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Windows Surface
- Thread starter bastic
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This is one more area where that nice standard USB slot on the Surface will come in to play, try getting a 3G dongle to fit on a wifi iPad with out buying extra bits, want to print from your tablet not problem with Microsfot . Same goes for the SD slot on the Surface, how do you add storage to an iPad.
As a iMac user, it just looks like Microsoft are looking at real world usage of it's tablet where you'll want to type, print, and store information.
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You don't need to if you use iCloud.
Steep
Nutcrack Rapids
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Easier to use your mobile as a wifi hotspot
True, but if like me your mobile doesn't like being used this way (drains battery faster than a fast thing) then a separate router works nicely.
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I currently have a late '07 Macbook and a HP Touchpad that runs Android as well as webOS. Then there's my recently upgraded desktop. Since I got my Touchpad I've hardly used my Macbook at all. Of course I've still been using my desktop plenty.
Anyway, point being, once my Macbook and Touchpad are both enough out of date that they're a pain to use, I could be very tempted to get the x86 version of the Surface. It seems to offer the best of both worlds.
Anyway, point being, once my Macbook and Touchpad are both enough out of date that they're a pain to use, I could be very tempted to get the x86 version of the Surface. It seems to offer the best of both worlds.
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For some that will be a great feature, but in the longer term I think could is the future.
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32 GB SD card = one off payment of £15, last for life
25 GB iCloud = £28 every year
Maximum iCloud is 50GB, but using SD cards the size is unlimited. Also using iCloud on a 3g data plan is going to get expensive if there is lots of data while roaming worldwide, not an issue with SD cards.
Don't get me wrong the cloud is a very good system, but Microsoft has given us the choice of which to use, Apple say's only the cloud.
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And there's the key - if MS want to market the device outside of the business world then there'll need to be a whole load of iFart and iBoobieWobble type apps available at launch to get the great unwashed interested.
Seriously speaking though MS will need a solid and useful App library to begin with if they want to make in roads into the Android/Apple markets. I'm actually quite interested in this device, but I have a feeling it won't play nicely with my Macs.
Apps shouldn't be toooo much of a problem. The RT version already has 100k apps ready to go, the Pro version several million. Obviously not properly optimised for high screen tablets though. Actual optimised apps we are probably already looking at a similar number to that of the Android Tablet market (i.e. those designed for tablet use not just upscaled phone apps).
The real boon with the way MS is doing it is that Windows 8 will be the foundation of tens of millions of computers meaning metro apps will be churned out fast, even if the tablets don't catch on. That gives a huge market for people to create apps for that coincidentally will work on the tablets as well.
I also hope Adobe release a metro version of Photoshop and Lightroom for Windows 8 that would run on the Surface Pro...
The pro will almost certainly be around £1k, the RT probably around £400-500. You have to remember the pro is just an ultrabook/macbook air without a keyboard. Apple and Asus sell their 11" ultrabooks for around £1k, which have almost identical hardware to what the Pro will be running.
I hear dark grey with a power button looks good, or maybe a multicoloured beach ball.
Bit of an odd one this, especially releasing ARM and core i5 in the same product line.
It has a stylus too, a clear nod to the fact that a lot of people will be using traditional Windows apps with menus or ribbon (eek!) interfaces especially on the i5 version which should run anything your laptop runs. The key to consumer success,will however be Metro finger touch based apps made for that kind of use, otherwise we're back to the old Tablet PC stuff which has even less chances of working now than it did years ago. Also I'm sure that these metro apps will be distributed from a MS "app store" with the dev tools crosscompiling ARM + x86 binaries automagically, otherwise consumers will be bewildered and disappointed by the lack of coherent platform support between the 2 architectures..
I hope they succeed, my iPad needs competition!
Not in the slightest, it gives people the choice between buying a consumption device or a production device. The RT is a competitor to the iPad and current Android Tablets, browsing the net, games, videos, that sort of thing. The Pro is for all that and running complex heavy duty programs like Photoshop and CAD. Add in a dock for the latter and you have a device you can use as your main computer and as a carry around (as long as the battery life is good, which hopefully will be around 7+ hours like the current gen ultrabooks).
