing

The insidious creep of property theft.

The premise which has it that computing’s Cloud exists for users’ convenience is fundamentally flawed. The goal of the Cloud is to wrest control of the user’s data from his local disk storage to the vendor’s storage on his disks. That data can then be examined and parsed without the owner’s knowledge, hacked and resold for profit. The user’s convenience has nothing to do with it. Google Reader is a perfect example of this realization dawning on one of America’s biggest businesses.

If you believe that, then you are naïve. Google is discontinuing its RSS aggregator to force users to migrate to Google+, where Google can collect and resell your web behavior to all at sundry, and tough if you don’t know about it. It’s their competitor for the no less disingenuous Facebook. And while these vendors are selling everything about you, you pay for the privilege with inflated phone bills so that they can distribute your data free of charge, while proclaiming such utter nonsense as ‘net neutrality’ and ‘information wants to be free’. That they continue to do so, successfully at that, says more about consumers than I want to contemplate.

Like most Google ‘free’ products, Reader had one of the poorest user interfaces it’s possible to imagine. That fired entrepreneurial spirits and great front ends to Reader’s database like NetNewsWire and Reeder came along and provided an exceptional user experience. Because much of an RSS feed was downloaded by these products, the experience without fast wi-fi was excellent for subsequent reading. You may not have been able to get at the full story fast, but you got the crux of it and you got that immediately.

But with Reader being discontinued on June 30, you must migrate to a new product unless you prefer to have your identity appropriated and resold by Google.

Thus I have tried a couple of alternatives. Feedly seemed promising but on some of my machines it refuses to import my (many) Google Reader feeds. That makes it essentially useless – as useless as trying to get Apple’s iCloud to synch Bookmarks in Safari across many devices. I wrote enthusiastically about Feedly a while back but I was wrong owing to this debilitating error. For the life of me, I cannot find a fix in their help pages.

More recently I have tried the ridiculously named Inoreader. It imported my Google Reader feeds fine but access is slow and the product is useless without wi-fi. The interface does not compare with NetNewsWire or Reeder, but those two services are seemingly silent on what they will do after June 30, 2013 passes, and Google Reader disappears.

More fool me for having used Google Reader in the first place, disregarding my own instincts about this business.

I suppose complaining about the Cloud is rather like Canute trying to reverse the waves, but I’m sure he was pretty miffed when the royal toes got soaked, and I am no less upset.

Every place I now go on the internet comes with loud demands that I join Facebook, or Google+ or any one of many other ‘social’ sites. I do not want to be ‘social’. I prefer to choose my own friends, not have them chosen for me. When I tried Twitter a while back my feed was inundated with messages from strangers of no interest to me. I quickly closed the account, though it was not easy to do. I constantly get messages from Linkedin users who want to share their profile with me. Why would I care about a stranger’s job aspirations? As for Facebook, well, I haven’t the faintest interest in exchanging images of my latest tattoo or dog with all and sundry and I certainly do not wish to hang out with a bunch of 10 year olds using US public school grammar. I want solid, hard information reliably delivered, information whose sources I choose. I want it fast and I do not want my profile being resold by my friendly Cloud provider.

And I also want to own my software (and forget those probably illegal agreements – with software, possession is ownership in my book, and I do not need your permission to use something I have paid for), not becoming a slave of the likes of Adobe who now insist I pay rent to access the latest versions of Photoshop in …. yes, you guessed it, the Cloud. Once I cease paying rent I may still have access to my locally stored images, but if they are in the wrong file format, I may no longer be able to process them. Why would anyone agree to that or be forced to adopt workarounds by storing in DNG or TIFF?

And if you believe one word of what a Facebook or a Google says about your security well, frankly you deserve one another. Here’s a search of the NYT on two comically contradictory words:

Facebook security

My advice to you? Close your Facebook account and cease being a marketable product. And view everything Google does with the most intense suspicion. You are a product to be sold. You are not the customer. Their advertiser is. And fight the Cloud with all your might to keep your data in your home, not on remote servers. Finally, for heaven’s sake, do not cave and sign up for Photoshop in the cloud. You do not need the latest purported features and your money is better spent on a standalone product whose entrepreneurial creator can use the capital and will allow you to retain future processing access to your pictures.

The future of NetNewsWire and Reeder:

Neither of these messages make me optimistic:

MacBook Air 2013 – Part II

Macintosh

Better than the 2012.

Part I appears here.

Moving from the 2012 MacBook Air to the 2013 involves no learning curve. Ergonomically the machines are identical.

If you are moving from an earlier model, before wiping it clean for sale do remember to deactivate iTunes (limit is 5 activations) and Photoshop (limit is 2 activations). For iTunes it’s in the Store menu option, for PS it’s under Help.

