The Apple Slingshot Effect...

What is the "Apple slingshot effect" I hear you ask?

Well this is how Apple give their stock price a double boost in a matter of days - a double whammy, in effect.

This is how it works...

First, you have to have a stellar quarter in sales. This usually is not a problem for Apple as each quarter just seems to be getting better and better. If speculation is anything to go by, the past quarter including Christmas has been another record quarter for Apple. So, once you have the stellar figures, you schedule a quarterly earnings call. In reality, the earnings call has to go ahead regardless of the results - as a publicly traded company, Apple are obliged to do this.

The trick is in the timing.

So the next quarterly earnings call has been scheduled for January 25th 2010. With a presumed record quarter, the stock price should go up!

Whammy number one.

It's also speculated (and still not confirmed) that Apple are preparing a major product announcement for January 27th, just two days after the earnings call. If Apple deliver the goods, the already inflated stock price resulting from the earnings call, will be slingshotted on the basis of future products.

Whammy number two.

A double whammy!

Of course, this assumes that they have had a good quarter but also that they announce something earth shattering on the 27th.

The Mac community is collectively holding it's breath in anticipation that the fabled new Apple tablet will be announced at the special event.

I think it will be just that for one main reason...

Apple have still not made a correction to peoples expectation.

They know that rumours are running at fever pitch and to not deliver the device would be detrimental. They could easily have extinguished (or at least dampened) the rumours by placing a few strategic calls to certain luminaries. But no, they are letting the rumours have free reign!

Along with the Wall Street Journal making "informed" comments and the highly suspicious taking down of the Fingerworks site just a few days ago, all the signs lead me to believe that that Tablet will be announced at a special event on the 27th.

Mind you, they have yet to even confirm the special event!

Things are going to get very silly over the next few weeks...

Why did nobody tell me?

As an aside...I've recorded another YouTube video comment and I'm waiting for it to be processed before publishing it. YouTube seems to produce a low resolution version of the clip first, and then a high quality HD version later. I think it's worth waiting until the HD version is available before releasing it into the playlist.

But back to the subject of my daily blog post - Why did nobody tell me?

Just started to edit this weeks LaunchBar 5 show using Final Cut Pro. Thought, I'd try and use the BamBoo pad pen to do some video editing...

Holy moly!

It's fantastic!

OK, so I've only been using it for an hour or so, but I can already feel that it's speeding up my workflow considerably. Being able to scroll the timeline and precisely position the playhead using the pen, and then cut and move clips around with the pen, it just seems faster and more natural.

I've never really used the buttons on the top of the timeline, as you can see by the fact that there are only three default buttons there! However, with the pen, I can see the buttons becoming invaluable. I just need to work out how to assign effects to buttons?

My setup is now the Contour Shuttle Pro 2 on the left, a USB mini keyboard in the center and the BamBoo Touch & Pen Fun Medium on the right.

The Contour Shuttle Pro is programmed with transport controls to play, move backwards and forwards between clips or edit points, set the in point and out points and a macro to do a ripple delete and play around the playhead. I've been using this on the right hand side of the keyboard up until now, next to my mouse. It meant I was forever lifting my hand from the mouse to the shuttle and back again - bonkers! Now it's on the left, I've retrained my left hand to use it. Took a while but I'm nearly there. 

The mini keyboard is fine as I've transferred all of the commands of the Numeric pad and dedicated page keys to the Contour Shuttle. It's also a lot smaller than the full keyboard so fits on the desk just fine with the other devices.

With using the pen on the Bamboo, I've discovered I can keep hold of the pen and type on the keyboard just. I'm no touch typist but more of a fast hunt and peck merchant, so it's nor problem. In fact I typed the whole of this blog post holding the pen!

Another neat feature is that I can use the pen for editing and navigation, but still holding the pen, switch effortlessly into touch mode for faster scrolling - works a treat!

So enough with the blogging about the Bamboo, I'll move on but will keep you informed of my progress over the next few weeks, especially if I discover some major issues or fall out of love with it like I did with the Magic Mouse.

By the way, these blog posts have not been sponsored or endorsed by Wacom. I received no loaner kit and the BamBoo was purchased from Amazon using my own hard earned cash. I know I don't have to say it, but I do like to make sure that everything I do is completely transparent. 