Neither have a stylus either, although I can see the confusion..
The Pro has a Pen, very much different to an inert stylus...http://www.dimagemaker.com/2012/06/21/the-microsoft-surface-for-photographers-and-artists/
Now think of it this way (as we're a photography forum), some of us currently use Wacom tablets in our PP, a lot would love to but cost stops them. Now, you buy your Surface Pro, start up your full version of Photoshop and open a raw file. In one hand is your Surface pen, in your other (or flat on the desk) is your Surface Pro, you then do your editing with a pressure sensitive pen rather than mouse or wacom tablet. Even better, if you have a large secondary monitor attached you can use that to see the same screen in more detail, or you use the surface as the toolbox and drawing board while you have the main image up on your big scree.
Stylus/= Pen. It's something I think Apple may very well copy in the near future as it would make their tablet significantly better for producers.
All Metro apps can work on the x86 version of Windows 8 but the x86 versions won't work on the ARM version so there shouldn't be that much of an issue.
I've been hoping for something like this for several years, since the first tablets were displayed in Jan 2010, followed by the iPad a few weeks later. Unfortunately they all ended up as consumption devices (because a full OS wasn't really ready for them. Now we have the OS and the technology (for full power tabs) it should be a go, especially if we get decent desktop docks to go with them (for example like the one that comes with the Sony Z series laptop).
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Another point about the cloud service is MS have their own very similar to iCloud, except with Windows 8 it stores all your settings as well which can transfer to your other computers/tablets running Windows.
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LongLensPhotography
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Lucky you...
Mac/Win easily eats 2++GB, chrome and thunderbird will eat another 1-2GB (I don't want to close them every time I use LR), and LR will easily eat 2GB. So that's over 4GB in total and spilling over to slow and very painful HDD swap. That's today, let's imagine 2-3 years later (PCs need to last 3-5 years, not 1 or 2). That's where 16GB comes from. 4GB is wasting money presuming it will be non-upgradable.
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You really do talk utter .... sometimes. Firstly, no one knows what memory this will come with. Secondly, backing store will be relatively quick SSD. Thirdly your memory claims are totally over the top.
I have Thunderbird here and it is taking 130MB memory. Chrome is the biggest user of memory with 300M (but I don't have many tabs open at the momenty...). I'd describe myself as a "power" user (whatever that's supposed to mean) and very rarely go beyond 8G.
And the point I was responding to is Lightrooms use of memory. I have NEVER seen Lightroom use more than 2G itself. It certainly doesn't ever use 8+G (which is what you claim in the post I was replying to and the quote you claimed).
Please post a screenshot of LR using more than 8G on its own - which is what you claimed originally.
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have to agree with andy, currently lightroom is using 520mb ram and thats while exporting ISO6400 ISO 5Dmk2 files. total usage 2.5gb, thats LR, IE9 (4 tabs with iplayer), Filezilla, couple of copy processes, AV, load of background stuff running in the system tray..
LongLensPhotography
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Wait until you have 36mp 14bit, or perhaps 60mp 16bit files to deal with. It's just round the corner in the form of D800 or a Hassy and is coming to Canon land soon.
My 4GB system is constantly spilling over to swap when I touch LR to the point I am forced to buy a new mac. LR is easily eating 2gb here, but it can't have any more because there is no more. Even 200 pages word document causes big pain. So how is 4gb adequate?
Chrome is divided into several processes for each tab - add them up. I consider 20 tabs fairly normal. Why would I close everything to process 2 photos?
The fact that you have 16GB only shows that you see the need for it.
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id be interested to know what youre doing in LR to make it use that much memory.
having 16gb is a bit of a luxury for most (in a system that youre already considering spending a lot of money on, the small amount extra to go from 8gb to 16gb is a no brainer for future proofing). however 7 does use any unused RAM for a cache so on the very rare occasion over 8gb is required its not entirely wasted.
having 16gb is a bit of a luxury for most (in a system that youre already considering spending a lot of money on, the small amount extra to go from 8gb to 16gb is a no brainer for future proofing). however 7 does use any unused RAM for a cache so on the very rare occasion over 8gb is required its not entirely wasted.