As usual, I migrated applications and data using Migration Assistant, a speedy and seamless process.

In terms of start-up speed, meaning a working display after opening the lid (there’s no need to ever power the machine off) it’s very noticeable that start-up is considerably faster. The occasional 2-5 second wait (it’s not consistent) with the 2012 is gone, the screen lighting up either instantaneously or 1 second after opening. Apple mentioned this in their roll-out and it appears to be true, not their usual hype. Nice.

Some test data:

MBA 2013 and 2012, Geekbench 64.

The 2013 CPU is marginally slower but you do not notice this in practice.

Graphics, as measured by Cinebench, are far faster, thanks to the new HD5000 integrated GPU in the 2013 model; the 2012 uses the HD4000 CPU, integrated with the Ivy Bridge CPU:

Cinebench 2013 and 2012. The 2013 is 31% faster.

Temperature Monitor (from Bresink) is not yet updated and cannot graphically display the Haswell CPU’s core temperatures, though it does display all the other sensors. SMC Fan control, however, does report the CPU temperature in the status bar. The CPU in the 2013 runs 10-20F cooler than in the 2012, rarely hitting 140F. 158F in the 2012 was common. These machines run hot, owing to poor cooling in the limited space available, the upshot being you can feel the warmth on your lap with stressful processes – like Cinebench. The new machine is noticeably cooler. As usual I’m running SMC Fan Control with a minimum setting for the one poncy fan of 3,500rpm. It’s not audible in practice. The stock speed is just too low for comfort and I rather prefer my vitals unfried.

I don’t have tools to objectively measure the key upgrade in the 2013, meaning battery life, but after a day’s use I can confirm my earlier estimate that the 4 hour life in the 11″ model has approximately doubled, owing to the lower power consumption Haswell CPU. Impressive.

My 2013 MBA has the minimum 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. The Lightroom (Version 5) and Photoshop (CS 5.1) experience remains excellent and no excuses need be made for the MBA 2013 as a photo processing machine. LR starts in 7 seconds, PS in 3-4. Exporting an image from LR to PS takes a scant 2 seconds. Add an external larger display and you have a fine photo processing machine.

The new faster 802-11ac wifi is present, but I have no means of testing this as my router does not support it, so I’m running 802-11n at 5GHz from an ancient single band Airport Extreme router.


802-11ac installed.

Scrolling in the 2012 model using two fingers on the the touchpad is excellent; in the 2013 it’s not as good, showing slight jerkiness owing to response delay. I’m confident this is something Apple will fix in an OS or firmware upgrade.

Sequential disk access (both machines use a Solid State 128GB drive) is 38% faster, measured with xbench:


2013 and 2012 disk access data.

I suspect the speed increase results from the use of a PCI connection for the SSD in the 2013 machine, compared to SATA3 in the 2012 version. Strangely random disk access is far slower in the newer machine but I have not seen any subjective slowdown. SSDs are nice for fast starts from cold (irrelevant here) and application loading, but if high volume storage is required with a MacBook Air then an external Thunderbolt (costly and very fast) or USB3 (cheap but slower) traditional hard disk drive is called for. Thuderbolt enclosures seem to start at $500+, a price point which will ensure they do not gain mass market acceptance. USB3 enclosures, like the Mediasonics I use for movie storage, run $100 for a 4-bay box. However, neither of my two Mediasonic boxes is seen by the 2013 MBA, whereas the 2012 was fine, so it looks like Mediasonic will have to issue a firmware upgrade. USB2 works fine with both, and both have the latest circuit boards.

The perpendicular Magsafe2 power connector continues over from the 2012. This is most certainly not an improvement on the right-angled MagSafe1 used in the 2010 model which had a far stronger magnet. The current connector is dislodged far too easily, but Apple has refused to listen to its users, not for the first time.

There is one small error in Mountain Lion on this machine. If you have multiple apps open and quit one, the menu bar disappears until any other app is clicked. Probably an error in the kernel which, I assume, has been modified to work with the new Haswell CPU. Not a big deal.

There’s really not much more to say. For $1,000 with a high resale value, the cost of ownership is low, the machine is as light and robust as can be, and is arguably the best bang for the buck in any laptop currently on the market. Resale value one year hence will be around $700, making the annual cost of ownership just $300.