It's just my way!

Time for a rethink...

After struggling last week with the encoding process on my Mac Pro,  I think I will take the plunge and look at "ring fencing" my Mac Pro as just a video editing and encoding machine and do most of my general computing on the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro is just fine for virtually all computing tasks, especially with the SSD drive installed. 

The Mac Pro would benefit tremendously from a lean and mean build with the minimum of additional third party apps installed. I'll be adding the Mac mini server into the mix soon and I'm hoping that will take a lot of the tasks away from both the MacPro and MacBook Pro.  It seems criminal to use the Mac Pro just for video editing and encoding, but it really is a critical production machine and should be left as stable as possible.

So I've no issues with doing a rebuild on the Mac Pro I'm going to have to re-consider my monitor arrangement on my desktop.

Currently, I have three monitors on my desk. 

On the left, I have a 20" Dell in landscape mode. This is connected to the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Pro runs this as its primary monitor when on the desk.

In the center is a 30" Dell connected to the Mac Pro along with a second 20" Dell on the right hand side in Portrait mode, also connected to the Mac Pro as a secondary monitor. 

The issue is that I feel more comfortable with having my primary machine on the central monitor. The problem is the primary machine will change dependent on the task at hand.

I could just connected the MacBook Pro to the 30" Dell, but when editing, I like to have Final Cut Pro on the big display. I've tried a monitor switcher before but that didn't work for me - too distracting having to switch between both machines.

One option might be to revert to a two monitor setup of equal size, and dispense with the central monitor. But then I'm not sure how ergonomicaly distruptive it would be to have no central monitor? The mouse and keyboard isn't a problem as Teleport handles having a single mouse and keyboard. 

So the options would be:

• I could sell the two 20" dells and get another 30" Dell. The current 30" Dell is a couple of years old now so they wouldn't match as far as brilliance and contrast, etc. I'm also wondering if the 30" is just a bit too big, never mind two if them. You can get a refurbished Dell 30" for £900 plus VAT.
• Or I could sell all three of my existing monitors and look at getting two newer 27" Dells. The 27" Dells work out at about £465 each plus VAT.
• Or I could sell all three and look at getting two new Apple 24" Cinema displays. The Apple tax means these work out at £552 each plus VAT, although they are stunning monitors. I'd also need to buy an displayport adapter for the Mac Pro. 

And before anyone suggests it, I'm not going to sell all three and get two 27" iMacs just to use as monitors, that would be just silly! At £1200 each plus VAT this isn't an option.

Now if Apple did Apple Cinema Displays based on the new 27" monitors as used on the iMac, I might consider paying the Apple tax as they are truly magnificent monitors. The 2560x1440 resolution would be perfect as well as the true 16:9 aspect ratio. One has to wonder why they haven't launched this configuration as a separate Apple Cinema Display?

Could it be they have stock of the older 30" ACD they have to move before bringing this to market?

Surely they can't be selling many of these older model? They are only £200 cheaper than the 27" iMac for goodness sake?

I really can't understand Apples policy on external displays.

Of course, the problem is (as always) do you act now or wait to see if Apple release the iMac 27" display as a separate monitor.

Talk about first world problems!

Magic Mouse Musings...

Typical, I start off my new daily bog posting regime and state that I'm not going to do long essays and look what happens!

So I'll keep this one brief.

I used to be a big fan of the Mighty Mouse, except for the constant jamming up of the ball and those ridiculous buttons on the side. What a strange place to put buttons? I switched them off after a days use. However, after seeing rave reviews for the Logitech MX Revolution mouse, I decided to jump ship and go with a non Apple mouse.

I've been using the Logitech MX Revolution for quite a while and I've been very pleased with it. It's sculptured to fit the hand, has a brilliant "weighted" scroll wheel and is bristling with buttons. I particularly liked the scroll wheel as it enabled you to move quickly through a long document just by spinning the wheel. It also has a tilt function which I used extensively when scrolling horizontal timelines, especially in Final Cut Pro. Even so, although the tilting scroll wheel my extremely useful, it was the most awkward part of the MX in use, as it seemed to require a considerable amount of effort.  Confession time - I hardly used any of the buttons. I set them up several times and each time I'f forget what I'd set up. I did use the middle mouse button occasionally when I remembered I'd setup up Deja Menu.