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I'm processing 5D2 RAWs so I'm 80% of the way there anyway. My point is no matter how much I use lightroom, I cannot make it go above 2G memory usage. It looks like it manages its memory to keep it to that level or below. If you can get it above, I would like to see a screenshot of something showing more than 2GB usage.
Even a 50Mpix raw at 16 bits/channel is still only 300Mbytes - given LR doesn't do layers - algorithmically, there is probably very little need to have more than 2 full copies of that in memory at any one time and the thumbnails are nowhere near that size.
It's only YOU that has mentioned about 4G being adequate - I have said nothing about it at all. We don't know how much memory the system, will have, nor if it is expandable or not. All I have done is question your understanding of Lightrooms memory usage.
And, you know what, for MOST people, 4G probably is adequate.
I did add them up - I normally have way more than 20 tabs open BTW, but I know I'm not the norm
The laptop has 8GB and that is perfectly adequate for processing RAW 5D2 images and having 2 people logged in at the time and both users running Lightroom without going to swap (and it has a pretty good screen too - but that's for a different thread
)The fact that I have 16GB is more due to the fact that I'm likely to have up to a hundred windows open across 3 virtual desktops on 2 monitors at any one time. I still rarely go above 8GB memory usage though. As I said, I'm not the norm....
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im running 64 bit and i dont think andy is that silly
LongLensPhotography
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spot removal (let's say 20-30 of them) and manual dodging and burning easily eats 2GB. I bet LR is using layer masks under the hood. CA, and distortion correction reduction adds lots more. And for some unclear reason LR seems to keep the last file or two in memory. Perhaps there is a big memory leak in mac version :shrug: And I am only dealing with 16mp 12bit files. 10mp 14bit doesn't seem to get it over the limit.
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While I agree with the argument that 4GB is not enough if you want to use it as a proper computer (with LR/PS) for the future I think 16GB is over the top. I'd hope at least one version of the Pro will have 8GB of RAM in or it will be rather a pain!
On the other hand most ultrabooks only allow 4GB and Apple have only just released theirs with 8GB as a high end option so...!
On the other hand most ultrabooks only allow 4GB and Apple have only just released theirs with 8GB as a high end option so...!
LongLensPhotography
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8GB is OK for today. 2 years later 8GB will get long in the tooth. Would you agree that a device needs to last longer than 2 years, or do we all want to pay apple/MS tax every year?
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OK. A 5D2 raw image. 68 spot removals - most of them abnormally huge, 17 brush strokes (with 12 at 100 for brush size) and I get to a peak memory usage of 2.2G, actual memory usage of just over 2G (2140M) for LR. My image is now 90% white so isn't a true reflection of how anyone would really process... Whether that's 1.8G or 2.1G is pretty moot, it's "about" 2G which is all I can get LR to use....
Photoshop I can get to use 8G easily....
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I'd disagree with that TBH... 4GB is fine today, in two years time 8GB will be fine for the vast majority of people (excluding those with D800s maybe)...
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I remember doing some work with Hasselblad in London back in 91 or 92 and they had a top spec Mac, a Quadra 900 running at 25MHz configured with 256MB of RAM. At the time 256MB of RAM cost more than the computer, most other machines had 4-8MB installed (yes thats Megabytes), and this thing flew with Photoshop V2 (although it may have been V2.5, my memory fails me). The only thing faster on the market at the time was the Quantel paintbox which was a dedicated machine.
I now have an iMac i5 2.7GHz with 12 gigs of RAM and quite frankly it impresses me less in terms of speed than that machine. None of the wow factor associated with that Quadra 900.
Of course one of the reasons is that programmers have got lazy, and thus we end up with inefficient bloat ware. In my day if the language of your choice (in my case COBOL, Pascal and FORTRAN) wasn't performing through its compiler we'd go to assembly and program on the "bare metal" for the stuff that needed to be optimised. These days programmers will sit on their fat lazy arses and wait until the hardware comes along to actually execute their crap code at a rate that's above the speed of a narcoleptic sloth.