The Good:

  • Runs cooler and faster than the 2012 model
  • $100 cheaper than the 2012
  • Very well made and robust given how slim it is
  • Doubled battery life compared with the 2012 model
  • Fast 128GB SSD
  • Excellent Intel HD5000 graphics processor
  • Retina Display is not missed in an 11″ screen
  • Wake from sleep is much quicker than in 2012
  • No Windows OS. Masochists can run Windows using Boot Camp or aftermarket software
  • Decent speakers for its small size
  • Full sized, backlit keyboard
  • Fine machine for Lightroom and Photoshop, though plugging in a larger display really helps
  • Familiar mechanical design has shown no major weak points over the past few years
  • Excellent resale value. Compare with any Windows laptop

The Bad:

  • Wretchedly weak magnet on the Magsafe2 power plug
  • Two finger touchpad scrolling is noticeably jerky. 2012 model was perfect in this regard **
  • Status bar at top of screen disappears when an application is exited
  • SDXC card reader available on the 13″ model only
  • You will have to buy two – one for your spouse

** I tracked down the cause of this. On my 3 display desktop I use an app named Mouse Locator which throws up a big green circle where the cursor last was if you ‘lose’ it. That app migrated over to my MBA years ago when I migrated all my apps over from the big machine. Disabling this app (in System Preferences) and restarting made the jerkiness go away. The app is not required on the MBA’s small screen so no loss.

Leica X Vario

Cameras

A comedic touch.

Proving once again that it’s impossible to underestimate the intelligence of the (camera) consumer, Leica gives us this doorstop:

For your $2,850 you get a modest range 28-70mm (FFE) fixed zoom with the splendid maximum aperture of f/6.4 for your APS-C sensor at the long end. f/6.4!

And no viewfinder!

Add one for $200 (Olympus VF-2) or $500 (Leica rebranded Olympus VF-2) and you have a mediocre EVF which still works poorly in bright sun.

For that sort of money you can get a premium Canon or Nikon APS-C body with a stellar zoom lens with a real aperture, and money left over. A semi-pro quality Nikon D7100 will run you $1,200. Add a no less stellar 24-120mm fixed f/4 zoom for a further $1,300 and you still have $350 left compared to this toy from Leica.

Or, with MFT sensors now competitive with APS-C, an Olympus OMD will cost you $925 and $250 for a 28-84mm compact zoom.

Amazing what people will pay for a red dot.

MacBook Air 2013 – Part I

Macintosh

Kaizen at work.

‘Kaizen’ refers to the Japanese concept of making a good machine then continually improving it. You can see it in Japanese cars where certain brands like Lexus command extraordinarily high repeat purchase rates. When you have owned one you keep coming back for more because you know that what was already very good is now even better.


The 2013 MacBook Air – appearance unchanged from 2012.

And so it is with Apple’s MacBook Air, the third version of which I will be receiving next week, the 2013. I reviewed the 2012 here.

That was barely 12 months ago so why upgrade? First, as a job related expense, the upgrade cost to me is pretty much zero. Used MBAs hold value well and I’ll net $700 on the old one. Second, the improvements in the 2013 model – I’ll be getting the 11″ version yet again – are far from trivial, including:

  • Battery life up from 5 to 9 hrs (meaning from 4 to 8 hrs in real world use)
  • Cooler running and lower power consumption Haswell i5 CPU
  • Greatly improved graphics from the new HD5000 Intel integrated GPU
  • Faster SSD now connected using PCIe rather than SATA – an industry first
  • $1,000 for the 128GB SSD version compared with $1,100 a year ago
  • The first computer with 802-11ac wifi

The big one is battery life and while Apple claims the credit for that it results from the use of Intel’s exciting new Haswell CPU which dramatically cuts power consumption. While the new CPU appears slower at 1.3GHz compared with 1.7GHz for the 2012 model, in practice the Turbo mode – automatically invoked when needed – doubles the speed to 2.6GHz and early Geekbench tests suggest the speed is identical to its predecessor.

As usual I’ll test the machine using Lightroom and Photoshop and will report back in Part II. I expect only improvement over the already very capable 2012 version which runs both apps fine if not super fast.

Meanwhile, a word on the new 802-11ac wifi, an industry first. You will need to buy a new router and Apple obliges with the latest Airport Extreme at the same $200 asked for the old version. Both computer and router are backwards compatible with 802-11a, b, g and n so a new router is only required if 802-11ac works in your environment. The new technology claims to seek out your computer’s location, speeding throughput.

Apple’s new router looks every bit as inept as the new MacPro as regards form factor, and I’ll wait for the likes of AnandTech to test real world speed before deciding whether to upgrade my now ancient single-band Airport Extreme.


2013 Airport Extreme, waiting to tip over.

The tippy looking shape suggests either Velcro is called for or that the device is placed horizontally. Whether the latter orientation affects antenna function remains to be seen.