Even without taking advantage of all the buttons, I was pretty happy with the MX, probably my best mouse to date.

Then along came the Magic Mouse with it's sleek lines and multitouch. As a service to my viewers and readers, I was duty bound to get one!

After reading about its capabilities, I was a little concerned at how well I'd be able to get by without the "weighted" scroll wheel and the much needed tilt function. The absence of extra buttons wasn't really a deal breaker for me as you might imagine.

As soon as the new iMacs were available, I nipped into my local Apple store and tried one out.

Amazing!

The scrolling via touch is effortless and very smooth. What's even better, is that you can set up scrolling with momentum that mimics exactly the behaviour of the "weighted" scroll wheel of my MX. It's almost like Apple went out and examined the features of the best mouse on the market and emulated it via multitouch :-)

Both vertical and horizontal scrolling are supported, in fact full 360 scrolling is available.

Unfortunately, the Magic Mouse was not on sale at this time but as soon as it was, I returned and bought one. The acid test was using it with Final Cut Pro and how well it enabled scrolling when navigating the horizontal timeline.

Well, I have to say, it works a treat!

Much, much better than horizontal scrolling with the MX. The timeline flies left and right with a feather touch on the surface of the Magic Mouse. Superb! After a weeks use, there is no danger of me returning to the MX

Some other points of note:

• The two finger swipe works but I don't really use it that much, don't really need it.
• Scrolling can be one or two finger - useful if your swapping between a laptop and desktop.
• The travel and noise of the mouse click buttons is a bit excessive at first but you soon get used to it.
• The absence of extra buttons really hasn't been a problem for me. I use a combination of the new Expose in the Dock feature of Snow Leopard a lot and have just set up some hot corners. No big deal.
• The low profile of the mouse seems to match the Alu keyboard exceptionally well. I was a bit concerned about the low profile of the mouse after the sculptured feel of the MX but in use it's been fine.
• Seen a few posts about battery life. After full week of constant use - baring in mind I'm a heavy full time Mac user - my mouse is showing 79% battery life.

On reflection, the Magic Mouse has been a pleasure to use. I'm still in awe of just how well the touch surface feels and operates. 

Well recommended!

PS OK, so I'll keep the next blog post brief...sheesh!

eSATA or Firewire 800?...

Most of my screencasts are recorded on my MacBook Pro and as I mentioned in a recent show, now that Snow Leopard has "beefed up" screen sharing, I record using ScreenFlow on the machine but view and control it from my Mac Pro.

Works a treat!

I've always had a separate user account on the MacBook Pro, specifically setup for using when recording screencasts. It's just easier to control a separate account and I can configure it to keep it looking fairly clean and tidy (unlike my normal user account). 

However, the more I think about it, it would actually be better to have a completely separate SL build which I could restore back to a fresh install at any time. That would give me complete freedom on what I install, when I install,  and overall control of the configuration of the machine without fear of screwing up my working configuration.

The current SSD drive on the MacBook Pro is just 256GB so I don't really want to sacrifice any of that usable space by partitioning a separate partition, so I've been experimenting with using an external 500GB 7200RPM hard drive via Firewire 800. I've split this into two separate partitions and installed a clean install of Snow Leopard on the primary, configured it with all the tools I need to do my screen captures, and backed it up to the second partition using SuperDuper. This seems to work fine!

On to my question.

Click for bigger image

I'm using the NewTech Voyager "Q" Quad external interface via Firewire 800 to connect the drive to the MacBook Pro. This gives me a fast connection to the drive (though not as fast as with the SSD!) and I'm able to boot from the external drive just fine.

However, I suddenly remembered that this unit supports drives via an eSATA connection! (as per illustration - connection 7)  

Hmmm...

My MacBook Pro has an ExpressCard slot and you can pick up an eSATA ExpressCard for £30 or less. 

My question is...

Would I really notice any difference in throughput or real world performance if I went with the eSATA connection to the external boot drive rather than the current FireWire 800 connection?

I'd be interested in anyones thoughts!

Update on Monday, October 5, 2009 at 10:00AM by Don McAllister

I've ordered the eSata ExpressCard so I'll do some comparisons when it arrives to see if it makes any real world difference.