I just looked at a screenshot of the new dock and you're right. The icons look cartoonish. The rich 3D look is gone. Daffy Duck has run amuck.

I downloaded Mavericks when it came out and it did a great job of trashing my iMac and slowing my Macbook Pro to a crawl. Rather than risk the fallout of another "upgrade" I'll wait and give Apple some time to work out the kinks that accompany a new release. That said, they never fully fixed Mavericks (boot time on my iMac is 20 minutes[!]), so I'm still a little gun shy. The last really stable release was Snow Leopard.

Good move. For all you know she could have had the Mavericks "upgrade" installed and on an older machine that could have done you in (been there, experienced the wailing and gnashing of teeth). Maybe that's why she's trying to sell it.

Up until Windows 7 (I have no MS experience beyond that) Mac and Windows are equally configurable. Been there, done that, counted the bits.

Apparently we're comparing penis lengths now, so:

MVS
OS/390
z/OS
VMS
OS/2 2.1
OS/2 Warp
OS X
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows NT
Windows XP
Windows 7

I've been a programmer/software engineer for 33 years.

True until they rolled out Mavericks. The damage that "upgrade" did was documented all over the Web. It was rolled out a year ago with subsequent updates and my iMac is still slow and buggy.

The implements you mention are faster than my present iMac boot time.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/07/10/microsoft-windows-7-mainstream-support/

MS will cease mainstream support of Windows 7 next year.

Whatever you do, steer clear of Mac. I have two, an iMac and MacBook pro and Mavericks damned near killed my iMac while significantly slowing my MacBook. I've seen a preview of their new OS, "Yosemite", and it looks like a High School project. Some of it has been rewritten to mimic IOS 8 which was recently released on the new iPhone and it was a mess. The fix was worse and Apple quickly pulled the update.

Not trying to hijack your thread but just don't make the mistake that I did and put your faith in Apple. It was great for a few years, now I'm considering replacing all my computers. Keep in mind that it's their proprietary software running on their proprietary hardware.

Only if you trust the compress/decompress algorithms. Being a code-slinger myself, I'd err on the side which had as little manipulation involved as possible.

And why do people continue to yell, "RAW"? It's not an acronym. Say it with me one time, gently..."I don't shoot in Joint Photographic Experts Group or JPEG format, I shoot raw files..."

It flows right off the tongue.

Yes to 2. I didn't know about 1. (Or about resetting the SMC, something I came across while researching the PRAM). It actually seemed to make a speed difference so thank you very much for that. It's ironic that I got this information from a photography list.

Again, thank you.

I was really happy back in 2009 when I left Windows and bought my 27" iMac. So happy, in fact, that I followed that purchase up with a MacBook Pro, 15", with Retina Display and 512 MB SSD. I sang Apple's praises to everyone who would listen. I was running Snow Leopard on both machines and it was rock solid and fast.

Then Apple released the Mavericks "upgrade".

My iMac cold boot time went from less than a minute to a full 20 minutes. Every application runs noticeably slower. Some crash while unattended. The effect isn't as bad on the MacBook but when you consider that it's proprietary Apple software running on their proprietary hardware there's no excuse for it. Mavericks has been out for almost a year and aside from releasing the odd patch here and there Apple hasn't addressed the massive issues the release has created that are documented all over the Web.

No doubt they've been too busy working on "Yosemite", the proposed Fall release of their new OS. I've gotten a peek at it and gone is the richness that set the Mac GUI apart. Icons on the Dock are now flat and look like the result of a high school coding project. After Mavericks I'm extremely gun-shy.

I've been using Windows 7 at work (I'm a computer professional by day) and I like its speed, look and feel when compared to XP. But then Microsoft is due to halt its mainstream support for Windows 7 around January.

I switched from Windows for many reasons but I'm no longer enamored of Apple.

Got it. So PNG has its advantages and drawbacks. It's an alternative to JPEG, not a standard.

Thanks.

I don't seem to be able to find that anywhere. I've seen mention of a JPEG-2000 standard in the works but nothing regarding PNG as a standard.

Can you point us in the right direction where PNG is noted as the "new WEB standard to replace both GIF and JPG"?

I use BackBlaze to back up data on my iMac hard drive. The caveat is that you need an Internet connection. Other than that, there's no muss, no fuss, and data is backed up automatically in the background and it's off site. Check them out: www.backblaze.com

If you decide to go with an Internet backup steer clear of Carbonite as they throttle after a set amount is backed up. As a photographer shooting raw files you'll hit that ceiling soon and will never catch up as you'll be adding files faster than Carbonite backs them up.

I can't speak to restoring files with BackBlaze as I've not done that yet.

Actually, a year after my D7100 purchase my wife saw me checking out the D810 and convinced me to buy it. This told me that either:

a) She was high;
b) My pictures don't suck.

Since she uses neither drugs nor alcohol the correct answer was "b". I appreciate her confidence (and her!).

Great camera, BTW...now I just have to find software to process the raw files since Capture NX2 doesn't support them and neither does Lightroom 5. But, that's a subject for a different thread.

And look what knocked on my door today!

:lol: :thumbup: :P

Wow!

(Download)