Basically there are two reasons that we need so much RAM and processor speed these days, one is valid and that is the media we're consuming does indeed need more memory and as such requires more more computational time, but the other is simply the woefully inefficient code written these days.
I now have an iMac i5 2.7GHz with 12 gigs of RAM and quite frankly it impresses me less in terms of speed than that machine. None of the wow factor associated with that Quadra 900.
Of course one of the reasons is that programmers have got lazy, and thus we end up with inefficient bloat ware. In my day if the language of your choice (in my case COBOL, Pascal and FORTRAN) wasn't performing through its compiler we'd go to assembly and program on the "bare metal" for the stuff that needed to be optimised. These days programmers will sit on their fat lazy arses and wait until the hardware comes along to actually execute their crap code at a rate that's above the speed of a narcoleptic sloth.
Basically there are two reasons that we need so much RAM and processor speed these days, one is valid and that is the media we're consuming does indeed need more memory and as such requires more more computational time, but the other is simply the woefully inefficient code written these days.
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You're lucky I didn't have any liquid in my mouth when I read that... I'd have sent you the bill for a new keyboard
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Not always true, but in a lot of cases I'll give you that. But then do you also want to pay for those hours or extra work in your products?
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Good programmers (and I mean good programmers) don't take any extra time writing good code as they understand how to write code efficiently in the first place. Unfortunately, good programmers are quite rare and sometimes don't work well in teams except in teams of other good programmers where excellence amongst their peers is an overriding driver. Teams of good programmers are very rare finds.
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often found in dark basements, almost albino looking.
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I have direct experience of this, and it's pretty much exactly how you've put it.
* the experience being a massive networking company in the team replicable for one of the core technologies. Never felt so stupid in my entire life as I did working there on placement.
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The situation isn't helped by programs being so large that only a few people truly understand how it works. Couple that with IDEs and it's a recipe for disaster IMHO.
I found a bug in Lightroom3 last year and went on the forums there to report it. One of the testers/developers responded (very impressed actually) but some of his quotes made me wonder how complex LR actually is. For example:
I don't think they ever got to the bottom of the problem - I worked around it so that "fixed" it.
I found a bug in Lightroom3 last year and went on the forums there to report it. One of the testers/developers responded (very impressed actually) but some of his quotes made me wonder how complex LR actually is. For example:
Dan Tull said:
I don't think they ever got to the bottom of the problem - I worked around it so that "fixed" it.
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sounds about right, our whole till software changover was delayed because the programmer who knew the most about how the integration between POS and warehouse was being developed was taken into hospital.
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Seen that before. We have about 2 people here that know the system 100% if they went away (one almost did) we'd have a serious problem.
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yeah its waaaaaay too common. another couple of examples, i used to work for a small company who did travel agent back office software. they had a single programmer in the states (scottish guy oddly), they fired him and one of the support guys had to learn TAS (old school) overnight. i think he left shortly after i did, i think they went under after that. also another till software company, again with a single programmer that wrote their entire system. scarily some national retailers other than us (until the changeover) rely on this.
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Back on topic, I'm watching the keynote on youtube now and the surface idea is much clearer (can't link youtube is blocked at work so using my phone).
While I still need to try the desktop out (not convinced here), as a tablet/laptop combo it makes perfect sense. 99% will be fine with the surface and a cover.
In the demo they open LR on the i5 version, so this may be a genuine competitor to the Macbook Air people are using right now for even their main machine, at least they seem to think so.
I think the biggest pain for me is do I get an RT, an iPad or a Google Nexus 7! Not invested any any system more than £10 but this appeals the most (until I see prices anyway).
*ps Seems they are struggling to make the cases in decent volumes due to the precision required.
While I still need to try the desktop out (not convinced here), as a tablet/laptop combo it makes perfect sense. 99% will be fine with the surface and a cover.
In the demo they open LR on the i5 version, so this may be a genuine competitor to the Macbook Air people are using right now for even their main machine, at least they seem to think so.
I think the biggest pain for me is do I get an RT, an iPad or a Google Nexus 7! Not invested any any system more than £10 but this appeals the most (until I see prices anyway).
*ps Seems they are struggling to make the cases in decent volumes due to the precision required.