Apple did not announce a Retina Display version of the MBA and nor do I expect them to. That would simply cannibalize the MacBook Pro RD and there would be little to choose on pricing. Further, current battery technology would not deliver useful life with the MBA’s thin chassis when used with the power hungry Retina Display.

Apple has shown time and again that it can do truly dumb things – the Lisa, the Cube, the Newton and now the new MacPro – but they are skillfully applying kaizen to their fine MBA product.

Part II, with performance measurements, is here.

Mac Pro 2013

Hackintosh, Mac Pro

Much less than meets the eye.

Announced with much hype at this week’s Apple WWDC, the new MacPro is an exercise in trying to be different for difference’s sake, a solution looking for a problem. I stopped watching the hypefest after the third use of the now meaningless “awesome” and got on with better things.


2013 Mac wastepaper basket, errr …. Mac Pro.

Had they really thought about it, maybe the monolith from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ would have been a better form factor than a garbage can, but whatever. 1:4:9 form factors are nothing to make a joke of.

The driving thought behind this design – other than trying to look innovative – is the same as behind almost every Apple product. Take away user choice and lock up the box. The last Apple machine to offer user expandability in any meaningful way is the current MacPro. As Apple disregarded that machine as it morphed into a cell phone maker, the 2012 (more like 2007) MacPro is seriously overpriced and seriously dated, easily outperformed by any number of MacBook Pro laptops. Laptops! This has left a lot of graphics pros unhappy, with many migrating to high end HP and Dell workstations, trading the horrors of Windows for the speed of current silicon.

Now nothing Apple does to the MacPro will move the needle on its sales and profits, both a rounding error to the world’s largest technology company. But it’s a flagship product with high exposure to ‘tastemakers’ (ugh!) in Hollywood and much smarter people in Lawrence Livermore Labs, so as a vanity product it makes sense to retain it in the line. Apple has taken the approach of locking up the box, making it very small and doubtless thermally challenged (sound familiar?) and delegated all the storage goodness to external devices. With Intel’s Thunderbolt2 providing high speed connectivity, all your drives will be in very costly external enclosures, connected with TB cables. The Intel Xeon CPU and the twin AMD GPUs in the MacPro’s cylinder will do their thing on externally stored files. Sure you can use USB2 drives, but then much of what is good in the can is lost. However, there is an HDMI socket and the GPU supports 4K video, so this will make a great HTPC for the well heeled!

All of your old drives, heretofore cheaply connected internally running at 3GB/s (6GB/s never having made it to the MacPro) will have to be removed and placed in costly TB boxes or simply junked after the data are migrated. And as for the strange – comical almost – cylindrical shape, blackened in anticipation of huge thermal challenges, who on earth cares when the machine will immediately be stashed under the desk? Sure, the old MacPro is gorgeous to look at, but that’s a phase called ‘unpacking’. After that, it disappears, though unlike the 2013 model (“Awesome! 12% of the volume of the old one. Innovation!”) it will not fall over as soon as you accidentally kick it. Nor will it overheat when taxed. But, heck, with the 2013 MacPro feel free to enjoy the jumble of external boxes and cables which it will demand, and save on home heating bills, too. And as for PCIe expansion cards for all those high end audio and graphics users, fughedaboutit. And your apps use nVidia’s ‘awesome’ CUDA graphics acceleration technology? Ha! You’re out of luck because the ATI graphics in the new MacPro will not support that.

The costly 12core Xeon CPU and two AMD GPU specs, doubtless complemented by overpriced and soldered in SSD storage for the OS and apps, make it hard to think that this machine will sell for under $5,000. Call it $8k with external storage, optical drives, card readers, etc. Not that the desperately in want audience will care as, for the most part, they are spending the boss’s money, not their own.

Well, you can rejoice in the knowledge that the gadget will be assembled in the USA by four displaced Detroit auto workers who should adequately fill the demand.


The MacPro. Looking better already.

You will never be able to add the highest speed RAM to that old box, but you can plug in PCIe USB3 and Thunderbolt cards if needed, which makes it almost current while still running cool. As for DVD and Blu-Ray burners, no problemo.

It’s too bad more high end users will not make the time to learn the simple process of creating a Hackintosh. For 20% of the cost of a 2013 MacPro you get an ugly box, state of the art components and exceptional cooling, and no one will laugh at you when you show them just how ugly your box is. It’s the same box you assembled 5 years ago and have updated annually for $200 to maintain performance leadership. A Hummer isn’t pretty either, but its looks are consonant with its goals – brute strength and reliability. Much like a good Hackintosh. The 2013 MacPro is no Hummer. More like one of those low end plastic Mercedes beloved of the polyester set.


Hackintosh – the Hummer of computers.
Everything worth knowing in one picture.