http://www.apple.com/retail/proday/

One word: eye. roll.

Well, not having seen what extra help or support they are offering, but in principle it is good to see Apple display some kind of focus on Pros. A little late - perhaps inconsequential - but better than nuttin'.

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A little late - perhaps inconsequential - but better than nuttin'.

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Nah-ah. Friggin' WORSE than nuttin'. That's like Ford offering seminars in how to avoid having your Pinto blow up. Well, I hate to disagree (wait, no I don't), but Apple should be embarrassed by that bomb of an OS they're trying to foist off on us.

I'll tell ya what, they should friggin' RECALL OS X.

What's that? Oh, sorry, thought I was thalo for a minute.

What a nightmare.

Somebody please rip off my skin and roll me in rock salt.

Sweet merciful crap. Pro Day. I missed it, it was yesterday. I'm going to one of these. It'll be like going to a hangin'. An all you can eat buffet on cannibal island.

But one good turn deserves another. I'm going to organize all creative pros, and every week we're going to have a digikid day.

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I'm going to organize all creative pros, and every week we're going to have a digikid day.

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But what will you be able to teach 'em that they don't already know?

"How to render your playlists in anit-aliased fonts."

Oh, I have a few things to teach them. I'll get them using those opposable thumbs in no time. I'll be the frikkin' JANE GOODALL of digikids.

Oh, I have a few things to teach them. I'll get them using those opposable thumbs in no time. I'll be the frikkin' JANE GOODALL of digikids.?

LOL, Ha, thalo stop picking on the children. It's not their fault. This Apple thing wasn't their idea. I'm not even certain they have ideas. Cut them a break, why don't ya?

Actually, if you can help just one child see that his enthusiastic embrace of digital pleasures is really merely the slavish stylin' of the terminally manipulated, it will all have been wothwhile.

"Have rain, will seek out parades."

Of course, OS X is really a plot by the American Optometric Association to ruin our eyesight with its ridiculous blurry screenfonts. Apple gets a kickback for every pair of eyeglasses or contact lenses sold to its lemming-like users.


Markle


P.S. And to tell the truth, some of the smaller fonts on the website here have stopped rendering correctly on my setup in the past few days. Is there a connection.....?

Thalo.5 said: Nah-ah. Friggin' WORSE than nuttin'. That's like Ford offering seminars in how to avoid having your Pinto blow up. Well, I hate to disagree (wait, no I don't), but Apple should be embarrassed by that bomb of an OS they're trying to foist off on us.

I'll tell ya what, they should friggin' RECALL OS X.

What's that? Oh, sorry, thought I was thalo for a minute.

Don't DOOOO that, 9.5. You scared the hell out of me. The world could handle an anti-thalo, but two of them could lead to a world-wide shortage of words.

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LOL, Ha, thalo stop picking on the children. It's not their fault.

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Hey, I tease because I love. If that sounded downtalky, well surprise surprise. Remember that feeling. So when Apple pulls it, you'll know when they're doing it.

I never said it was their fault. And like I always say, the pinnacle digikid gizmo, the iPod, is founded on Less is More principles, and I have a grand total of zero against it.

Garage Band? I SO want it to be good. For digis, for everyone.

Trouble is, it won't be. It's going to be another half-baked idea... directed at some marketeer's insulting IDEA of a digikid (one too young or stupid to be worth building stuff that really works for).

Digis aren't the problem. Me teasing them isn't the problem. Apple thinking the user base is no more than chimps and rubes, who won't notice when they coast and exploit and pooch-screw.... that is the problem.

Here’s a good example of how differently websites like this one display according to which browser you’re using. I said above that the smaller fonts stopped rendering correctly. That’s true, but only when I use AOL. When I’m using IE, like now, it all formats perfectly.

(That was just to see that the “instant gremlins” that don’t work from AOL work fine from within IE. Yes, I can hear you all giggling that Markle still uses AOL. I can hardly believe it myself.)

Markle

Today is Pro Day. Please, I encourage any Mac Pro users to go to a pro Wednesday at an Apple Retail store. Especially designers.

I believe this week, we're going to learn how to UNWIRE our Macs. Whoop de doo.

Last week was How to Run your Business on a Mac. I assume shilling for QuickCooks.

Next week: How to Manage our customers. I wonder if that'll be about ADDRESS BOOK.

The following week: How to promote your business on a Mac. Hmmmm, that one I'm really curious about. I wonder if I can design a flier in AppleWorks? Lol.

What I'm MOST curious about, however, is how friggin' ABSENT the whole idea of DOING PRO WORK on a Mac is. OK, so sometimes they'll run you through iMovie or iDVD demos, Final Cut demos... and get this: Quicktime PRO. Oh mercy.

We need to descend on these pro days like the wrath of God. I can think of ten really important pro Mac issues of the top of my head that could be addressed in a pro day... I won't bore you with... oh what the hell:

1. Why the Finder is terrible for file management in graphic design studios. Why it's good for a penny, but not good for a pound. Why working with more files, as pros do, makes the computer slower and less reliable than working with fewer files.

2. How font rendering, and the Font Book are terrible for font use and management in a pro environment. Why the more fonts you have loaded, the worse OS X behaves.

3. How the interface in every native OS X app impedes pro workflows instead of enhancing them.

4. How troubleshooting the Mac requires you to be a geek, and learn a command line language... or else learn to love backing up and reinstalling from scratch at the slightest problem.

5. Why dragging and dropping from iPhoto to a working Photoshop document would be a good idea.

6. Why being able to copy a selection into the clipboard from an open iPhoto image would be a good idea. Maybe this could be more globalized, like why turning off mac edit commands when you have a selection tool is stupid.

7. Why, when managing all your pro e-mail and threading it, Mac Mail can't tell the difference between an actual thread, and mails with the same subject that really have no business being threaded. Even pro clients use the subject "hi" from time to time.

8. Why, when offered a "pro" theme like GRAPHITE, to cut down on color distraction while we're working... the color scheme isn't pervasive and pan-application. If we turn off the blue theme, why do we still see so much blue?

9. Why all those nice pro services don't work in ways that pros need.

10. Why pros have to burn unnecessary clicks to view files downloaded to the desktop, or to bring windows forward manually when the operating system doesn't manage them properly.

11. Why OS 9 doesn't run as fast or reliably as Classic, as it does booted into OS 9, when it's supposed to be a fully functional copy of System 9.

12. Why drag and drop downloading doesn't work reliably in Safari... pros do this just as much as digikids downloading porno... and why the image previews invert to upside down when you try dragging them.

13. Why Mail doesn't always supply the proper e-mail address when you start typing a part of the name that's in the address book. How there's no apparent rhyme or reason about when the application will decide to be case aware.

14. Why labels are so friggin' ugly and useless in Panther, when the labels in the legacy were so useful.

15. Why sorting in column view isn't allowed. Especially by date, like pros need.

16. Why, in list views, the OS defaults the sort to the opposite of the way you expect, and forces you to click on the sort direction to correct it.

17. Why some windows default to "end" rather than "home" and force you to either scroll or hit the home key.

18. Why I just went over "ten" issues off the top of my head and could keep going on all day and night.